Lot 49

It'd be hard for Thomas Pynchon to have ended The Crying of Lot 49 in a more ambiguous way. He leaves Oedipa at an auction, waiting to identify an important person she knows as a "mysterious client" who wants to bid on part of Pierce's stamp collection. But she doesn't actually know for sure if he will even be there in person, whether he will actually bid, or even what she will do if he does bid: "She had only some vague idea about causing a scene violent enough to bring the cops into it and find out that way who the man really was," she thinks to herself in the last chapter. She still has doubts about whether the whole Tristero conspiracy actually exists, and isn't even sure whether she has mental problems of some kind. There's nothing for the reader to even really grab onto, no real concrete information other than just hints, clues, and hunches.

Oedipa at this point is almost as hesitant about everything as are we as we follow along her story. Besides second guessing herself about what she'll even do if everything goes according to plan, she's skeptical of many other things in her surroundings and jumps to conclusions (or at least more hunches) about what she sees around her. She describes the men in the auction room as having "cruel faces" and "trying each to conceal his thoughts," while she decides in a single glance that the auctioneer is some kind of controlling puppeteer and draws several conclusions about him. Oedipa, despite obviously having much to lose from the situation and her lengthy investigation of Tristero, indulges in all kinds of wandering thoughts.

The story ends just before Oedipa expects to find out some real, concrete information and should lead to a much better understanding of the whole affair, but Pynchon could just have easily stopped the novel before any of the other epiphanies concerning Tristero that she's experienced. The only clear conclusion to make is that this isn't near the end of Oedipa's story; if it was, he would have gone on and shown the truth and concluded the novel. It seems like it'll just keep on going, which means that the author intends for Oedipa never to really understand the truth and be able to explain the mystery.

Lot 49 - Chapter 1

The style of Thomas Pynchon's writing seems, from the very beginning, wandering so much that it's almost (but not quite) incoherent. I had to stop and reread sections very frequently, not because I wasn't paying enough attention or focusing but because it seemed like the speaker isn't focusing. Her speech rambles around and mixes past memories, metaphors, and descriptions constantly. It reminds me of the way Faulkner's stories were written, except much less deliberate.

The longest paragraph, the one that ends the first chapter, sticks out as one connected thought, though it's still very convoluted. If I could only pick out one part of it to draw insight from, though there are several, it would be the when Oedipa mentions her ego. It is really just a mention, as the bit of Freud's vocabulary is only tossed in to one of many lengthy sentences: "Such a captive maiden, having plenty of time to think, soon realizes that her tower, its height and architecture, are like her ego only incidental: that what really keeps here where she is is magic, anonymous and malignant, visited on her from outside and for no reason at all." She's talking about herself, as earlier she compared herself to Rapunzel and Pierce to her rescuer, though only the starting situation is like the fairy tale, since she describes Pierce as climbing stairs in the tower and her hair falling off like a wig, among other things. The tower is her sense of self, and what she thinks of as her ego (the tower) is actually an immovable prison. Oedipa's conflicts and personal issues are explained a bit with this analogy, as she's basically saying that the functions of her ego (decision making, controlling urges and balancing her life) aren't working properly. Freud would definitely be concerned if she was a patient of his and he read this passage.

The "magic, anonymous and malignant" she talks about is definitely her id, and she describes it much the way Freud talked about it. It's in opposition to her ego, hard to understand, and impossible for her to completely control. Earlier in her thoughts, she describes maidens in a tower "seeking hopelessly to fill the void," by creating a tapestry made up of all the objects and places in the world. Oedipa sees herself in this role, maybe as if everything she's done since she left Pierce (including marrying Mucho) is only an attempt to fill that void. Though she doesn't directly admit it to herself, she feels very alone and incomplete. Maybe her new task with managing Pierre's possessions is going to bring her some resolution.

