In Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts and Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, the protagonists search for order and meaning. The books are similar in that both suggest the possibility of meaninglessness in America's modern state of chaos....

With its alternately overt and subtle use of symbolism, Nathanael West's 'Miss Lonelyhearts' works on three separate yet interrelated symbolic levels: a simple symbolic level, in which objects, people, and events in a particular scene are...

The traditional human condition plagues every individual; each suffers, and consequently, thirsts for personal freedom and utter fulfillment in whatever way possible. While Western culture recognizes this tendency as rooted in religiousness or...