The Crying of Lot 49 Character Analysis

Oedipa Maas

Oedipa is the protagonist of The Crying of Lot 49, a disillusioned housewife living in the fictional Northern California city of Kinneret-Among-The-Pines. After finding out that her millionaire ex-boyfriend Pierce Inverarity has died and… read analysis of Oedipa Maas

Pierce Inverarity

Inverarity is Oedipa's mysterious millionaire ex-boyfriend who dies before the novel begins and then sets off its entire plot by naming Oedipa as the executor (or “executrix”) of his last will and testament. Although… read analysis of Pierce Inverarity

Metzger

Metzger is Pierce Inverarity’s lawyer, a handsome former child actor who clumsily seduces Oedipa. In fact, Oedipa receives a letter about Inverarity’s will from Metzger in the book’s opening passage, and this is… read analysis of Metzger

Wendell “Mucho” Maas

– Wendell is Oedipa’s husband, a powerless, middling radio DJ at the radio station KCUF who is constantly grumbling about his job. However, he was a used car salesman before, and that was far… read analysis of Wendell “Mucho” Maas

Dr. Hilarius

Dr. Hilarius is Oedipa’s eccentric therapist whose lighthearted name belies the fact that he is actually a former Nazi doctor who performed psychological experiments on Holocaust victims at Buchenwald concentration camp. Although Hilarius generally… read analysis of Dr. Hilarius

Miles

Miles is a teenager who manages the Echo Courts motel and plays in the band the Paranoids. Like his other bandmates, Miles obsessively imitates the Beatles and embraces anything he perceives to be British… read analysis of Miles

The Paranoids

The Paranoids are a band of marijuana-smoking hippie teenagers (including Miles) who closely imitate the Beatles, even to the point of singing in British accents. They provide background music during much of Oedipa… read analysis of The Paranoids

Manny Di Presso

Manny is an acquaintance of Metzger’s who portrays Metzger on a failed TV pilot. While Metzger started out as a child actor and later became a lawyer, Di Presso started as a lawyer, briefly… read analysis of Manny Di Presso

Mike Fallopian

Fallopian is a paranoid Yoyodyne employee whom Oedipa frequently meets at a San Narciso bar called The Scope. Fallopian is writing a book on the conflict between the American government and private postal companies in… read analysis of Mike Fallopian

Randolph Driblette

Driblette is the director of The Courier’s Tragedy; he plays Gennaro in his own production. When Oedipa approaches him after the play to ask about his character’s reference to Trystero and the scene in… read analysis of Randolph Driblette

John Nefastis

Nefastis is a rogue scientist and acquaintance of Stanley Koteks who develops the complicated Nefastis machine in an attempt to disprove the second law of thermodynamics. When Oedipa visits him, Nefastis goes on an… read analysis of John Nefastis

Genghis Cohen

Cohen is Los Angeles’s preeminent stamp expert who helps Oedipa inventory Pierce Inverarity’s stamp collection. Cohen identifies several of Inverarity’s stamps as complex forgeries, probably tied to the W.A.S.T.E. or Tristero mail systems. In… read analysis of Genghis Cohen

Professor Emory Bortz

Bortz is an English professor and Richard Wharfinger expert who teaches at the Pierce Inverarity-funded San Narciso College and spends much of his free time binge-drinking with his students. Oedipa consults him for information… read analysis of Professor Emory Bortz

The Inamorati Anonymous Member

The Inamorati Anonymous member is a man whom Oedipa finds wearing the Tristero horn symbol at a San Francisco gay bar called The Greek Way. The man claims to be straight but explains that he… read analysis of The Inamorati Anonymous Member

The Sailor

The sailor is an elderly alcoholic man with the Tristero horn symbol tattooed on his arm, whom Oedipa meets in San Francisco. He asks Oedipa to send a letter to his estranged wife via W.A.S.T.E.… read analysis of The Sailor

Roseman

Roseman is Oedipa and Mucho’s lawyer, whom Oedipa briefly consults in the novel’s introductory chapter for advice about Pierce Inverarity’s will. Roseman is miserable because he obsessively compares himself to the television lawyer… read analysis of Roseman

