Empty-handed and empty-hearted

After finishing the book, The Crying of Lot 49 is on some levels very dissatisfying. With a cliff-hanger ending like that, it makes the reader very suspicious as to what actually happened during the crying of lot 49. Did Oedipa find the answer to her conspiracy? Who is this mysterious bidder who she is waiting upon? I think that the answer to these questions lie within the reader. An ending like this demands an answer and therefore the reader will fabricate one. Since Pynchon has not finished the plot, I feel like it gives the reader freedom to finish the story however he or she pleases. I personally believe that the whole conspiracy Oedipa is trying to solve is actually a conspiracy against herself.
I may even go as far as to say that the mysterious bidder could be Pierce himself. Every company, store, or theater that Oedipa visited was, in some way, linked to Pierce. In addition, he was a very whimsical man, for whom something this elaborate would not be out of character. He could have, as far as Oedipa was concerned, faked his death. He could have paid off Metzger and all of the other "actors" in his plot. Also, Oedipa was constantly having hallucinations that made it that much easier for her to be fooled.
Whether the mysterious bidder was Pierce or simply a mysterious bidder ultimately does not matter. I feel like the point of the ending implemented by Pynchon conveys a sense of futile searching. Oedipa is constantly searching for an answer to her questions. Whenever she finds information, it does not lead to answers at all, but rather to more questions. Her constant journey did not only take a toll on her health, but it also pulled her from her friends and family leaving her alone and confused. In a way, this ending may do something similar for the reader. It is an ending that forces the reader to search for an answer that he or she will never find. Oedipa poured all that she had into finding what the Tristero was and conclusively ended up empty-handed and empty-hearted.

The weight of the world

The first chapter of The Crying of Lot is very interesting and contains a lot to translate and digest. After reading it twice, it seems as if all the characters have underlying emotional or physical problems. Oedipa, however, seems the most in control of herself, but she still apparently struggles with hallucinations that keep her up all night. When prescribed medicine (which happens to be LSD) she says, "I am having a hallucination now, I don't need drugs for that." It is also apparent that Oedipa has a lot of trouble with men.
First, there is Pierce Inverarity. He is a boyfriend of Oedipa's from the past who seemed to be very whimsical. Later in the chapter, Oedipa, while looking at a tapestry, imagines herself as Rapunzel. Pierce begins to climb her hair but it ultimately falls off like a wig. He then uses a credit card to get into the tower, but ultimately nothing comes of it. I feel like Oedipa really liked the audacity and capriciousness of Pierce, but could not bring herself to accept his lifestyle. She ended up breaking up with him and marrying Wendell ("Mucho") Maas. One evening, a year before she had received the letter that she was the executor of Pierce's will, she had received a phone call from him. Mucho tells Oedipa to hang up, but the reader gets a sense that she is intrigued by the phone call and perhaps a bit flattered. Pierce went through all of his vocal impersonations which it stirred up all of those feelings that Oedipa once held for him.
In speaking of Mucho, he was a very insecure man. He had worked at a used car lot that he despised. He constantly saw the destitute lives of those who came to trade in cars. Five years of the dirt, the grunge, and the impurity caked upon those cars caused him to approach having a nervous breakdown. He tried to dissociate from that image by keeping himself obsessively clean. However, he still saw himself in every car that he sold--dirty and broken.
It was stated that, "he could see the way each owner, each shadow, filed in only to exchange a dented, malfunctioning version of himself for another." It is ambiguous here as to whether "himself" refers to the one trading in the car or to Mucho. After he quit this job, he began to work for KCUF radio station. At this point, one must pause and look at what KCUF actually spells backwards.
Not only did Oedipa have to deal with her husband's insecurity but she also had to deal with the family lawyer's, Roseman, attraction towards her. Not only does he try to play footsie with her, but he also asks her to run away with him. Oedipa, being level-headed, constantly combats his fronts with facetious, but hard hitting responses. The first chapter does not give us anything solid as far as motifs or themes, but it does give us a solid foundation for the issues that are going to be addressed in the novel. Oedipa has a lot to deal with on her plate, and I am looking forward to see how she digests it all.

