The Housewife and Her Demons

Underneath the plot of Crying of Lot 49, consisting of Oedipa and her futile search for meaning in her life, lies a piece of social history.  Written in 1965, this story is a comment on the standard of living for two radically different sides of the social spectrum: the stereotypical suburban housewife, and the far-out, wide-thinking crowd whose minds were, shall we say, “enhanced” at the time.  Although the story follows Oedipa on what ends up being a fruitless search, her desire to break away from her routine life is achieved.  She meets many forward-thinking people, which in comparison to her static mindset being a suburban housewife, are revolutionary in their views and interpretations of their tripped-out world.

Both sides of the feminist spectrum are also examined in this novel; again, the suburban, white, middle class housewife at the far left, and the radical, bra-burning, action-taking feminist on the far right.  We don’t ever see this active a feminist character in this story, but amongst the culture in which the story was written, it is implied through the language that Oedipa is not one of these radical women.  In fact, she seems as if she wants to be more aggressive in taking a stand for herself and for others’ rights, but is too meek and sheltered to actually take action, which is poked at by satire in the story.  For example, when she talks to Winner, the man who mass produces swastika armbands for teenagers, he drops the “n-bomb” several times, and Oedipa isn’t even sure if she should have wanted to call him a name or hit him with something, she just walks away, becoming her same passive self that she started out as wanting to escape from.  This story is essentially, among other things, a satire of the feminist movement that was happening in the 1960’s, and as we discussed in class, it is unclear whether or not Thomas Pynchon is actually a feminist or not.  He simply states that Oedipa is not one of those women to break the mold of housewife suburbia.