White Noice Chapter 23-28

The story picks up a little more in this section as Jack finds Babbete has been hiding Dylar underneath the radiator cover. Jack eventually confronts her about this and she explains to him the entire story of how she is consumed with death and she takes these pills to help her not focus on them. But there were key things in the text that stuck out to me.

On page 171 Jack and Steffie are talking about calling Babbette's doctor and asking him about Dylar. In the text it says, "Call him at home," She said. "Wake him up. trick him into telling us what we want to know." First reading this I thought to myself that Steffie maybe wanted to call the doctor and have him tell them that Dylar was alright and that he prescribed it to Babbette so that they could feel better about the situation. But reading it a second time I got a different meaning from it. It seemed to me as if she wanted to call the doctor and coerce him into telling them everything he knew about Dylar wether it be good or bad. They wanted to force the doctor to say what they wanted to hear and not the actual truth of the matter. The word "trick" was a key word in this sentence. It does not say anything along the lines of "lets see what he says" or "get him to tell" but trick, implying that they think he will be reluctant to say anything about the medication so they are going to have to use a form of trickery in order to get him to talk. The real thing that caught my attention about this sentence was just the word structure in the sentence. Trick just implies to me that she felt some kind of necessity that the doctor wasn't going to be honest and they needed to resort to some other means of getting him to talk.

On page 177 Jack has confronted Babbette about the Dylar and they are discussing how he found it and that Steffie is worried about Babbette. In the middle of they page she immediately changes the subject of the conversation in an abrupt manner and just says, "Do you know what these cold gray leaden days make me want to do?" She then goes on to say she wants to become intimate with Jack. We discussed in class how she will change the subject when it becomes on her, but is she using sexuality to divert the attention? Many women have this power over significant others and they will exercise it to divert the attention on themselves. Because honestly as a guy who is going to say no to that, really? The point I am trying to make is that in my opinion when a woman uses sexual means to get out of a situation like that, they are very ashamed of what is being asked of them and want to have nothing to do with talking about it to the other person.

Once again the main recurring theme in these chapters is death. Babbette has made it very clear that she is consumed by it, almost like an OCD you could say. She has resorted to taking pills for a way to alleviate some of the pain she is obviously going through. What Dellilo thinks about death I'm not sure about but it is definitely the main theme of this book and I am curious to see what other things about death come up in the story later.

White Noise Chapter 21-22

Chapter 21 starts off on part two of the book called "The Airborne Toxic Event". This part of the book has more action than the previous chapters of the book. Also as in chapters there are key things that I caught while reading that have a very deep and profound meaning.

To start with Delillo seems to have a fascination with death it was talked about many times in Chapter 21 and 22. After Jack has filled his car up with gas and has been informed by the SIMUVAC personnel that the computers have many blinking stars next to his name indicating he is at a high risk he begins to struggle with the idea of death. on page 137 it says, "Death has entered." He goes on also to say, "It is when death is rendered graphically, is televised so to speak, that you sense an eerie separation between your condition and yourself." This brings up a good point in that one does not like to think of death but when it is portrayed in a visual way we tend to pick up on it more and it becomes almost a depressing agent. As humans we are naturally very visible compared to other species and once again the only ones that know of our "immanent death". So some tend not to focus on it. But when the light is shined on it and you have to acknowledge it it is a weird and mysterious sense you get. You begin to wonder so many different things since no one can explain it. As in the story when he says ..."you sense an eerie separation between your condition and yourself." Can the idea of death become more psychological than death itself? Can the anticipation of it summed up over a lifetime may have greater affects on the body than actually dying? In Chapter 22 on page 162 it says, "It's strange in a way, isn't it,"..."that we can picture the dead." I noticed at the point it seems as though a question is being asked, but there is a period at the end. Wether the publisher made a mistake in the printing or Delillo meant to put the period or forgot I am not sure, that just struck me as odd but maybe it's a grammar rule I'm not aware of. This also refers to the visual aspect of "seeing death". You can see a dead person but is what your seeing really death in its true form or just the aftermath of what death is capable of?

