여성주의적 관점에서 본 『49 호 품목의 경매』 = A Feministic Reading of The Crying of Lot 49

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the manner in which Thomas Pynchon portrayed a woman in The Crying of Lot 49. Unlike V. in which the author seems to posit women as a metaphor for many of the frustrations and ills that plague twentieth century America, The Crying of Lot 49 reverses some conventional conviction toward women, Oedipa Maas assumes the traditional male tasks of executer of a will, interpreter of literature The Courier's Tragedy, and quester.
Pynchon gives Oedipa, the feminized name of Sophoclean Oedipus, such sexualized weapons as "gut fear and female cunning." With female cunning Oedipa tries to decipher codes about the Tristero system which is, or is imagined to be, an underground communications network. But her "gut fear" does not allow her to ensure its existence.
She encounters a lot of men who are aware of communication beyond the surface noises of life, but loses contact with them. She cannot stand her isolation, waiting for a male agent who ensures her the Tristero. Therefore as a woman, she cannot find the way inside, remaining as "only observer" and "other" both in official and underground cultures. Even if Pynchon's experimental impulse has challenged the hegemony of conventional discourse, his viewpoint of women has not much changed.