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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What happens to Oedipa after she knocks on the door of Dr. Hilarius's office in Chapter 5?

2. What does Stanley Koteks ask Oedipa to look into at Yoyodyne when he thinks she is connected to the company?

3. What does the Nefastis Machine do?

4. Oedipa returns to Echo Courts to find the Paranoids in shock because _________ ran off with one of their girlfriends.

5. Why does Oedipa return to Kinneret to see Dr. Hilarius?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the paradox that Oedipa discovers concerning the Trystero couplet from Driblette's play?

2. Why does Nefastis contend that only a sensitive person can work his machine?

3. According to Jesus Arrabal, what is the miracle of Inverarity?

4. Oedipa compares her search for The Tristero to what process?

5. When Oedipa and Metzger go back to The Scope in Chapter 4, Mike Fallopian explains that there exists what kind of underground group?

6. The overall crisis Oedipa faces by the end of the novel could be summed up how?

7. What connection does Oedipa make between the old German stamp with Thurn and Taxis printed on it which has a post horn, resembling the WASTE symbol, in each corner and the scene from The Courier's Tragedy?

8. In addition to visiting John Nefastis, why does Oedipa need to go to Berkeley?

9. What does the historical marker that Oedipa remembers seeing at Fangoso Lagoons commemorate?

10. Why does Oedipa consider her job as co-executor to be similar to Driblette's job as director of a play?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Explain how the Nefastis Machine is used as a metaphor for language within the novel. What does the use of a complicated scientific machine convey about Pynchon's views about language and communication?

Essay Topic 2

The possible crime related to Inverarity's estate, the use of GI bones, is coupled to a Jacobean play about crimes also set in Italy, The Courier's Tragedy. Discuss how the themes of the novel are echoed in the play, as well as referencing the literary significance of Pynchon's use of a play-within-a-play.

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the function of language and its ability or inability to convey truth as a central thematic strand of the novel. How is this theme intertwined with others in The Crying of Lot 49?

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