Black Boy Crying Of Lot 49 Bastard Out Of

Black Boy/Crying Of Lot 49/Bastard Out Of Carolina Essay, Research Paper

The Crying of Lot 49

In a story as confusing and ambiguous as Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, it is difficult to connect any aspect of the book to a piece of modern culture. However, Oedipa’s quest, her search for the truth, and the paranoia therein, are inherent in the plots of today’s most-watched television and movies. Though many themes from the story can be tied to modern culture, perhaps the most prominent is the theme of a quest for truth. Oedipa’s quest is best represented via a popular FOX television show called The X-Files.

At first sight, the comparison is almost too obvious. Agent Fox Mulder, played by David Duchovny, seeks the truth behind the apparent mystery of alien abduction and the supernatural, a quest that he dubs “the X-Files”. Oedipa, too, is looking for the truth underneath her mystery: WASTE. Both characters yearn for the truth behind events, a truth that may or may not exist, in mysteries that fold plots upon themselves endlessly. Beyond the obvious similarities, however, lie more, almost uncanny, parallels.

Though both Mulder and Oedipa claim to seek the truth, what they both seek is resolution to the questions within themselves. For example, it is understood by fans of The X-Files that Mulder began his search for extraterrestrial life with the supposed alien abduction of his sister. The quest for the truth, then, is personalized for Agent Mulder, as he himself claims that he would not work as an FBI agent if his sister had not been [supposedly] abducted. Oedipa is on a personal quest as well. No other character in the story seeks the “truth” behind WASTE, the muted courier’s horn, the play The Courier’s Tragedy, Pierce Inverarity’s stamps, and a secret postal service. In fact, no one else has ever before made such a [possibly ridiculous] connection! So, as both characters seek their personal truths, they slowly begin to fear that no answer exists.

The motives of these two seekers are important, and indeed similar. There seems to be an obsession to find a truth in symbols (be they horns or crop circles), a truth that both characters come to realize may not even exist. By definition, obsession is “a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling”. Therefore, the moment that their questions are absolved, the moment that their hypotheses are proved, the quest and its subsequent paranoia, frustration, and pain are removed. The motive is fear that the quest is unending, that there is no answer to the questions, and perhaps that there truly was no mystery to begin with. For each character, Mulder and Oedipa, this fear drives them in their personal quests for the truth.

Many themes from The Crying of Lot 49 can be seen in modern culture, especially movies: paranoia in Conspiracy Theory and Enemy of the State, and Hilarius’s psycho-drug culture in Girl Interrupted. However, no movie or show ties so well to Oedipa’s quest as FOX’s The X-Files. Both Oedipa Maas and Fox Mulder seek personal truths, one based on a secret postal system, another on alien intervention in human life, but they hold more in common than it first appears. Maybe aliens are delivering mail behind the back of the US government.

Black Boy

In the penultimate chapter of Black Boy, Richard very uncharacteristically participates in a boxing match with Harrison, a fellow “black boy” employee. Though this seems unlikely early in the chapter, Richard eventually caves to Harrison’s requests for a fight.

The culture instigating this fight is fairly obvious: the white employers want to see the black boys fight like a “dog or rooster” for their entertainment. The ideology behind the event, then, would be the assumptions of the white men, like most in the Southern culture in this book, are that blacks are inferior to whites. This idea is not consciously implemented into the minds of the employers, but it is an aspect of the culture that they take for granted. In the minds of Richard and Harrison, however, such a fight would be degrading. However, Harrison needs the money that the white men offer him for the fight. For Harrison, it is not so much an ideology that influences his choice, but a need, that cash is necessary to survive. For Richard, though, a deeper influence may be pressing him to fight. All through Chapter 12, Richard opposes the idea of a fight. Even at first, when the white men try to trick him into thinking that Harrison wants to hurt him, he is wary and intelligent enough to not fall for the ploy. Later, when Harrison presses him to fight, Richard says, “’I don’t want to fight for white men. I’m no dog or rooster.’” However, almost immediately thereafter, Richard agrees to the fight. What caused this sudden change of mind. Call them ideologies, perhaps, but there is a combination of factors that lead Richard to fight.

First of all, Richard feels a loyalty to Harrison as a co-worker and fellow “black boy”, evidenced in Richard’s narration: “Harrison and I knew each other casually, but there had never been the slightest trouble between us” and “Harrison was black and so was I; I would ignore the warning of the white man and talk face to face with a boy of my own color.” Secondly, the ideas that the employers plant in the minds of Richard and Harrison are seeds of doubt that both men can stifle for