Tony Jaguar

Tony is a mafia boss who hires Manny Di Presso to help with his dirty business but sends goons after him when Di Presso cannot loan him money. According to Di Presso, one of Tony’s… read analysis of Tony Jaguar

Stanley Koteks

Koteks is a rebellious engineer who works with Mike Fallopian at Yoyodyne. Koteks grew up hoping to invent something that would change the world, or at least make him famous. But instead, he ends… read analysis of Stanley Koteks

James Clerk Maxwell

Maxwell was a prominent 19th-century Scottish scientist who laid much of the groundwork for modern physics. In part, he is famous for the Maxwell’s demon thought experiment that inspires John Nefastis to build his communication… read analysis of James Clerk Maxwell

Jesús Arrabal

Arrabal is a Mexican anarchist who founded an activist organization called, ironically enough, the CIA. Oedipa Maas and Pierce Inverarity first met Arrabal in Mexico several years before the events of the novel. He has… read analysis of Jesús Arrabal

Mr. Thoth

Named after the Egyptian god of scribes, Mr. Thoth is an old man who lives at Vesperhaven House, a San Narciso retirement home owned by Pierce Inverarity. While visiting all of Inverarity’s companies and… read analysis of Mr. Thoth

The Founder of Inamorati Anonymous

According to the Inamorati Anonymous member whom Oedipa meets in The Greek Way, the group was founded by a laid-off Yoyodyne executive who was replaced with a machine and then could not find any reason… read analysis of The Founder of Inamorati Anonymous

Winthrop (“Winner”) Tremaine

Winthrop is the racist owner of a government surplus store who gets rich selling guns and mock Nazi memorabilia. Like the executives at Yoyodyne and everyone else involved in the military-industrial complex in the novel… read analysis of Winthrop (“Winner”) Tremaine

Richard Wharfinger

Wharfinger is the fictional 17th-century English playwright who wrote The Courier’s Tragedy. A kind of absurdist Shakespeare, Wharfinger may have known about the rivalry between Thurn and Taxis and Tristero, or this might… read analysis of Richard Wharfinger

Angelo

In Wharfinger’s The Courier’s Tragedy, Angelo the evil Duke of Squamuglia who spends the whole play trying to seize control of the neighboring duchy of Faggio by installing his ally, Pasquale, in… read analysis of Angelo

Niccolò

The protagonist of Wharfinger’s fictional play The Courier’s Tragedy, Niccolò is the legitimate heir to the Dukedom of Faggio. Long before the events of the play, Niccolò’s illegitimate brother Pasquale plotted with the… read analysis of Niccolò

Pasquale

In Wharfinger’s The Courier’s Tragedy, Pasquale is the evil, illegitimate brother of Niccolò, who works with Angelo (the Duke of Squamuglia) to overthrow his father and usurp the Dukedom of Faggio. In… read analysis of Pasquale

Francesca

In Wharfinger’s The Courier’s Tragedy, Francesca is a noblewoman who is connected through incest to both the houses of Squamuglia and Faggio. She is Angelo’s sister and lover, but she was also… read analysis of Francesca

Gennaro

In Wharfinger’s The Courier’s Tragedy, Gennaro is a “complete nonentity” who takes over the Dukedom of Faggio after Ercole’s army murders the illegitimate Duke Pasquale. (Notably, Gennaro’s claim to the Dukedom… read analysis of Gennaro

Minor Characters

Caesar Funch

Funch is Mucho’s boss at the radio station KCUF. Mucho frequently overreacts to Funch’s advice, and Funch first alerts Oedipa when Mucho loses his mind on Dr. Hilarius’s LSD.

C. Morris Schrift

Schrift is an estate agent who represents the secretive mystery bidder seeking to buy Pierce Inverarity’s stamps. Curiously, schrift is the German word for “writing,” which references the way the mysterious buyer—like so many important plot points in the novel—plans to communicate through the mail.

Ercole

In The Courier’s Tragedy, Ercole is a rebellious dissident who saves Niccolò’s life and then becomes his close friend and ally. Ercole tortures Niccolò’s enemies and leads the rebellion that kills Pasquale, Niccolò’s illegitimate brother who has usurped the throne of Faggio.