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Wendell “Mucho” Maas
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 sticks to Freudian psychoanalysis in his sessions, he also enjoys making faces at his patients, which he considers a useful but misunderstood therapeutic procedure. Eventually, he has a mental breakdown: convinced that ghostlike, self-cloning Israeli soldiers are out to get him, Hilarius locks himself in his office and starts shooting at everything that approaches—including Oedipa, who manages to calm him down for long enough for the police to arrive. This could be interpreted in several ways: it could be the result of emotional exhaustion, after dealing with patients’ problems for years but never being able to speak his own. It could also represent the battle between Hilarius’s own conscious and unconscious, especially as he tries to repent for his crimes against humanity. Or, he could be on the LSD that he is prescribing to everyone for an experiment, in a clear parody of real-life psychologist and 1960s counterculture icon Timothy Leary. Ultimately, Hilarius gets Mucho hooked on the drug and loses all sense of the distinctions between objects. In general, Hilarius’s egregious malpractice is Pynchon’s way of critiquing science’s potential to be used for evil and psychology’s often speculative theories and methods. And by ironically making his therapist character go insane, Pynchon raises the possibility that society is the root cause of people’s unhappiness.
Dr. Hilarius Quotes in The Crying of Lot 49
The The Crying of Lot 49 quotes below are all either spoken by Dr. Hilarius or refer to Dr. Hilarius. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 5
Quotes
Oedipa spotted among searchlights and staring crowds a KCUF mobile unit, with her husband Mucho inside it, spieling into a microphone. She moseyed over past snapping flashbulbs and stuck her head in the window. “Hi.”
Mucho pressed his cough button a moment, but only smiled. It seemed odd. How could they hear a smile? Oedipa got in, trying not to make noise. Mucho thrust the mike in front of her, mumbling, “You’re on, just be yourself.” Then in his earnest broadcasting voice, “How do you feel about this terrible thing?”
“Terrible,” said Oedipa.
“Wonderful,” said Mucho. He had her go on to give listeners a summary of what’d happened in the office. “Thank you, Mrs Edna Mosh,” he wrapped up, “for your eyewitness account of this dramatic siege at the Hilarius Psychiatric Clinic. This is KCUF Mobile Two, sending it back now to ‘Rabbit’ Warren, at the studio.” He cut his power. Something was not quite right.
“Edna Mosh?” Oedipa said.
“It’ll come out the right way,” Mucho said. “I was allowing for the distortion on these rigs, and then when they put it on tape.”
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Dr. Hilarius Quotes in The Crying of Lot 49
The The Crying of Lot 49 quotes below are all either spoken by Dr. Hilarius or refer to Dr. Hilarius. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 5
Quotes
Oedipa spotted among searchlights and staring crowds a KCUF mobile unit, with her husband Mucho inside it, spieling into a microphone. She moseyed over past snapping flashbulbs and stuck her head in the window. “Hi.”
Mucho pressed his cough button a moment, but only smiled. It seemed odd. How could they hear a smile? Oedipa got in, trying not to make noise. Mucho thrust the mike in front of her, mumbling, “You’re on, just be yourself.” Then in his earnest broadcasting voice, “How do you feel about this terrible thing?”
“Terrible,” said Oedipa.
“Wonderful,” said Mucho. He had her go on to give listeners a summary of what’d happened in the office. “Thank you, Mrs Edna Mosh,” he wrapped up, “for your eyewitness account of this dramatic siege at the Hilarius Psychiatric Clinic. This is KCUF Mobile Two, sending it back now to ‘Rabbit’ Warren, at the studio.” He cut his power. Something was not quite right.
“Edna Mosh?” Oedipa said.
“It’ll come out the right way,” Mucho said. “I was allowing for the distortion on these rigs, and then when they put it on tape.”
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