Not seeing the light

I am going to be honest, when reading Faulkner's, "There was a Queen," I had no epiphanies or moments of making connections that were crucial in the story. Reading through it, I simply saw it as a sort of odd story. Although I did not find some great deeper meaning within the story, I did come across a few points worthy of discussion. The first is Elnora. The story begins with her walking up to the house from her cabin. Being a servant of the house (by this time slavery had ended), it was implied that she didn't ask questions about what Narcissa, the young white woman living in the house, did or why. It seemed that throughout this story, there was a constant stress of the black servants not listening to or questioning what the white people did. For instance, when Elnora was questioning Isom in order to find out what Narcissa had spoken about with the old Aunt, he responded, "I don't know'm. You the one taught me not to listen to white folks." Although they both had it in their head that it was unacceptable to eavesdrop or question "white folks," Isom still had the answer to her question and Narcissa still desired to know. It's as if they felt as if they shouldn't listen, but it was something they consistently did anyways.
In addition, Elnora harbored a lot of bitterness an enmity toward Narcissa. It seemed as if Elnora was angry at the laziness of Narcissa, or perhaps there could have been more to the story. Elnora even goes as far as to call Narcissa, "Trash. Town trash." One part that I did not understand was how the entire family tree fit together. I did not understand what made someone a Sartoris man or woman and what the significance of that was. However, Elnora, with her enmity toward Narcissa stated that, "She won't ever be a Sartoris woman." I have received the connotation that being a Sartoris man or woman is something of prestige or personal pride. I feel as if one must understand how this entire family tree is put together in order to understand the true significance of a Sartoris man or woman.
I am not really sure what themes Faulkner is trying to convey in this story. There are so many dynamics running at once in the story that I am not quite sure how to translate them. I see Narcissa's struggle with her self image because of certain explicit letters written about her. I also see Elnora's struggle with herself as a half-black woman. She is constantly dictating who is "quality" and who is "trash." I also did not understand the significance of Aunt Jenny's death in the end or who the "old woman" was sitting next to the "dead widow." I'm sure once this is discussed in class I will gain a better understanding of how Faulkner put all of this together. However for now, I am still a bit in the dark.

If Only

After reading through the essays posted about "The Young Housewife," I have gathered that most base this poem's substance on sexual lust. As Marjorie Perloff stated in her interpretation, "In his erotic fantasy, the poet wants to make this attractive housewife a 'fallen leaf' to the 'noiseless wheels of his car...'" This seems to be a valid interpretation, but the connotation I received from the poem was a sense of respect, and perhaps a bit of tender pity.

Initially, the wife is not only seen, "behind the wooden walls of her husband's house," but also, "in negligee." As Barry Ahearn claims, "The poem focuses attention on various tangible barriers and containers." This conveys a sense that the young housewife is bound by her homely clothing and the wooden walls of her husband's house--indicating that he has control over her. I view the narrator as playing on the word negligee and is intending to channel the impression that the wife is not only bound by her husband but neglected by him also. He sees into her true beauty despite that she is not only un-kept but also unavailable. I feel that the narrator desires to give her the respect that she deserves as woman of beauty--not simply an object of attraction.

Towards the end of the poem, the housewife is distinctly compared to a fallen leaf. In autumn, when leaves start to change colors and fall, it indicates an end to a time of growth and cultivation. However, autumn, because of its brilliant colors, is also considered to be one of the most beautiful times of the year. I feel the narrator here is indicating that, although the housewife is a fallen leaf and perhaps a bit past her prime, she is still beautiful. He is aware that she is married and has a life of her own. He continues to drive on soundlessly except for the crunching of the leaves beneath his wheels--the breaking and scattering of his momentary daydream of what things could be. He continues to drive and passes smiling leaving behind him the fragments of a short-lived whimsical inkling.

I feel that the narrator, for a few seconds, began to daydream about this woman and let his mind sprint off almost subconsciously. Most of this fantasy stemmed from his desire of something he knew he couldn't have. Would the narrator have truly desired the housewife if she wasn't married? In speaking of her husband, how does one know if he actually neglected or confined her? She could have been perfectly content where she was. This whole poem seems to have been derived from a cursory glance and from a series of thoughtless assumptions that ultimately translated into a futile longing for something that the poet could not have.