Oedipa theorizes near the end of the novel that she has either stumbled onto the Tristero's plot, or she has been self-deceived into believing in the Tristero, or she has been deceived by a plot against her, or she is fantasizing some such plot.

Considering a passage earlier in the novel, it seems that at least her two notions of self-deception and fantasy can be marked off. Although she may exist as a typical suburban house wife who goes to Tupperware parties, gets drunk, and watches television when she's not tending to the house, she is not trying to escape her boring life by creating a conspiracy or dilemma to amuse herself because departure from this lifestyle is impossible.

"What did she desire to escape from? Such a captive maiden... soon realizes that her tower, its height and architecture, are like her ego only incidental: that what really keeps her where she is is magic, anonymous and malignant, visited upon 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."

Thus, Oedipa is where she is because of chance, luck, something she has no control of. She does not choose where she is, nor can she escape it, because it's formless magic that dictates her life. Fate prevails over choice.

So, Oedipa cannot create this fantasy. It already exists and she has become part of it.

As I read the first chapter of The Crying of Lot 49, I - as everyone else, I'm sure - was taken aback by the crazy names in the novel. Oedipa? Mucho? Pierce Inverarity? Dr. Hilarius? None of them seem to be something parents would want to name their kid. That makes me think there must be a specific reason why Pynchon chose each one.

Perhaps they represent a character trait for each person. However, because it is so early in the story, I can only make a guess as to what the names mean.

"Oedipa" sounds very much like the female form of the name "Oedipus" - the subject of the Theban Cycle, a series of three plays by the Greek dramatist Sophocles. According to J. Kerry Grant's "A companion to The Crying of Lot 49," "The general pattern of Oedipus's and Oedipa's lives is identical: during their investigations, both characters move away from absolute positivism to relative indeterminacy; the 'crime' that both find so appalling is that they were so self-absorbed that they never saw the danger of the former position."

"Maas" sounds like a corrupted form of "mass"--something that resists change. Perhaps then, Oedipa is at once an active detective who also is sluggish and reluctant.

"Pierce Inverarity" sounds like "piercing variety" or "peers in variety," an identification that could be supported by Pierce's use of many different voices and vast array of dissimilar land-holdings.

In William Faulkner’s short story “The Brooch,” Mrs. Boyd’s brooch is a clear symbol for the traditional aspects of her household, as well as the controlling, materialistic ties she has with Howard. As he comes of age and begins to seek autonomy from her household, Mrs. Boyd uses her brooch to undermine his relationship with his new wife, Amy. Amy, who seems to be of questionable background and moral standing, is given the brooch in a rite of passage manner, as many mother-in-law’s pass down heirlooms to their husband’s wives. During the morning Amy called Mrs. Boyd “Mother,” for the first time, was the same day “Mrs. Boyd formally presented Amy with the brooch: an ancient, clumsy thing, yet valuable.” Although Amy consigns the brooch to her top dresser drawer at first, Howard chides her that she “has to wear it sometimes,” and she concedes to his point. As Amy started wearing the brooch in a regular fashion, Howard’s feelings on the subject soon went from pleasure that his new bride honored his family traditions to concern over his bride’s motives.

Soon, it became evident that Amy wore the brooch “not for pleasure but for vindictive incongruity; she wore it for an entire week on the bosom of a gingham house dress, an apron.” Instead of honoring his mother’s symbol of Her authority and traditional edge, Amy wore the brooch in an act of defiance against the influence of Howard’s mother upon him. In wearing the tradition-laden brooch on an apron or on a house dress, Amy lowered the value associated with the piece of jewelry, also symbolizing the value Amy places on the relationship between Howard and his mother.

