102 Essay Question: The Crying of Lot 49, by Thomas Pynchon.

Write a three-page (800-word) essay that develops an idea with references throughout the novel. Find people, places or things in the novel where the words in the text add to your reading of a particular key phrase or idea of the book. In other words, there are hints or clues that give a sense of meaning, even confused or confusing meaning. Here are some key pieces of the puzzle.

NOTE: The suggestions I make in these questions are possibilities, a few out of MANY. The main thing with this essay is to find something to write about, and then write three pages. Develop your idea from a starting point, and then follow that logic to wherever it leads.

1. Sensitive. A person is "too sensitive," or tuned into a way of seeing that brings previously unimagined visions into reality. Drugs can play a part—LSD, pot, alcohol, cigarettes. Is there some symbolism that Beaconsfields have filters made of the charred bones of dead American WWII soldiers? Unpack that concept in its symbolic entirety! Emotional reality (Remedios Varo, the green bubble shades, etc.).

2. Technology. The Scope & electronic music. The circuit board. Television. Computers. Oedipa, "stared at by the greenish dead eye of the TV tube." What does it mean that the TV does the staring, is the actor in the scene? She is the passive recipient of its gaze. Do humans use technology, or does technology use humans? Is the metaphor of the demon somehow something akin to the ghost in the machine? What is a ghost? What about the notion of the "couch potato"? Are humans like vegetables to the predator or cultivator that is the machine? What about Stanley Koteks' beef with Yoyodyne about their patents policy? If "it's all teamwork now," then who is responsible? Who creates? Does some amorphous "it" claim rights to any attributable creativity or invention? Is a corporation a person?

3. Trace a Clue. Many smaller parts of the novel function like puzzle pieces. Looking at an image, metaphor, or simile can open up possibilities in interpreting the story. Find a way into the book through one of these individual parts, follow the connections, and try to come up with a unique interpretation.