How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The sight of sawdust, even pencil shavings, made him wince, his own kind being known to use it for hushing sick transmissions. (1.11)
How does Mucho become isolated from the world around him through his own self-loathing?
Quote #2
A salad of despair, in a gray dressing of ash, condensed exhaust, body wastes. (1.12)
What causes Mucho to view used automobiles this way? What does this view tell us about his own sense of loneliness and isolation?
Quote #3
"Think of it. […] A whole underworld of suicides who failed. All keeping in touch through that secret delivery system. What do they tell each other?" (5.75)
How is the Tristero meant to isolate the aliens, the dispossessed, the sick and the lonely? If that is what it actually does, is it such a bad thing?
Quote #4
She was overcome all at once by a need to touch him, as if she could not believe in him, or would not remember him, without it. (5.107)
Why is Oedipa so drawn to the tattooed sailor? Is it just that she feels isolated from other human beings or that she feels isolated from reality itself?
Quote #5
"In the dream I'd be going about a normal day's business and suddenly, with no warning, there'd be the sign. We were a member of the National Automobile Dealers' Association. N.A.D.A. Just this creaking metal sign that said nada, nada against the blue sky. I used to wake up hollering." (5.322)
There are not too many fully drawn realistic characters in Lot 49: Does Mucho's terror seem real or silly? Does it explain why he turned to LSD to escape the feeling?
Quote #6
They are stripping from me she said subvocally—feeling like a fluttering curtain in a very high window, moving up to then out over the abyss—they are stripping away, one by one, my men. (6.41)
Who is "they"? What do you make of the fact that Oedipa is systematically abandoned by every significant man in her life as the novel winds to a close?
Quote #7
Oedipa sat on the earth, ass getting cold, wondering whether, as Driblette had suggested that night from the shower, some version of herself hadn't vanished with him. Perhaps her mind would go on flexing psychic muscles that no longer existed; would be betrayed and mocked by a phantom self as the amputee is by a phantom limb. (6.81)
Why do you think Oedipa is so drawn to Driblette? How do people live on in our memories after we lose them, like "a phantom limb"?
Quote #8
"Because it may be a practical joke for you, but it stopped being one for me a few hours ago. I got drunk and went driving on these freeways. Next time I may be more deliberate. For the love of God, human life, whatever you respect, please Help me." (6.138)
Why is it that the only person Oedipa can reach out to at the end of the novel is the anonymous Inamorati Anonymous member, a man trying to kick the addiction to love?
Quote #9
She stood between the public booth and the rented car, in the night, her isolation complete, and tried to face the sea. But she'd lost her bearings. (6.143)
How did Oedipa get to this position? Why is it only now that she can have the realization she does about the nature of America?
Quote #10
San Narciso was a name; an incident among our climactic records of dreams and what dreams became among our accumulated daylight, a moment's squall-lie or tornado's touchdown among the higher, more continental solemnities—storm-systems of group suffering and need, prevailing winds of affluence. (6.144)
How does Oedipa's own predicament inform her vision of what America is? Why do you think she describes mass "suffering and need" in terms of climactic movements?