Toward the end of the story, when Amy leaves the brooch in the car, the relationship between Amy, Howard, and his mother strongly deteriorates, underscoring the symbolic relationship between the value Amy holds for the brooch and those she holds for Howard’s mother. As Amy would not go in to bid goodnight to Howard’s mother, she basically rejects the necessity for her presence in the Boyd household, and ultimately rejects the relationship between Howard and his mother. With the rejection of the brooch, and with the brooch as a symbol of Boyd family tradition, Amy does not prove to be able to commit to a life with Howard and his mother. In the end, the failure of this relationship puts Amy back into the line of her old life’s work and Howard in the face of suicide.

H.D.’s Helen provides a surprising depiction of Zeus’ much desired daughter, revealing man’s dislike for a woman’s sexuality. Instead of romanticizing Helen – often called the most beautiful woman in the world, she describes her beauty but then expresses Greece’s distaste for her. This notion comes in stark contrast to other’s portrayals of the figure, such as Edgar Allen Poe. As suggested by Susan Stanford Friedman, in H.D.’s poem, “Helen does not stand alone, unveiled before the adoring eyes of [Poe]. Instead, she is accompanied by a hate-filled gaze that never leaves the beauty of her body.” Her good looks, it seems, are a reason for dislike.

The poem only describes Helen’s physical appearance – which “All Greece hates.” With “still eyes in the white face, the lustre as of olives…and slenderest knees,” Helen is beautiful but that is all we know. Nothing is said of her personality or what she has done. However, in mythology, Helen instigates the Trojan War when she is abducted because of her beauty. Thus, her sexuality can be considered dangerous because it literally starts a war. Greece can hate her because she tears the country apart because she is an attractive woman. Linking a woman’s beauty and sexuality to war suggests that it is a bad thing, perhaps because it makes her important, a threat to men.

The only way to suppress Helen’s sexuality so that Greece “could love indeed the maid” is through her death, if she “were laid, white ash amid funereal cypresses.” The word “laid” also carries sexual connotations. Lay can mean to sleep with someone, so if Helen were laid, she may be taken advantage of sexually, allowing for male dominance.

In a world where men have historically been in power, Helen acts as a threat. Her beauty can captivate men, have power over them, and lead them to such conflicts as war. Because she is empowered, Helen is hated.

The end of "The Passing of Grandison" is definitely unexpected. It leads readers to question the slave's rationale for delaying his escape for so long, even when he had the opportunity to do so with ease. Some people may suppose Grandison to be clever, thinking that he planned the flight all along, always outwitting his masters. I, however, reckon he may postpone his departure so that he can make the journey with his wife. In that case, the story works to reveal men's dedication to women, and the opposite sex's power over them.

The story opens with the line "When it is said that it was done to please a woman, there ought perhaps to be enough said to explain anything, for what a man will not do to please a woman is yet to be discovered." So, from the beginning, we see how men will do whatever they can to make a women happy.

Both Dick and Grandison have women in their lives that affect their decision making. Dick, who is "as lazy as the devil" needs only a mere suggestion from a female to "prompt him to the most remarkable thing he accomplished before he was twenty-five." When he wants to win the hand of Charity Lomax, he asks her, "Could you love me, Charity, if I did something heroic?" She responds that she'll consider him if he does something to prove his "quality." Because of her proposition, he decides to free a slave - a radical idea for Kentucky boy before the Civil War. Thus, Dick's actions are driven by a women's desires. Grandison, too, thinks with a woman in mind, although, he does not say it - his master, the colonel, does. While explaining to Dickwhy he shouldn't be afraid of Grandison running away the colonel says, "I reckon we can trust him...he's sweet on your mother's maid, Betty, and I 've promised to let 'em get married before long." He also promises to get him a "present, and a string of beads for Betty to wear when [he and Betty] get married in the fall" so he'll come back. Hence, Colonel support the slave's faithfullness by showing his faithfulness to a women. Surely he'll return so he can be with her.

And that's why I think Grandison waits to run away. He is dedicated to his love and will do what he can to be with her. Although he may be too stupid to initially realize freedom is better than bondage, he does know that he will be happier with his love. So when he firsts sees that Canada offers freedom, he waits to exploit it. He takes the arduous trip back home and then escapes with Betty. Love and women are worth it.