On page 141 Jack says, "If there is a secular equivalent of sanding in a great spired cathedral with marble pillars and streams of mystical light slanting through two-tier Gothic windows, it would be watching children in their little bedrooms fast asleep." Religion has been hinted at int he book before but this one stuck out to me. Could possibly he be saying that his children bring him the same awe and wonder as a Catholic priest in awe of God's work? The next sentence only says. "Girls especially". Does he mean that maybe the wondrous awe of a female is something to be desired more than a male, in case that the male body is made for work and is brunt, but the female body is elegant and supple and much more aesthetically pleasing? Im not exactly sure what is meant by that but it could have subtextual meaning.

All in all this part of the story had "more" of a plot and it definitely picked up from previous chapters. Death is definitely a main part of this story and I'm curious to see what other parts it plays as the story tells itself out.

White Noise Chapters 13-20

I feel like in reading this book especially these chapters that many issues of the human way especially with death. Death is referred to many times in these chapters and also I feel there is a lot of discussion on dealing with issues in someone's life and how they deal with that.

In reading these chapters I have started to notice how the author says subtle things in the story wether or not they be of any importance I have noticed a few. On page 62 Jack is talking to Denise and Denise is worried about one of the pills Babbett is taking. Jack near the bottom of the page says .."Everybody takes something". He is referring to medications that he takes and that others take too. Is he implying everyone has some underlying condition wether it be for a mental problem, virus, or other ailment. Is he concluding to the fact that everyone has their own problems in their own ways and everyone deals with it somehow or another wether it be medication, drugs, or something else to deal with the stresses of life? Babbette says she can never sleep and has nightmares, this would make the reader believe this is what he is referring to trying to tell his child that people have problems sometimes and they need things to help coax them.

Another think that probably stuck out to me the most was on page 73. Near the bottom the book reads, "To become a crowd is to keep out death. To break off from the crowd is to risk death as an individual to face dying alone. Crows came for this reason above all others." This to me stood out the most because as humans we are the only "animals" that realize their ultimatum which is dying at some point. Humans have an uncontrollable desire to be social almost as if to share in the suffering we know we will endure later. Does the crowd in the story believe if they are in a group it will be harder for death to single them out? What is the fascination of sharing in a suffering with other human beings. The outcome is still the same but something of the consolance of someone who knows what you are going through has many psychological effects.

On page 91 there is a man who is telling the story of a plane crash. He makes a very good point in his telling of the story about how the first pilot came over the loudspeaker and said, "We're falling out of the sky!" All the passengers were freaking out worried. Later on the next page the other pilot comes on saying "Crash landing, crash landing." Instantly the passengers fears subdue a little bit because of one word that was added on. Its amazing how one word can change emotions in someone wether it be on a small or large scale. The people are so afraid of death that they cling to any hope of longevity that they can get.

One last thing I noticed was in the story the author will throw random bits of nothing (that I can decipher anyways) in the story. On page 99 the author writes, "The emptiness, the sense of cosmic darkness." The next line says, "MasterCard, Visa, American Express." Unless the author is referring to somehow how those major credit cards can refer to cosmic darkness I'm not sure but I will look for more of those thru-ought the rest of the story and see if I see any correlationg

The Crying of Lot 49 Chapters 5 & 6

Chapter 5

These two chapters were the longest in the book. In this chapter Oedipa travels to Berkley to see Nefastis, the inventor of the machine that defies the Second Law of Thermodynamics. She tells Nefastis she thinks she is a sensitive. She tries to get the machine to work and cannot make the machine move. After this is done Nefastis says to her, " It's OK, Please don't cry. Come on in on the couch. The news will be on any minute. We can do it there." "Do what", she says. Nefastis replies, "Have sexual intercourse." Oedipa is seen as a sex object throughout the entire book. Always having men gawk at her and touch her. In the beginning of the book she has sex with Metzger because she is bored of her own sex life with her husband. This book has an underlying tone of sexuality becoming more care free than it had been in earlier years in America. The story takes place in different places in California. Back in the 50's and 60's this is where the major sexual revolution started in America. So easy to say that this book or any book around this time period would have a major underlying tone of sexuality. Oedipa was riding a bus to the airport she noticed on the back of the seat scribbling of the post horn with the word DEATH next to it. Next to that it said Don't Ever Antagonize The Horn. She also found papers saying, If you know what this means, you know where to find more; this was referring to the horn. These signs and symbols only further to her paranoia which becomes increasingly more evident throughout the rest of the book. Another odd occurrence happens while Oedipa was in the airport she saw a mother and son talking. The mother was telling the boy to make sure to send male via WASTE, saying the government will read her mail. As the boy leaves the mother the son the sound.."was kissing his mother passionately goodbye, using his tongue. Is Thomas Pynchon referring to incest in his story? Or could this be another underlying theme of sexuality that was becoming more acceptable in the US just like homosexuality was?

