The Crying of Lot 49

Oedipa Maas is introduced in the novel in an alcohol-induced state of domestic indifference. She returns home from "a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue" (1). Oedipa is not drunk, but she is tipsy. Her life is a balance between the ordered, domestic sphere of her home—where she makes lasagna and prepares drinks for her husband—and the disordered, confused sphere of her drunkenness. Like with Mucho's reliance on LSD, Oedipa's use of alcohol is telling. At the party, a crowd of stereotypical suburban housewives, engaged in a stereotypical activity, all turn to alcohol to liven up their experience. The drudgery of contemporary existence is such that they need something to improve their lives. Alcohol or drugs provide a remedy to 1960s Alienation and Aimlessness.

Oedipa feels trapped in this existence, confined "Rapunzel-like" (10) in her home and waiting for someone or something to save her. Oedipa is introduced just at the moment when these solutions are becoming as alienating as the causes. She feels like she is in the narrative of a fairytale, with its own structure and defined meaning, but will soon find that these meanings do not exist and are arbitrary, competing with the many different narratives that attempt to establish meaning in society. The domestic order of her home also provides a contrast for the Oedipa who will emerge later in the novel. Once her investigation has begun, the domesticity of her existence evaporates. She has an affair, abandons Mucho, and dedicates her entire life to uncovering the Tristero conspiracy. By the end of the novel, Oedipa will have no time for her herb garden or her lasagna. Domestic, disinterested Oedipa provides a point of contrast for the Oedipa who emerges in the rest of the novel and the way in which she grows as a character. She will replace this domestic narrative with Conspiracies and Pattern Recognition and Interpretation, becoming the arbitrary pursuit of meaning itself in a postmodernist world with no absolutes, no meaningful narratives of domesticity or fairytales.

Mucho does not feature prominently in the novel, but he is glimpsed from Oedipa's perspective. Once she learns she is going to be the executor of Pierce's estate, Oedipa turns to Mucho. She pities him, feeling a particular pang of empathy because he had to leave his career and start another. When Mucho worked as a secondhand car salesman, he felt alienated from the rest of the world. He "believed too much" (6) in the job, so much so that he could not operate in a sales role. He could not witness people swapping one car for another, hoping that the change would remedy the emptiness that they felt in their lives. He also demonstrates 1960s alienation and aimlessness and will later use LSD to follow his own conspiracies and pattern recognition and interpretation. Mucho felt like a fraud so he was forced to leave his job. He could not bring himself to sell people empty dreams, recognizing that they had been socially conditioned by the advertising in a highly commodified society to believe that the purchase of a new car would help them deal with their own alienation. The capitalist order is yet another narrative, a pattern making meaning, in an arbitrary sea of them. That one, too, points to Oppressive Traumas and Patriarchal Constructs, capitalism having done much to order people’s lives. Oedipa, too, is on the cusp of recognizing her own alienation in Mucho, but she cannot quite determine what is wrong with her life. She is not happy, but she lacks the clarity she finds in diagnosing other people's problems. To Oedipa, Mucho's problems are clear while hers are mysterious. Oedipa's investigation is as much into herself as it is the broader conspiracy in general. She will only find arbitrary patterns in her own life, though, just as she does in the broader world.

This sense of revelation being constantly out of reach is also evident in Chapter 2. Oedipa looks at the city of San Narciso as though it is a circuit board, a system of hieroglyphics that obfuscate the "concealed meaning" (13) of existence. The world is trying to communicate with her, she feels, but she lacks the shared language needed to understand what it is trying to say. She can follow the conspiracies and pattern recognition and interpretation, and she does throughout the novel, but they will all turn out to seem subjective and arbitrary, having no end meaning. Communication is a recurring issue in the novel, right down to the importance of the mail system as a tool of political power and interpersonal reliability. Misunderstandings in communication cause annoyance and anxiety. When Oedipa speaks to Miles, for example, his misinterpretation of her words leaves Oedipa feeling distressed. When Roseman asks Oedipa to run away from him, he cannot give her a destination. Their conversation is stunted and misunderstood, a chaotic emotional interaction that is not repeated. A similar conversation occurs with Metzger, though Oedipa is only able to realize her sexual desire for him when he is asleep and she is drunk. The traditional communication falls away, and she is left with raw instinct, allowing her to communicate in simpler, direct, and more effective ways. However, this communication is far from satisfying, as the rest of the novel will show. All communication between these characters is arbitrary and has no end goal, just like the patterns Oedipa recognizes throughout the plot. She emblematizes a general issue within America and 1960s alienation and aimlessness, a period of somewhat futile mass experimentation and truth-seeking.