In class, I mentioned I would like to discuss the importance of the Mississippi River in Huck Finn, so here it goes.

In Huckleberry Finn, the Mississippi symbolizes the difficult search for freedom and escape. Huck and Jim float alone down their river in pursuit of their goals. Huck hopes to escape being “sivilized” by Widow Douglas and the abuse of his father. Jim seeks freedom from slavery. However, we see that the pursuit of freedom is not an easy journey. At first, the trip appears to run smoothly, like the river, as Huck learns to tolerate Jim and his character. Life on the river is easy. They “feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft.” Later, though, the two learn they are not completely free from nature and the evils and influences of the towns on the river’s banks. The real world hinders their voyage. During their trip, the river floods, bringing Huck and Jim into contact with criminals like the Duke and the Dauphin, wrecks, and stolen goods which all hamper their trip. Then, a thick fog causes them to miss the mouth of the Ohio River - their route to freedom. This actually ends the search because Jim temporarily becomes a slave. Thus, freedom does not come easily; it is an arduous journey in which many do not succeed. Huck and Jim’s journey actually parallels what southern black’s search for freedom might have been like before slavery abolished.

I’m going to go out on a limb and mention something slightly, okay, very risqué and a little out of line, but hey, this is college.

There’s a chance I could be completely off, but I see a huge parallel to sex, specifically an orgasm in this poem. It appears that Dickinson might have wanted to talk about the subject, but had to hide her opinions by using seemingly contradictory words to avoid conflict in a conservative society.

I believe the speaker is describing her lover’s face as he reaches orgasm. She stares into his eyes that exhibit “a look of Agony” because the feeling is so overwhelming. Although agony usually means severe distress, it can also represent intense pleasure. She follows with “Men do not sham Convulsion, Nor simulate, a Throe.” These spasms that come with orgasm (right?) are real and true. His “Eyes glaze once” like “Death” because the sensation is too awesome to control, so extraordinary that it is “impossible to feign.” At the end, the lover is covered with sweat “beads upon the Forehead” that this anguish has “strung.” All his work amounted into the great climax, the anguish. He has just made love to the speaker.

So, at first, one might see the words in the poem as symbols of death and the despair because that is what they mean. However, many of them can have double meanings. Agony, convulsion, throe, and even death can be associated with orgasm.

It is April 13, 1861. Rebels have fired on Fort Sumter and the headline of the New York Times reads “The ball has opened. War is inaugurated.” Within days President Lincoln will call for 75,000 troops. His rising army needs support and motivation, both of which Walt Whitman can provide, or so it seems.

At first glance, Whitman’s Beat! Beat! Drums! serves as a form of Union propaganda – a recruiting charge – calling for soldiers to battle and everyone to stop what they are doing to support the war. However, he also hints at the adverse impacts of war by revealing its disregard for life and death. Thus, Whitman suggests that although nationalism and the Union should be the North’s focus, they will come at a cost.

The manner in which Whitman presents his initial charge beckons everyone to listen as the poem imprints its message into their heads. Each stanza opens with the familiar cry “Beat! beat! drums! – blow! bugles! blow!” engraining the call within the reader’s mind. The three-seven lines stanzas follow an iambic rhythm that mimics the beat of a recruiting drum. Without rhyme, the poem sounds more like a dictator’s intense speech or a preacher’s fiery sermon as it captivates the audience. Complete with an escalating loudness, this is propaganda in its finest, poetic form.

His message, like the pounding sound, is inescapable. As the drums beat and the bugles blow –instruments of the military – everyone can hear their omnipresent call. No one can escape the shrill “ruthless force” as it bursts “through the windows – through doors, “into the solemn church,” and “into the school.” The noise resonates throughout the countryside and city. Everyone must be aware of the conflict.