Chapter 6

Throughout the whole book you may notice there is many songs. Honestly I am not sure what this is for, maybe it is to put satirical humor because some of the songs are funny. Maybe the songs have a message in them to help the reader to realize more about the story. This chapter is mainly about how the Tristero system and its history. Sometimes going into such penial details about things. Also in this chapter though Oedipa becomes increasingly isolated and reverts to almost little or no human contact. She becomes increasingly paranoid about if Pierce had made this conspiracy of The Tristero. The book says, "He might himself have discovered the Tristero, and encrypted that in the will, buying into just enough to be sure she'd find it. Or he might even have tried to survive death, as a paranoia; as a pure conspiracy against someone he loved. Pierce's stamp collection is going to be auctioned off, as Lot 49. The auctioning off of it is called "crying" hence the title of the book The Crying of Lot 49. Oedipa wonders though if one of the bidders may be Pierce and he is still alive, only doing this as a cruel joke to her. There is no real ending to the book, the last line, "The auctioneer cleared his throat. Oedipa settled back, to await the crying of lot 49." This ending leaves much to the imagination no questions answered. Pynchon is leaving the story up for grabs for the reader to take whatever route they want to take for the ending.

The Crying of Lot 49 Chapters 3 and 4

Oedipa ends up sleeping with Metzger near the beginning of this chapter. She starts to thin of herself as Repunzal and that someone is going to come ask her to just let her hair down. She feels that if she can figure out the Tristero System she can get out of her tower and end captivity. She thinks that infedelity with Metzger will be the starting point of this. The rest of Chapter 3 discusses how Oedipa and Metzger go to a bar called the Scope. While there they meet a man named Mike Fallopian who is a member of the Peter Pinguin Society which is a very right wing society. Oedipa goes to the bathroom and sees a strange marking on the wall that says underneath "interested in fun, contact Kirby waste only. She has no idea what this means but writes it down and dismesses it for the time being. She goes to the table and hears the men discussing the postal service and talk about Fallopian's book. After this they travel to Lake Inverarity, one of Pierce's estates. They meet Manny di Presso who is trying to sue Inveraritys estate for one of his clients. His client gave Iverarity bones to make into a special charcoal . The Paranoids have come on this trip also and tell Oedipa that this sounds a lot like The Courier's Tragedy, a revenge drama. Oedipa and Metzger go to the play, after the show Oedipa goes backstage to speak with a man named Dribblette about the bones but they end up discussing the play instead of the bones.

Chapter 4

Oedipa reads the will again and notices it mention Yoyodyne, she goes to the plant and meets Clayton Chiclitz, and he gives her a tour. She comes upon an office and sees the Tristero symbol that she saw in the bathroom. The man in the office os Stanley Kotecks. He begins to tell her about a machine that defies The Second Law of Thermodynamics which says you cannot have perpetual motion. He says only sensitives can make the machine run. So Oedipa suspects she is a sensitive and goes to Berkeley to be tested. On her way to Berkeley she stops at Vesperhaven and old person home. She meats a man Mr. Toth. He shows her a ring he is in possession of and it has the post horn symbol she saw in the bathroom on it. She talks to Fallopian about this and he can see a connection between the major mail companys and the Indians. Oedipa feels like she is coming on to a mass conspiracy.