Chapter two of The Crying of Lot 49, gave me a more clear image of what is going on in the story. In the last chapter it was a little complicated to understand, but in this new chapter, everything makes more sense.
In chapter two, Oedipa begins to reveal her true personality. She acts very different from her behavior in the first section of the book, which shows the reader that this woman has a lot of secrets. An important part of these secrets, is her mysterious past and how it hunts her in the present as seen with the will left by Inverarity for her to execute. When the book makes reference to how the past will always affect your present and therefore will have an effect on your future, I related to Slaughterhouse- Five and the constant time traveling of Billy. Although Billy uniquely relives his memories without changing their course, every time he goes back, he is affected in some way, and you can see it in the change of tone that the author conveys. This same theme can also connect to the movie The Butterfly Effect. In this film, the main character goes back into his past and he changes something negative hoping to have a positive result, but when he returns to the present something else goes wrong as a consequence of the aspect that was changed in the past. Oedipa made a mistake in the past and now she is paying for it in some strange way, even though she tries to manipulate her reality.
Further on in the text, I found the following quote, “ ‘It’s a group I’m in,’ Miles explained, ‘the Paranoids. We’re new yet’...‘You hate me too.’ Eyes bright through his bangs. ‘You are a paranoid,’ Oedipa said. ” (17) This fragment made an impact on me when I read it, simply because it was a very idiotic comeback made by Oedipa towards Miles. When she refers to Miles being a paranoid, she tries to convey that he is truly a paranoid besides from making part of a band that has that same name. The fact that the author uses these devices in his novel probably means that he wants to make a statement. In this part of the novel that statement is not as clear but maybe further on it will reaper. The author could be trying to say that young people are very paranoid now days, due to the fact that society is full of danger and unreliable intentions.
Some pages after, I found a very interesting citation that consists of a small metaphor that related directly to an allegory found in Epictetus, “A lawyer in a courtroom, in front of any jury becomes an actor, right?”(21) This is very similar to the 17th segment of The Handbook which comments on the following, “Remember that you are an actor in a play, which is as the playwright wants it to be...If he wants to play a beggar...a cripple, or a public official or a private citizen. What is yours is to play the assigned part well. But to chose it belongs to someone else.”(Epictetus 17) As I read both of these fragments I realized that the second one is an extension of the first, and it is precisely because of that why the one mentioned last is an allegory. A lawyer has to become an actor so that the jury believes him and votes on his side. If he fails to play his role correctly, then he will loose the trial. This happens as well in life. If you as an actor don’t follow the playwright as it is written, then his job is not accomplished. We are all actors because we have to act in a certain way to be able to fulfill what destiny has in store for us.
Finally I found an allusion between the serenade in this chapter and the poem, “The World is too much with us; Late and soon.” As I read the Serenade I found that there were similar elements in both poems.
“As I lie and watch the moon
On the lonely sea,
Watch it tug the lonely tide
Like a comforter over me,
The still and faceless moon
Fills the beach tonight
With only a ghost of day,
All shadow gray, and moonbeam white.
And you lie alone tonight,
As alone as I;
...
The night has gone so gray, I’d lose the way, and it’s dark inside.
No, I must lie alone,
Till it comes for me;
Till it takes the sky, the sand, the moon, and the lonely sea.” (27)
Elements such as the moon, sea, wind, etc are also found in the poem The World is Too Much With Us Late and Soon. Things such as the tide are mentioned in both. In the first one it is stated, and in the second one it is inferred, “The sea that bares her bosom to the moon” (5) as the sea is facing upwards towards the moon in the high tide. When in the Serenade it mentions how “Till it comes for me” it is very similar to the idea that is being stated in the other poem that seems to be related to natural disasters and the end of the world. Both of these poems have similar voices and apparently they have a analogous topic.
Vocabulary
Frug: a dance that derives from the twist
Hierophany: Manifestation of the sacred
Sax: A method of reading data files in computing
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