Between Solitude And Loneliness

When referring to loneliness, we are referring to the pain of being alone. Pretty different from solitude, which expresses the glory of being alone. Being alone doesn’t necessarily refer to suffering, so, is Oedipa’s status quo loneliness or solitude? It is evident that throughout the story, Oedipa has become isolated from other people since the moment she left her husband to execute Pierce’s will. Oedipa’s pure image of complete isolation can be depicted when being alone at the bar: “Oedipa sat, feeling as alone as she ever had, now the only woman, she saw, in a room full of drunken male homosexuals” (94). Apart from being alone, we can notice how she is one of the only female characters mentioned in the story thus far. In her engagement of mysteries, Oedipa is surrounded by male figures, fact that leads to a resolution for the boredom and isolation that evinces her. The solution: sex. You might me thinking, “Sex, always sex, is it coincidence that’s always the solution?” The question is, is it a solution or a new problem?

In this novel in particular, sexual affairs are seen as a more common act than usually depicted nowadays. I didn’t live in the sixties but I deny the fact that a married woman would go and have sex with strangers just for the fun of it. Earlier in the book we saw how she had sex with Metzger the same day she met him. Once again in this chapter, John Nefastis invites her to have sex with him, but she denies. Hence, sex is portrayed as being a way to avoid boredom rather than to achieve sexual satisfaction. To Oedipa, her isolation leads her to sexual affairs which lead to the withdrawal from companions like her husband, physician, and God: “Story of my life, she thought, Mucho won’t talk to me, Hilarius won’t listen, Clerk Maxwell didn’t even look at me, and this group, God knows. Despair came over her” (94). We can infer that Oedipa is embracing the consequences of being alone. But it seems by her actions, and by Pynchon’s prose, that she is continuing her progression. After being overwhelmed by the prospect of so many possibilities, so many truths, she comes to an understanding that this ambiguity allows her the freedom of choice, to decide which truth will be hers to pursue. In the end she is alone, embracing loneliness or solitude?