Once the listeners or readers are lured in, the speaker calls for mobilization. He hopes that they are stirred and stimulated by the sound, claiming, “no happiness must [the groom] have now with his bride…Nor the peaceful farmer any peace…no sleepers must sleep in those beds.” In order to strengthen unity and the Union, everyone together must do something in response to the incessant drums.

At this point, however, the poem shifts. Although the drumming and horn-blowing continue to escalate, one must question their loudness. Is it a good thing?

While the poem’s pace captivates the readers, it leads them to overlook the battle call’s ignorance. The speaker instructs the drums to “make no parley – stop for no expostulation” and mind not the timid, or prayer, or old man, or child’s voice. He wants the terrible drums “make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses.” Neither the living nor the dead and those who will die are free from the heartless mandate. Thus, his charge, like war itself, disregards everyone in favor of its cause.

In sum, Whitman offers an almost sarcastic commentary on war. Beat! Beat! Drums! calls for union , yet then warns of its pig-headedness. People who listen to the poem are jumping on a bandwagon headed off a cliff – they might get caught up in the cause and forget what they could cause.

Benito Cereno uses “greyness” throughout the story to establish a mood of uncertainty and expectancy. Grey seems to be an intermediate color, wavering between black and white and ready to shift either way. The sense of idleness it carries calls for something to happen – however, we don’t know what that might be.

The reference is particularly prevalent in the opening third paragraph:

"The morning was one peculiar to that coast. Everything was mute and calm; everything grey. The sea, though undulated into long roods of swells, seemed fixed, and was sleeked at the surface like waved lead that has cooled and set in the smelter's mould. The sky seemed a grey mantle. Flights of troubled grey fowl, kith and kin with flights of troubled grey vapors among which they were mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before storms. Shadows present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come."

The word “grey” appears four times in this passage. First, the passage describes everything to be grey. This muteness and calmness renders the setting into a blank canvas ready to be painted with a story. Next, the sea is likened to lead – a grey liquid. This follows with a reference to the grey sky. Again, this implies something is going to happen because when the sky is that color, we expect it to rain. Grey fowl fly through grey fog and often, a flock flees an area when they sense trouble or ensuing threats. It closes by summing up the significance of grey – that it foreshadows deeper shadows to come.

Grey also becomes important on the San Dominick. There, blacks and whites mix and defy racial barriers. Coincidentally (not really), grey is the color between black and white. Grey, therefore, represents an amalgamation of two races.

Like this dominant color, nothing is clear in Benito Cereno. All through the story, we, like Captain Delano, are not certain of what will happen next.

For once, watching a movie instead of doing my homework earlier today might have proved beneficial.

I think that Goodman Brown and Benjamin Braddock of The Graduate have very similar experiences as the come of age and learn of their society's faults.

First off, both naïve characters come from comparable backgrounds. Although Ben may belong to a modern day, upper class family and Brown to a colonial Puritan society, their lives are based on huge pretensions. Ben’s family appears pleased with their parties, children’s success, new cars, and materialism. Moreover, Goodman Brown insists that his family, a “race of honest men and good Christians since the days of martyrs,” has never interacted with the vice. However, both groups actually have many hidden problems.

Then, the characters meet the devil – or Mrs. Robinson in Ben’s case – who reveals reality. During Ben’s affair, he discovers that his allegedly decent, well-to-do family and their friends and society value something completely superficial. Their happiness grows on the things that do not truly matter. Mrs. Robinson reveals that although she lives an ideal life, with a big house with an affluent husband, she is completely and secretly dissatisfied with her life. The image that she and her peers display is not reflective of their actual feelings – it’s all false. Goodman, too, learns of his family’s affections as the devil recalls helping his grandfather lash “the Quaker women so smartly through the streets of Salem” and supplying wood for his father to “set fire to an Indian Village.” They preach lives of absolution, peace, and dedication to God, yet they act violently and sinfully. Hence, both Ben and Goodman Brown gain insight into the negative aspects of their society.

