In Chapter 5, of “The Crying of Lot 49,” Oedipa is on her quest to discover the significant meaning of the symbol she is always seeing wherever she goes. On her quest, she goes to see Nafastis who has invented this machine that goes against the Third Law of Thermodynamics, experimented on people determing whether or not they are “sensitive.” Meeting Nafastis, Oedipa says, “He said, you could tell me whether or not I’m a ‘sensitive’.” I believe Oedipa wants to see if she is sensitive because she questions her morals. During the beginning chapters of 1 and 2, she has an affair with Metzger, and other numerous (random) men. It is clear that because she is “man hopping” she is looking for an emotional quality or that she just doesn’t care. In a sense, I believe Oedipa is “deplorable,” which means “being a subject of disapproval or regret.” I know that she follows her instincts and desires to discover meaning in her own ways, however the moral accompanying them are haywire.
On page 95, “The repetition of symbols was to be enough, without trauma as well perhaps to attenuate it or even jar it altogether loose from her memory. She was meant to remember.” During this even occurring in chapter 5, I can see how driven Oedipa is to discover the meaning of the horn, and the reason she continues to see it. I believe Oedipa wants to find meaning in her life, maybe that’s why she has quite a number of beaus. A word to describe the action of Oedipa’s personality, as of now in the novel is “perplexed.” Perplexed means “to cause to be puzzled or bewildered what is not understood or certain; to confuse mentally.” Oedipa wants to discover things independently, that’s why she’s on her own. She wants to discover the truth behind the (hidden) conspiracy of stamps she’s discovered.
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