A recurring theme that can be found in Thomas Pynchon's novel The Cry of Lot 49 is the notion that chaos has a tremendous effect on society. Pynchon engages in a dualistic method of literary technique to generate the realization of the effect chaos has on the world. Just as the character Oedipa must read a series of confusing clues to decipher reality, so the reader must work through seemingly impenetrable mysteries to arrive at the novel's meaning. In essence, therefore, to fully understand the meaning of Pynchon's novel a reader must do exactly what Pierce Inverarity advises Oedipa to do; that is, continuing to juggle the massive reception of information in order to avoid entropy while at the same time deciphering the meaningful clues from the meaningless ones. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Pynchon's protagonist, Oedipa Mass, spends the novel busy searching for clues or debating whether she should involve herself in the mysteries surrounding her. As co-executor of Pierce's estate, Oedipa sets out on an odyssey through various California cities to unravel the repercussions of Inverarity's legacy. The novel returns to the idea of ​​Newtonian forces as action and reaction through the idea that Inverarity still manages to be a moving force despite being in a state of total entropy due to the unfortunate outcome of being a corpse. However, Oedipa's exploration of the truth is not simply physical, as it might be in a simple mystery or detective novel, but is also metaphysical. Oedipa's logic in the novel goes beyond simply carrying out another's will; she is determined to discover some kind of overwhelming meaning to a life that seems besieged by the constant attack on humanity's perceptive abilities by manipulating them with drugs or distracting them with media images. On the one hand, Oedipa's attempt to untangle this morass of information is analogous to that of the Demon. The Demon is able to nullify the law of entropy by producing a "bewildering set of energies" which are produced by destroying "an enormous complex of information" (84 -85). In order for Oedipa to carry out Pierce's advice to "keep bouncing", she must learn to do what the Demon does. Maxwell's Demon may be the symbol that links thermodynamics to the flow of information, but it can act as both truth and lie "depending on where you were: inside, safe, or outside, lost" (105). The lesson that Oedipa learns from this machine and from her experience translating hieroglyphics is that she must somehow create connections to keep everything bouncing and avoid giving in to entropy. Oedipa's quest is therefore not only to make sense of the seemingly senseless world that surrounds her, but, in doing so, to arrive at an understanding of herself. The translation of those hieroglyphs serves as a further metaphor in this sense. When she undertakes this act of translation, Oedipa comes to an important understanding of herself; that his obsession with finding meaning is to "bring something of himself" (90) to that activity. What happens to Oedipa is that she commits a courageous act that few dare to attempt. Rather than recklessly abandon himself to unquestioned assimilation into the system or take the path of an almost insane solipsistic insistence that everything is a conception of his own consciousness, he is confronted with the difficult choice that to continue moving forward and avoid entropy is the effort of constantly deciphering clues and mysteries is necessary. Oedipa begins the novel as another American weakened by.