Oedipa Maas

After reading the first chapter of our new book, I definitely think there’s something strange going on with our heroine, Oedipa Maas. Oedipa is introduced to us as an ordinary housewife living a monotonous wife, until she receives a letter that makes her an executor of her late ex-boyfriend’s will. Looking at the characters Oedipa interacts with in the first chapter, they all seem really odd and more than a little psychotic. First of all, she has a husband who works as a radio DJ, but is constantly troubled by his last job as a car salesman. Her psychiatrist, Dr. Hilarious, wants her to be a test subject in his experiment involving giving tranquilizers to housewives. Her lawyer seems to be infatuated with her and wants her to elope with him. Finally, she also has a millionaire ex-boyfriend, Pierce, whom she hasn’t spoken to since a 3am call from a year ago, when Pierce just imitated accents and spoke nonsense to her. The descriptions of these characters are just so absurd that it makes me wonder exactly how accurate they are. Since the chapter is written in a limited third-person point of view around Oedipa’s thoughts and perspectives, these descriptions are most likely only what Oedipa thinks, and thus can hardly be trusted. Are all these characters really all lunatics like Oedipa describes them as, or is Oedipa actually the mad one who believes that everyone else is either mad or out to get her? 

I'd also like to point out the link between Oedipa and Norman Bates from Psycho. Oedipa is obviously named after Oedipus, the ancient Greek hero who fell in love with his mother. After watching the movie, I think Normal Bates definitely also has the Oedipus complex. Bates was so obsessed with his mother that he killed her out of jealousy when she has found another man. However, he also regrets his actions immensely and 'preserves' his mother after her death by keeping her body and developing a second personality that is his mother. If the name 'Oedipa' is supposed to create a link to Oedipus, could the author also mean for her to be comparable to Norman Bates and hint that she might possess a second personality too? I guess we’ll have to read more to find out.