Thomas Pynchon's novel, The Cry of Lot 49, is set in California in the 1960s in the aftermath of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the crisis Cuban missile defense and in the midst of the Vietnam War. It is also a time of counterculture and social revolution where drug use becomes popular and sexuality is explored. This historical context is evident in the novel as the main character, Oedipa, attempts to establish order and meaning in life. This essay will explore how Pynchon uses Oedipa as a projection of growing paranoia during this historical era. Using Brian L. Keeley's article, "Of Conspiracy Theories," I will support the idea that the first five chapters of Pynchon's novel are a cautionary tale about subscribing to conspiracy theories, with Oedipa as an example of a conspiracy theorist. Pynchon weaves intricate absurdist plots into his novel to support how the absurd is involved in becoming a conspiracy theorist. Most significant is Oedipa's exhaustive search for meaning. He becomes irrational in this quest, unraveling threads of conspiracy theories that never seem to reach a definitive conclusion and, instead, only lead to further questions for Oedipa and the reader. Linda W. Wagner describes the quest this way: The discovery to which Oedipa is led is... that of living, as a person, a human being, in a culture that is already paranoid beyond belief (the very act of speaking , with ease, for some is fraught with danger; with the act of writing, even letters, one takes much greater risks). Pynchon's attention falls just as often, and with just as much interest, on the culture he observes. Pynchon is creating an America… in a spirit not unlike that of Fitzgerald forty years earlier, when he created The Great Gatsby. (Wa... half the paper... that's what he believes. Subscribing to a theory results in a new thread to follow, until he wonders if there is any meaning and if this research will ever be able to allo Likewise, in a close reading of the novel, readers also travel on this journey, a journey in which they experience the irrationality and disorientation that comes from conspiracies proceeding with caution in the face of conspiracy theories Works Cited Keeley, Brian L. " Of Conspiracy Theories." 49. New York: Perennial Classics, 1966. Print.Wagner, Linda W. "A Note on Oedipa the Roadrunner." The Journal of Narrative Technique 4.2 (1974): 155-61 Web. 2013.