On the converse, at the end of their journeys, each character reacts differently to their discoveries. Benjamin uses the flaws of his parents and their friends as justification to escape their society. They give him the courage to leave it He turns a negative into a positive as he sheds his ties. Goodman Brown, on the other hand, does not take his findings in the same manner. They actually put a damper on his life. After the Devil leads him to decide that “there is no good on the earth; and sin is but a name; to [the devil] is this world given,” he chooses to reject all of society. Even after his wife tries to kiss him, he looks “sternly and sadly into her face, and [passes] on without a greeting.” He becomes “a stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not desperate man” with no faith in anything. He no longer trusts the minister and the congregation’s holy psalms sound like “anthems of sin.” His discovery of his corrupt society directs him toward a depressing life.

Judge Meagre is the devil. Only a truly evil, crazed maniac could speak his words. It’s funny, then, that Warren parallels his thoughts with those of the British Empire. In her play The Group, Judge Meagre represents colonial Britain’s mission to oppress and subjugate the world.

Meagre, like the British Empire, is a predator in search of prey. His name alone hints at his character; a meagre is a carnivorous fish which pursues and feeds on shoals of smaller fishes. While the British feed off and maintain rule of the American colonies, they must continually quell any opposition.

Meagre openly avows his resentment towards opposition of authority. He hates “Brutus for his noble stand/ Against the oppressors of his injured country, … leaders of these restless factions,… [and] the people, who, no longer gulled,/ See through the schemes of [his] aspiring clan.” Thus, he does not find it dignified, but rather disgraceful, that one would stand up to injustices. Knowing it necessary to control a people, he repeatedly asserts this tyrannical British idea.

In order to accomplish this task and remain above others, the judge and England must deny their selves of all morals. Meager criticizes Sylla because “his soul is with compassioned moved/ For suffering virtue, wounded and betrayed;/ For freedom hunted down in this fair field.” Instead, he wishes that man might lose all love of equal liberty, utopian dreams, and patriotic virtue and suggests that “We’d smoothly glide on midst of a race of slaves.” Of course this notion makes sense – it is the only way to perpetuate the state of colonies. The people must enjoy or at least accept their repression without protest so that the might Britain to remain in control.

Luckily, history shuts Meagre up. The American little fish end up biting the British sharks. When the colonists as a whole reject tyranny they do exactly what Meagre didn’t want. They are no longer prey.

Obviously, Franklin desires to distinguish himself from all others. And what better way to do this than to be a vegetarian in the 18^th century? He refers to this habit as a “singularity.” Thus, it makes him unique. However, he offers no rationale as to why he decides this – such as finding the slaughter of animals inhumane. He only reads a book by Tryon, the first English advocate of vegetarianism, and becomes “determined to go into it.” His rationale hides in the statement that by being a vegetarian he is “leaving the common diet for that, and that for the common.” Nobody else will be like him.

These actions, conversely, are insincere, a false image meant to astound. Franklin only practices this habit in order to separate himself from the common man of his times. If he truly followed his beliefs, he would remain steadfast and never rationalize the eating of animal flesh. Yet, he succumbs to his false virtue when tempted with cod. As he “had formerly been a great lover of fish… when [it] came hot out of the frying-pan, it smelt admirably well” and unavoidable. He debates whether it is acceptable to eat the meat and then claims it just because fish consume one another. After this decision, he continually dines on meat and returns “only now and then occasionally to a vegetable diet.” Ensuring his self-righteousness, he states, “So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.” Benjamin can never be wrong.

If Franklin likes this food so much, why abstain from eating it? Only so that he may impress others through his uniqueness. We see that he does not firmly believe in this practice; otherwise he would not strain from it. Instead, he chooses this lifestyle with appearance in mind. Image matters to Franklin and he clearly illustrates throughout his autobiography that proper character development leads to success.

