The Crying Of Lot 49 Chapter 1: Can Destiny Be Evaded?

Destiny is a thing that can't be evaded. It does not matter how much you try to escape from it, it will always get you. I have always asked myself if that is true. In some ways you can have a pre-determined job or task you have to do. You will never know what this task is but all your decisions and things you do in life spin around this job and eventually gets you to fulfill it. I have always thought of hypothetical situations when I have a proposal for a job or have an opportunity. This will be my supposed destiny but, then I say no to this opportunity and go to another place. In my pre-determined job and destiny is to have said no to that job or opportunity and go and pursue another job or destiny. I always end up saying that it doesn't matter what you do to try to change how things are meant to be because when you change them that change will lead you to how the things were meant to be. In The Crying Of Lot 49 there is a quotation that says "We want you" (pg.8). When I first read this I also imagined the same thing Oedipa and probably you imagined. The picture of Uncle Sam saying this is a very well known picture. Thomas Pynchon might have used such a known picture in this book to relate more to the readers. If instead of referring to this picture he had chosen to refer to a painting that was not as well known then, many of the readers wouldn't imagine themselves seeing the image of Uncle Sam. The quotation also makes an allusion to destiny and fate. When someone says we want you it is almost as thought that was your destiny. As I said destiny can't be evaded because it will always get you even if you go to another place. In the end I think Oedipa will end up helping Dr. Hilarius even though she doesn't want to help him. This can really be similar to what happened to Candide. Candide's destiny was to end up with Lady Cunégonde and many events happened to impede him from having her. In the end his destiny was to end up with her and it did not matter what happened they would end up together because that was what destiny had for them. I think in this case there will also be a lot of playing with the destiny of Oedipa and how will life end up having her do something that she did not wanted in first place.

The other day I was watching CSI and there was a very intelligent killer. In the crime scene the killer had placed objects that had nothing to do with the real happening of the scene. In this case the detectives had a lot of trouble figuring out the case because they followed one clue and ended up getting farther from the truth and then they traced another clue and had the same results. One thing that the detectives learned is that clues and evidence can be sometimes left on purpose to mislead them. There was a similar sense of confusion in this book. According to Pynchon: "That phone line could have pointed any direction, been any length. Its quite ambiguity" (pg.3). This phone call was very similar to the crime scene because it left more questions than answers. Maybe the intention of the caller was to left these questions so Oedipa wouldn't really know what had happened. After reading this I had the impression that the book would have many cases where the ambiguity of the events will make the story misleading. There was also a thing that was different from many books that was that this is full of confusion. After reading chapter one I would say that this book will be full of confusion and many chaotic events. It will be a different confusion from the one we saw in Slaughterhouse-five but, it will have the same effect that is to keep the reader more attentive. I think this book will have a confusion that is based more on the uncertainty of events and on many people that will appear in Oedipa's life.