The Crying of Lot 49: Ch. 4

The majority of this chapter of The Crying of Lot 49 was about the symbols that Oedipa seems to be finding.  In the previous chapter, Oedipa finds a symbol written on a bathroom door that looks like a horn.  She is determined to find out what the symbol really means but knows that it is related to the Yoyodyne Company and the postal service.  She finds a man working in a cubicle at Yoyodyne that was doodling this horn symbol.  The passage reads, “As it turned out he wasn’t working, only doodling with a fat felt pencil this sign: [sign of horn with mute]” (Pynchon 67).  Then again when Genghis Cohen is examining Pierce’s stamp collection he finds that the muted horn symbol is drawn in on many of the stamps.  Oedipa remembers that the “gold once-knotted horn (Pynchon 77)” is the symbol of Thurn and Taxis, a postal company.  Cohen points out that the other line that is coming out of the horn appears to look like a mute.  In other words Oedipa puts it together that whoever these people are they are trying to stop this postal service by creating their own underground service through Yoyodyne.

As this story unravels it becomes more clear about what Oedipa and Metzger are trying to do.  They are discovering the type of business that Pierce was in and how he got all of his money.  The reason why they go to see the play in the previous chapter is because they find out about these bones that are in the middle of a lawsuit.  Someone dug up bones from a burial and it is believed that it was one of Pierce’s companies that were distributing them.  In the end of this chapter Oedipa makes a comparison of these bones to the cemetery that Cohen picked the dandelions from to make his wine.  Oedipa says, “… and bones could still rest in peace, nourishing ghosts of dandelions, no one to plow them up” (Pynchon 79).

Conspiratorial – the act of conspiring, an evil, unlawful, treacherous or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.

Coquette – a woman who flirts lightheartedly with men to win their admiration and affection; flirt

Adenoidal – of or pertaining to the adenoids; having the adenoids enlarged, especially to a decree that interferes with normal breathing.