Jefferson’s commentary on religion in Notes on the State of Virginia seems very ahead of its time for someone of his day and age. In contrast to the writings of Mather and Edwards, he does not glorify his faith and force in onto others. Instead, he reasons why it makes no sense to condemn the practice of other religions. His logic is simple and true, as he says, “it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god.” This brief statement is arguably the most basic argument against any form of censorship or regulation – if it doesn’t hurt anybody, don’t stop it. He states this belief again, saying that “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.”

This idea is usually credited to English philosopher John Stuart Mills who said “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.” Surprisingly, he was not born until 30 years after Notes. Thus, it may seem proper to recognize that he was not the pioneer of this idea. Instead, Jefferson had been using this logic prior.

However, although Jefferson legitimatized this idea with regard to religion, it seems quite hypocritical and ignorant that he did not realize its implications on slavery. It is obvious that slavery is harmful to someone, so why did he not fully condemn this act? The answer is obviously because he put blacks on level below whites; he believed he had proof because they were “in reason much inferior.” Yet, if Jefferson is to be considered such a great thinker, he should have found this fault. Although he may be ahead of his time in realizing the problems with religious laws, he was definitely not a ground breaking thinker in racial equality. With regards to other races, he fell in line with any common white man in Virginia in 1776.

Who does Jonathan Edwards think he is? If he is to preach to everyone about the divine light, he must surely have seen it. Yet, his vague doctrine makes it hard to truly distinguish whether he has actually experienced God or if he is fooling himself. He does assert that the spiritual and divine light “does not consist in any impression made upon the imagination” but rather that it is a “true sense of the divine excellency of the things revealed in the word of God.” Thus one does not believe that he knows God, but, instead, actually feels the connection. This sounds quite reverent. However, it is hard to determine what this “sense” to which he regularly refers is. How can one know that the sense he feels is not of the imagination, a yearning to label himself blessed? Perhaps, and most likely, Edwards had a desire to claim that he had seen God. There is no better way to prove his declaration than by proclaiming his experience to be the experience.

I find it difficult to differentiate between what is and is not divine light. If Edwards were to flip his two definitions, his doctrine would still seem just as plausible; the divine light is:

1. realizing one’s own sins,

2. seeing the image of god,

3. discovering new truths,

4. feeling Jesus’ suffering.

The diving light is not:

1. loving God,

2. granted to any status,

3. gained without effort.

His words are just a matter of opinion; they should not be taken as truths. Again, it makes sense that Edwards would promote his definition of the divine light. By doing so, it becomes quite easy for him to state that he has gotten the “most excellent and divine wisdom that any creature is capable of.”

Introduction

Howdy.

I think I'll introduce myself by telling the story of a boy who introduced himself.

While I was visiting various colleges this past year, I arrived at dozens of situations where I had to introduce myself to other people. I had tailored my announcement speech into a quick, bland blurb: hey, I'm Alex Kowalski from Boston and I'm a history major. I kept it concise and simple because I thought it was better to say less than more so that I didn't create any unintended impressions.

One boy took it too far with a different approach at a Vanderbilt information session. After the first 20 people had introduced themselves in the same boring style that I had, the chance landed on a shaggy brown haired, adolescent looking kid. For some reason, his polar fleece vest made me think nerd right away. But he proved to me that he wasn't.

"I like unicorns," he said in a congested tone. Nothing more. He laughed a little. Nobody was impressed. I heard a few coughs; his parents smiled as if they approved of his comment. "Okay then," said the tour guide as he nervously eyed the audience.

My dad, who is not openly critical of anyone, turned to me and said, "What a dweeb! I have never seen someone who fits that title so well." He was right - the boy wasn't a nerd, a dork, a lame-o, a loser, but simply a dweeb.

Now I don't want to appear as a dweeb, so here is my altered, formal introduction:

Hey, my name is Alex Kowalski, I'm from Boston, and I don't like unicorns.