Faulkner

"There Was a Queen" has a style that's easy to connect with As I Lay Dying, another work by William Faulkner that I read during high school. The trademark that I remember from As I Lay Dying was the way the narrator changed from chapter to chapter and eventually went around to all of the novel's characters, so that the reader could see the interpretation of each firsthand. Because of this, the change in the focus of the narrator from Elnora to elderly Virginia in chapter three is immediately noticeable and sticks out in my head from the story. Of course, it's not exactly the same kind of change. "There Was a Queen" isn't first person narration, it just tends to describe and follow one specific character at a time. For most of the story, except for chapter three and the beginning of chapter four, that person is Elnora. The section at the beginning of chapter four focuses on Narcissa for about a page before switching back to Elnora.

At first glance, it's hard to notice exactly how Faulkner is following one character in particular. The amount of dialogue seems to be comparable between Elnora and the other characters. However, he keeps jumping back to what Elnora is doing after each section of dialogue, almost as if her nonverbal movements and expressions are the last word of each conversation. All of these sentences occur immediately after an ending line of dialogue in the story: "Elnora turned now." "Elnora didn't answer." "Elnora grunted." "Elnora looked at Saddie." The dialogue is framed by these kinds of comments on what Elnora is doing. Even though the story isn't being told by Elnora (for the first, second, and fourth chapters), it's being told from her point of view.

So, when the third chapter comes around and suddenly Faulkner's focus is on Virginia, it's somewhat surprising because of how attached and devoted his narration seemed to be on Elnora. "There Was a Queen" was written in 1933, three years after As I Lay Dying was published, but the remnants of the kind of flexibility of that novel with the narrator clearly stayed with Faulkner as part of his permanent style. I can definitely notice it in this short story.

William Carlos Williams

In William Carlos Williams's poem The Descent, the mood is set from the beginning. The title and many of the words used in the poem have negative meanings, as the speaker describes the downfall. In the 3rd main paragraph however, Williams doesn't sound like he's describing a personal descent he experienced or is experiencing though; it's more like he's talking about what to expect with any personal descent. Stand-alone phrases like "No defeat is made up entirely of defeat" and "no whiteness (lost) is so white as the memory of whiteness" are more like wise idioms than statements relative to the speaker's specific personal struggle. This suggests that perhaps Williams is talking about a descent in a series of several descents, like he's talking to himself and giving reminders that he knows from prior experience.

This falls in line well with Carl Rapp's analysis of The Descent as it relates to Williams's life at the point when this poem was written. He says, "The reasons for this change of direction are, in Williams' case, fairly obvious: the heart attack in 1948, the death of his mother in 1949, and, most spectacularly, the series of crippling strokes in 1951 and 1952 that almost completely knocked him out, paralyzing his right arm and seriously impairing his speech and eyesight." The Descent was written in 1954, and so Williams's unfortunate problems with his health and personal life would have had a profound impact on his life at this point.

The poem (surprisingly) contains positive elements too. He talks of "accomplishment," and near the end mentions a "new awakening; which is a reversal of despair." To me this seems only a setup for the end of the poem, however, as the poem profoundly ends with the phrase "endless and indestructible," almost in an effort to stomp out the optimism that's been sporadically built up. On this point, Rapp disagrees, saying that "Williams himself appears to have been elevated to a life of the spirit in which he is inwardly more secure than ever before." Rapp seems to focus on the positive middle elements, seeing them as Williams's true message, and overlooks the hopeless ending.

The Passing of Grandison

In Charles Chesnutt's story The Passing of Grandison, there speaker shows a lot of deliberate manipulation in describing the plot. It seems to kind of associate itself with whatever the current mood of the people in the scene is, almost as if it's not a complete third-person voice that's detached from the characters but instead it's a 2.5-person point of view. The particular aspect that was noticeable for me was the way that the narrator describes the loyalty of Grandison.

At one point, after Grandison and Colonel Owen's first exchange in the events of the story, there's a long elaboration on how the owner feels that makes their relationship look very friendly, respectful and beneficial to both sides. "This was true gratitude, and his feudal heart thrilled at such appreciative homage. What cold-blooded, heartless monsters they were who would break up this blissful relationship of kindly protection on the one hand, of wise subordination and loyal dependence on the other!" The speaker couldn't possibly be more subjective, and is almost unreasonably biased towards the colonel's opinion at the time.

