AP Success - AP English Literature: The Crying of Lot 49

This is an excerpt from the novel "The Crying of Lot 49" by Thomas Pynchon.

As things developed, she was to have all manner of revelations. Hardly about Pierce Inverarity, or

herself; but about what remained yet had somehow, before this, stayed away. There had hung the

sense of buffering, insulation, she had noticed the absence of an intensity, as if watching a movie,

just perceptibly out of focus, that the projectionist refused to fix. And had also gently conned

herself into the curious, Rapunzel-like role of a pensive girl somehow, magically, prisoner among

the pines and salt fogs of Kinneret, looking for somebody to say hey, let down your hair. When it

turned out to be Pierce she'd happily pulled out the pins and curlers and down it tumbled in its

whispering, dainty avalanche, only when Pierce had got maybe halfway up, her lovely hair turned,

through some sinister sorcery, into a great unanchored wig, and down he fell, on his ass. But

dauntless, perhaps using one of his many credit cards for a shim, he'd slipped the lock on her

tower door and come up the conchlike stairs, which, had true guile come more naturally to him,

he'd have done to begin with. But all that had then gone on between them had really never

escaped the confinement of that tower. In Mexico City they somehow wandered into an exhibition

of paintings by the beautiful Spanish exile Remedios Varo: in the central painting of a triptych,

titled 'Bordando el Manto Terrestre," were a number of frail girls with heart-shaped faces, huge

eyes, spun-gold hair, prisoners in the top room of a circular tower, embroidering a kind of tapestry

which spilled out the slit windows and into a void, seeking hopelessly to fill the void: for all the

other buildings and creatures, all the waves, ships and forests of the earth were contained in this

tapestry, and the tapestry was the world. Oedipa, perverse, had stood in front of the painting and

cried. No one had noticed; she wore dark green bubble shades. For a moment she'd wondered if

the seal around her sockets were tight enough to allow the tears simply to go on and fill up the

entire lens space and never dry. She could carry the sadness of the moment with her that way

forever, see the world refracted thorugh those tears, those specific tears, as if indices as yet

unfound varied in important ways from cry to cry. She had looked down at the feet and known,

then, because of a painting, that what she stood on had only been woven together a couple

thousand miles away in her own tower, was only by accident known as Mexico, and so Pierce had

taken her away from nothing, there'd been no escape. What did she so desire escape from? Such a

captive maiden, having plenty of time to think, soon realizes that her tower, it's 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. Having no

apparatus except gut fear and female cunning to examine this formless magic, to understand how

it works, how to measure its field strength, count its lines of force, she may fall back on

superstition, or take up a useful hobby like embroidery, or go mad, or marry a disk jockey. If the

tower is everywhere and the knight of deliverance no proof against its magic, what else?

Source 1

In lines 1-2, "she was to have all manner of revelations" primarily suggests that the character:

The metaphor "Rapunzel-like role" (line 5) is used to highlight the character's feelings of:

The phrase "lovely hair turned, through some sinister sorcery, into a great unanchored wig" (lines 8-9) serves to symbolize:

The reference to "Pierce" (line 7) primarily suggests that he is:

The description of the "conchlike stairs" (line 11) contributes to the passage's mood by:

In the context of the passage, the "exhibition of paintings by the beautiful Spanish exile Remedios Varo" (lines 13-14) serves to:

The "tapestry" mentioned in lines 16-19 symbolizes:

Oedipa's reaction in front of the painting (lines 19-20) suggests that she is:

The phrase "indices as yet unfound varied in important ways from cry to cry" (lines 23-24) implies that Oedipa:

The narrative's shift to Oedipa's past experiences in lines 25-27 primarily serves to:

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