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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. Tristero y Calavera set up his own postal system and called himself El Desheredado, which meant what?

3. Oedipa reads about Blobb's account of an attack near the Lake of Piety, which left all dead except Blobb and his servant. Who attacked them?

4. Where does Genghis Cohen want to send several of the stamps he is reviewing for Oedipa?

5. What is Stanley Koteks doodling when Oedipa comes up to his desk?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. 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?

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

4. What are the four alternatives Oedipa comes up with to explain her discoveries concerning the Tristero?

5. The men Oedipa meets on her journey end up abandoning her. What were some of their fates and what did they represent?

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

7. What is significant about the fact that the founder of Tristero, Hernando Joaquin de Tristero y Calavera, called himself The Disinherited?

8. Bortz hands Oedipa an ancient book about the Italian travels of Dr. Diocletian Blobb. What does this story have to do with the Trystero?

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

10. What is the story behind the founding of Inamorati Anonymous?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

The presence of numerous male characters in the narrative who are unable to truly love Oedipa alludes to Freud's theory of the Oedipal complex.

1) Explain Freud's theory and how it relates to The Crying of Lot 49.

3) Show specifically what each of these male characters represents to Oedipa and how they abandon her: Metzger, Driblette and Mucho.

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 how the meaninglessness of modern life is a central thematic strand to the narrative of The Crying of Lot 49.

(see the answer keys)

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