Contrast this with a section from the end of The Passing of Grandison, after colonel has learned of the mass escape undoubtedly led by Grandison: "So much valuable property could not be lost without an effort to recover it, and the wholesale nature of the transaction carried consternation to the hearts of those whose ledgers were chiefly bound in black." Just as the owner no longer feels any sentimental attachment to the slaves now that they've left, the speaker now refers to them in a shamelessly negative and unattached manner. They're described at the end as 'property' in a 'wholesale' 'transaction' instead of slaves who show 'homage' as part of a 'blissful relationship' like the were before they escaped. The drastic change in the narrator's voice is confusing to me, because it ruins the integrity of the 3rd person descriptions. The whole point of having a 3rd person in literature is to show things from an objective view in a situation where each of the characters would have his own opinion, but when the 3rd person doesn't hesitate to put a spin on what's happening, the value is lost. It's easier to read as you follow along with the story, but a lot harder to get the big picture and to understand the author's opinion.

Mark Twain

From the beginning of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the speaker is illustrating a great deal about his character. Mark Twain doesn't waste any time, and shows Huck's rebellious side from the very first chapter. It's written like a child would tell it, with the very first mentions of Widow Douglas already bringing up whatever is on Huck's mind about her. Before he even explains the situation of living with her, he's already criticizing their way of life and going on about what he decided to do about it.

In the next page and a half, he tells several short stories and incidents that sum up everything the reader needs to know about her (which is not very much), but does it in a real, adolescent-sounding style of speech. Huck rambles on and on, and rarely does talk about something with saying his opinion on it by the end of the sentence. "Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished I was there." The same thing happens again right after: "She got mad, then, but I didn't mean no harm." For Huck, that's all there is to it. Whatever other people do to and around him, his mind is always on his own opinion, and he never hesitates to say or announce whatever wild thought is in his head.

By making him both a dissident speaker and giving him such a realistic child thought process, Twain made Huck easy to connect to and rationalize with. Despite all the unusual situations he, Jim, and eventually Tom get in to, the ideas running through Huck's mind are easy to follow along with. Of course plenty of people disagreed with those ideas, but in the course of the book it's impossible to ignore them. Huck's thoughts are as much a part of the story as is the actual plot, so the two are rather inseparable. Twain couldn't have made an adult work in this role because the issues Huck faces were too serious and would be too straining to read about. By making him (in some ways) a naive little kid, and in some ways a confused, mature mind, it gives him a distinct role in the novel.

Homely anguish

In Emily Dickinson's short poem I like a look of Agony, there are very few clues to pick up on to use in analyzing the meaning of the poem. There are only fourty words, so she must have been particularly focused on each one's exact purpose if she wanted the reader to come to an understanding from it. There is one particular word that jumps out to me in this poem: 'homely,' in the last line. Most of the words are built around pain or suffering and are strongly violent, but for some reason Dickinson chose to call anguish 'homely.'

The speaker of the poem is expressing her feelings on dishonesty in this poem, though she doesn't say specifically what kind of dishonesty or whose dishonesty she dislikes. However, the word 'homely' casts a kind of light on this situation. The speaker's point is that death and extreme suffering cannot be faked. The seriousness of those situations where one is under intense pain is not something a person can manipulate or call upon to be convenient when the time comes. Ultimately, those moments are the moments that all humans can share and relate to. This is where 'homely' reveals its meaning. By mentioning "homely Anguish," Dickinson suddenly and surprisingly tones down the intensity of the whole poem. She builds up the "look of Agony" from the beginning, portraying it as the ultimate quality that cannot be controlled by the mind of an individual, and then, in the finale, calls it plain and ordinary.

Just as important to this poem as agony is honesty. Dickinson is associating anguish (which represents honesty in the speaker's eyes) with homeliness. This suggests that the reality of the world, or maybe the reality without the deception and trickery of dishonest people, is actually just simple, ordinary, and maybe even a little ugly. All of this pain stuff seems dramatic, but in reality it's only typical. When you strip down all the misperceptions, deceit, and underhanded dealings that are part of our daily lives, it boils down to just a bunch of people living and dying, and there's nothing flashy about it at all.