Depending on the cultural and religious beliefs, sex can be seen as either the ultimate form of intimacy and liberation or a repulsive and sinful behavior one should avoid. Dominance of the Catholic Church during the Medieval period made sex taboo and sinful. This negative view of sex strongly contrasts the positive views of sex during the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s. Sex in the 1960s was not restrictive or taboo, but rather an outlet for liberation and growth, especially among women.
While set in two different time periods, both Umberto Eco’s medieval-based The Name of the Rose and Thomas Pynchon’s sixties-based The Crying of Lot 49 include romantic encounters examining the themes of exploration and liberation. Eco utilizes the sexual encounter as a moment of character development; however, Pynchon demonstrates how sex does not always lead to character growth. Eco and Pynchon both include brief sexual encounters within their narratives.
In The Name of the Rose, the romantic relation occurs one night between two strangers, a young monk named Adso and an unnamed peasant girl. Prior to this event, Adso discusses with a monk named Ubertino about the immaculate love of the Virgin Mary, and in this conversation, Ubertino states that “in her, even the body’s grace is a sign of the beauties of heaven, and this is why the sculptor has portrayed her with all the graces that should adorn a woman…What do you feel before this sweetest of visions”, which causes Adso to blush “violently, feeling stirred as if by an inner fire” (Eco 246).
Ubertino describes the Virgin Mary’s holiness through the beauty of her physical attributes, and for the young and sheltered Adso, this image of the Virgin Mary conjures an unfamiliar feeling within him because this discussion makes Adso see the Virgin not only through the lenses of religion but also through the lenses of sexuality. Thinking with this new perspective, Adso’s succumbing to the peasant girl’s seduction manifests his newfound struggle with lust and explores his sexuality and passion.
The manifestation of lust and passion similarly characterizes the brief affair between Oedipa and Metzger in Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49. The brief affair between Oedipa and Metzger similarly compares with Adso and the girl due to the use of seduction. Through the seduction game of Strip Botticelli, one can examine the themes of exploration. Oedipa responds to Metzger’s suggestion of Strip Botticelli by skipping into the “bathroom, which happened also to have a walk-in closet, quickly undressed and began putting on as much as she could of the clothing she’d brought with her” (Pynchon 24).
Oedipa counteracts the purpose of the game by putting on multiple layers of clothing, so that, while in the game, Oedipa can strip plenty of her clothes, but she never reaches full nudity and prevents Metzger’s immediate exploration of her body. This contradiction to the game symbolizes the exploration in the mystery of Trystero for Oedipa. When Oedipa tries to uncover the mystery of Trystero, she is “faced with a metaphor of God knew how many parts; more than two, anyway.
With coincidences blossoming these days wherever she looked, she had nothing but a sound, a word, Trystero” (Pynchon 87). Like the tedious undressing of Oedipa in the Strip Botticelli game, the uncovering and exploration of Trystero proves difficult because she finds that no matter the amount of insights and layers she discovers and peels back, she will never expose the full mystery of Trystero and all its parts. The game of Strip Botticelli foreshadows and indicates that the Trystero will never liberated from the shroud of mystery because there are always deeper layers.
Oedipa’s inability to liberate Trystero from its mysterious nature mirrors her inability to liberate herself through the sexual encounter with Metzger. Pynchon sets this novel in the middle of the 1960s, a decade that experienced the rise of the Sexual Revolution. One of the major themes of the Sexual Revolution focused on sexual liberation for women and using the new found sexual liberation as a foundation for greater independence.
For Oedipa, she feels entrapped by her life stating she “gently conned herself into the curious, Rapunzel-like role of a pensive girl somehow, magically, prisoner among the pines and salt fogs of Kinneret” (Pynchon 10). Seeing herself as a Rapunzel, Oedipa longs for growth and liberation from her life as a housewife. So, she attempts to liberate herself through sexually exploring outside of her marriage with Metzger; however, Pynchon uses this sexual encounter to parody the ideas of the sexual revolution instead of making this moment of self-actualization and liberation for Oedipa.
After Metzger and Oedipa finish having sex, Oedipa asks what does Metzger and her ex-boyfriend Pierce discuss in terms of her, and Metzger replies “’That you wouldn’t be easy’ She began to cry” (Pynchon 30). This interaction signifies that the romantic relations between Metzger and Oedipa did not provide a moment of independence and liberation for Oedipa but rather a moment of her being a pawn in game between men, a role she has been playing for most of her life. This realization frustrates Oedipa as the sexual encounter did not fulfill her notion of how important sex is in becoming independent.
Adso similarly holds a false understanding or expectation of participating in sex and exploring sexuality. Adso, a young and celibate monk, has no previous understanding of sex. He only knows what the Church and those around him think of sex. He is committed to the biblical idea of womanhood that corresponds with the attitudes of a monk in the Medieval period: as temptation and vice. He views sex and participation in sex as a sinful and shameful behavior as seen through his reflections.
As Adso reflects over the romantic encounter, he notes that “for the edification of future readers and the flaying of my guilt I want now to tell how a young man can succumb to the snares of the Devil, that they may be known and evident, so anyone encountering them in the future may defeat them” (Eco 260-61). However, when examining his description of the sexual encounter, one can see that in the moment Adso did not find the sex to be grotesque or diabolical, but rather, it was an experience of complete ecstasy and pleasure through which he found himself free “of my novice’s habit and we felt no shame at our bodies” (Eco 263).
In that moment, Adso experiences complete passion and intoxication by this encounter that provides him comfort and no shame, but this experience battles with Adso’s understanding of the monastic and scriptural teachings of the evilness and dirtiness of sex. Similar to Oedipa, Adso’s participation in sex does not match with his expectations, which enables him to explore his views on sex and morality.
