Conspiracy in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49

Abstract

The present research analyses the issue of conspiracy in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, in order to study how postmodern features, such as; narrative structures, ambiguity and symbolic language, contribute to the creation of a sense of paranoia and epistemological uncertainty. The protagonist (Oedipa Maas) is presented as the reader's guide through a fragmented reality, and the focus is on the Trystero system as a search for meaning in a world warped by information, technology and noise.