More Clues.

In chapter 3 we are introduced to a symbol Oedipa sees on going to the bathroom. “a loop, triangle and a trapezoid”(38). We did not know it’s meaning, but guessed it was a clue to the mystery we want to uncover. As the novel continues, the symbol appears even more:

1. When Oedipa goes to Yoyodine, meets Stanley Koteks, finds him doodling on a piece of paper, and he was doodling the symbol.
2. She meets an old man named Thor. He tells her a story about how he had a ring that belonged to an Indian, and guess what, the symbol was inscribed on the ring.
3. While Oedipa was looking through Pierce’s collection of stamps. She found it on the Pony Express issue of 1940. “there it was again, her WASTE symbol, showing up black. A little right of center”(77).
We now know that two things are for sure: the mysterious symbol is really the W.A.S.T.E and it looks like the Thurn and Taxis symbol.

From all the clues we are given in this chapter it easy to say that it is a mystery novel. Probably a satirical mystery and through all this Pynchon it aiming to make fun of something. Could it mail companies, a scheme of the past that was left uncovered, or mysteries themselves?