• 영미문화
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• 제9권1호
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• pp.273-295
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• 2009

As Oedipa Mass, the heroine of Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, is apparently associated with Oedipus, the hero in Sophocles' tragedy, this paper aims to show some of their similarities in quest theme and plot development as well as in the use of dramatic irony. Oedipus the King opens with a priest's pleas to relieve the Theban people from a plague and the king's promise to rid its cause by avenging the murder of the former king, as told by the oracle. Lot 49 begins as a Los Angeles law firm informs Oedipa that she is named as the executrix in her former lover Inverarity's will to sort out the mogul's estate. Ironically, however, Oedipus' investigation reveals himself to be the very cause of the national disaster, the murderer for whom he searched. Likewise, Oedipa starts her inquiry dedicating herself to make sense out of what Inverarity had left behind, only to find that the legacy was America. Sophocles and Pynchon both employ dramatic irony to provide a controlling principle for plot development in their works. In Oedipus the King, Sophocles creates mounting tension as well as distance between the reader's knowledge and the protagonist's ignorance, compressing the play's action into the moment that Oedipus discovers his real identity. For dramatic irony, however, Pynchon tends to work through authorial comments and utilize allegorical meanings of the characters' names, directing his novel at illuminating Oedipa's discovery of Inverarity's legacy as well as the meaning of Tristero, an underground postal service system. Unlike Oedipus the King that proceeds on a single line of action, Lot 49 develops in esoteric, multi-layered allusions and intricately-interrelated double strains involving Oedipa's roles as executrix and quester. At the end of Sophocles' tragedy, Oedipus stabs his eyes and decides to live in exile, realizing that, blinded, he begot his children through his mother; Oedipa comes to a painful realization that she allowed her former lover to create death-orienting America without her diversity and moral system in old times. As Oedipa now discovers herself through her search for Tristero, her tragic spirit lies in her determination to confront her binary choices between two Americas: transcendence or entropy, the Tristero possibility or Inverarity's America. Ultimately, Oedipa tries to find who will be the bidder for the Tristero forged stamps designated as lot 49, awaiting the auctioneer's cry and the "crying" of a new-born America.

• 한국산학기술학회논문지
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• 제17권7호
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• pp.451-458
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• 2016

"제49호 품목의 경매"는 '트리스테로'라는 미스터리한 우편조직의 진실을 찾아가는 오이디파 마스를 통해 작가의 의도를 우리에게 보여주고 있다. 많은 주제 중에서 아마도 가장 중요하고 만연되어 있는 것은 '환각'이라고 할 수 있고, 이는 이 작품의 다른 주제들을 이해하는데 도움을 준다. 이 작품에 내재하는 또 다른 중요한 주제는 바로 '음모'이다. 하지만, 제정신이 아닌 세계에서 현실과 환상을 구별하는 것은 정말로 어려운 일이다. 따라서 트리스테로에 대한 존재가 실제 음모인지 아니면 단순한 환각인지는 확실하지 않다. 트리스테로에 대한 정보가 드러난 이후의 세계는 오이디파에게 친숙했던 세계와는 전혀 다른 세계였고, 트리스테로에 대한 그녀의 탐색은 더 이상 단순한 호기심이 아니었고 그녀는 어떻게든 그 닫혀있는 세계에서 벗어나야만 했다. 그녀가 현실로 돌아가기 위해서는 트리스테로의 비밀을 발견해야만 했었고, 그녀가 보고 들은 것들을 받아들이기 위해서 그녀가 환각 증세를 가지게 되는 것은 아마도 그 상황에 합당한 것이라고 할 수 있다.