The Daisy Buchanan within Oedipa Maas

I realize that we’ve already discussed “The Crying of Lot 49” in class, so I hope it’s not too late for me to be submitting this blog. I got into the habit of posting on Thursday nights and it didn’t even occur to me that I might need to get mine in sooner this week. So if this is too late, sorry!!

As I was reading “The Crying of Lot 49” I kept comparing Oedipa to Daisy Buchanan. I kept finding striking similarities between the two. For example, both have a child like quality. I felt like Oedipa wasn’t necessarily hallucinating the plot but rather she was creating a sort of childish fantasy that allowed her to escape from the boredom of the life of a suburban house wife. Daisy was also very child like. She too acts like a child to escape from the pain of her Tom’s, her husband’s, frequent infidelity. Both women are bored with their lives and desperately search for any source of excitement or entertainment. I believe this is why Oedipa is sucked into the mysterious plot behind the horn and why Daisy strings Gatsby along only to choose Tom in the end. Furthermore, both of these female characters lived in a time period that was saturated with partying and substance abuse. The 1920’s were a time of prosperity in America and Americans celebrated this prosperity with parties, alcohol, drugs, and promiscuity, much like the way Americans recuperated from WWII in the 1960’s. Both Daisy and Oedipa live superficial lives in which their relationships have very little meaning. Both women are unfaithful to their husbands and neither appears to feel any guilt regarding their infidelity. Also, both women live lives filled with paranoia. Oedipa is paranoid about this elaborate scheme that she has stumbled upon, constantly worrying herself with the meaning behind the horn symbol to the point that it drives her crazy. Daisy is overcome by her paranoia after she and Gatsby struck and killed Myrtle Wilson with Gatsby’s car, and she allows Gatsby to take the blame for Myrtle’s death even though she was driving the car (further proof that she didn’t take much stock in her relationships). Also, I noticed the connection between Oedipa and Pierce’s relationship and the relationship between Daisy and Jay Gatsby. Both men are past relationships that the women had before they were married. Both relationships bring back strong memories of passion and nostalgia for the women and neither Oedipa nor Daisy is completely over their respective man. Overall, I became more and more intrigued as I continued to find parallels between Oedipa Maas and Daisy Buchanan. It’s interesting how two works of literature can be linked despite the fact that they were written about 4 decades apart.