Can We Judge Pychon?

I can't help noticing how times have change even through literature, well that is obvious isn't it? Writing has accompanied humans since it was created showing the change of humanity. You may be wondering why am I writing this, what does it have to do with The Crying Of Lot 49, is there a pint on reading this blog? Well there is a point. This book was written in 1966 a period of modernization in the USA, the opening of a new era, a new mentality. In class we were asked to write historic events occurring in that time, and most of us came up with drugs, hippies etc. But one particular event just led me to more conclusions and that was Martin Luther King and Racism. Pynchon wrote this book in a critical period of racism, were it was beginning to be something of the past but was still present. In chapter 4, and through out the whole book I was annoyed by the way he described people from other races. He wrote: "Around them, all Negroes carried gunboats of mashed potatoes,spinach,shrimp,zucchini,pot roast,the long, glittering steam tables,preparing to feed noontide invasion of Yoyodyne workers"(65). The word Negro is a very depicting word, a discrimination to narrow it down a little. But although it sounds a but harsh on them, it was how they were treated, they were no African Americans they were Negroes who were not as capable as White people.

There is also some kind of resentment towards hispanics Pynchon writes:"For she had undergone her own educating at a time of nerves,blandness, and retreat among not only her fellow students but also most of the visible structure around and ahead of them, this having been a national reflex to certain pathologies in high places only death had had the power to cure, and this Berkeley was like no somnolent Siwash out of her own past at all, but more akin to those far eastern or Latin American universities you read about,those autonomous culture media where the most beloved of folklores ,cataclysm of dissent voiced, suicidal of commitments chosen--the sort that bring governments down"(83).  There is a clear target to the Latin American culture and education, he is comparing Oedipas education to ours showing how it fails, leaning to America as the only prosperous choice. We have to recall that in that time most of the Mexicans migrated to the USA and the opportunities given could not be compared to what hispanics lived before.

It may be sound a bit bitter but it was the time in which the book was written, there was racism and although the time was changing it was still present in most of the cases.