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.