MacGuffin in The Crying of Lot 49
Mr. Strickland introduced the MacGuffin technique in the quiz on Psycho. MacGuffin is a plot device that motivates certain actions of the characters in order to advance the plot, but the MacGuffin itself is not necessarily important to the audience. In Psycho, the stolen $40,000 and the death of Marion Crane are both MacGuffin. The money acts as a motive for Marion's escape and leads to Marion's encounter with Norman Bates, but the rest of the story is not about the money at all. Similarly, Marion is killed half way through the film, but her death is rather meaningless.
While reading The Crying of Lot 49, I also found frequent usage of MacGuffin by Pynchon. For example, the letter that informs Oedipa to be the coexecutor of Pierce's will in the beginning of the story seems extremely important. Without the letter, Oedipa would never go to San Narciso and be puzzled by Trystero mystery. However, Oedipa's mission as the co-executor is never mentioned again as she gets deeply drawn into solving the mystery. Her encounter with Metzger can also be considered as a MacGuffin since Metzger did not really contribute anything to the plot except for the affair. His disappearance is so trivia that Oedipa hardly reveals any feeling for that.
I think the MacGuffin technique especially suits the novella. Pynchon repetitively portrays the sense of isolation that Oedipa feels. He writes that "there was nobody who could help her. Nobody in the world. They were all on something, mad, possible enemies, dead" (141). For Oedipa, everyone that she knows leaves her, and everything that used to matter to her now becomes irrelevant. With MacGuffins, Pynchon is creating a sense of uncertainty and insecurity. Everything that seems reliable on the surface can be a lie, only leaving Oedipa to struggle on her own.
While reading The Crying of Lot 49, I also found frequent usage of MacGuffin by Pynchon. For example, the letter that informs Oedipa to be the coexecutor of Pierce's will in the beginning of the story seems extremely important. Without the letter, Oedipa would never go to San Narciso and be puzzled by Trystero mystery. However, Oedipa's mission as the co-executor is never mentioned again as she gets deeply drawn into solving the mystery. Her encounter with Metzger can also be considered as a MacGuffin since Metzger did not really contribute anything to the plot except for the affair. His disappearance is so trivia that Oedipa hardly reveals any feeling for that.
I think the MacGuffin technique especially suits the novella. Pynchon repetitively portrays the sense of isolation that Oedipa feels. He writes that "there was nobody who could help her. Nobody in the world. They were all on something, mad, possible enemies, dead" (141). For Oedipa, everyone that she knows leaves her, and everything that used to matter to her now becomes irrelevant. With MacGuffins, Pynchon is creating a sense of uncertainty and insecurity. Everything that seems reliable on the surface can be a lie, only leaving Oedipa to struggle on her own.
It dawned on me the other day that the only work Oedipa had done to settle Pierce's estate was to appraise his stamp collection. It seems strange that the entire purpose of her trip was ignored, but like you said, it was just a macguffin. The money and psycho and the death of Pierce in Lot 49 seem like such important concepts, but it is amazing how quickly I forgot about them when introduced with the concept of a mentally ill serial killer and an underground mail delivery system. Lot 49 seems like a perfect book for this because the author has no qualms with introducing progressively more outlandish concepts.
ReplyDeleteI like how you noticed the MacGuffins in the book. I think that other than creating uncertainty for Oedipa, the MacGuffins also add disorder to the story since we're constantly introduced to new events and clues that really have no use in the rest of the book. This makes it quite hard to keep track of everything that's happened, especially when the narrator just rambles on about things that don't really follow each other logically.
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