Episodic characters : constructing Oedipa's fractured perception of reality in Thomas Pynchon's "The crying of lot 49"

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to analyse the secondary characters and the means by which they influence the main character, Oedipa, in Thomas Pynchon’s novel The Crying of Lot 49. The thesis is composed of four main parts: the introduction, the literature review, the empirical analysis and the conclusion. The introduction gives a brief overview of postmodernist novels and of Pynchon’s works in particular. It also features a short overview of the thesis. The literature overview discusses the research that has already been done on Pynchon and focuses on the topics that are important for this thesis: entropy, paranoia and characterization. The empirical chapter analyses the secondary characters, discusses their influence on the protagonist and suggests the techniques used to achieve the effect. The conclusion summarises the main findings of the thesis.