There'd been no escape. What did she so desire to escape from? Such a captive maiden, having plenty of time to think, soon realizes that her tower, its height and architecture, are like her ego only incidental: and what really keeps her where she is is magic, anonymous and malignant, visited upon her from outside and for no reason at all. Having no apparatus except gut fear and female cunning to examine this formless magic, to understand how it works, how to measure its field strength, count its lines of force, she may fall back on superstition, or take up a useful hobby like embroidery, or go mad, or marry a disc jockey. If the tower is everywhere and the knight of deliverance no proof against its magic, what else? (Pynchon 35)

Although Pynchon's style seems somewhat unrefined he uses many rhetorical devices. In the first sentence we see his use of a metaphor in comparing Oedipa to a "captive maiden". It then makes an extended metaphor by comparing her ego to a tower. It is like this because it only captivates her as long as she lets it. He also uses frequent repetition when he says: "examine this formless magic, understand how it works, measure its fild strength, count its line of force" This adds emphasis to her task and what she needs to do and helps the reader understand how important it is to the book. He also poses a question at the end, ending with what else?

He also has a very wide vocabulary and used many descriptive words like "deliverance" and "malignant". He also uses humor in the line "or go mad, or marry a disc jockey" which is ironic, because her husband is a disc jockey and she compares it to going mad.

Other than this quote Pynchon uses many other rhetorical devices. He uses satire a lot and provides sharp criticisms of his time. His syntax sometimes varies, but most frequently it is composed of long wordy sentences. en example of this can be seen here:

A number of frail girls... prisoners in the top room of a circular tower, embroidering a kind of tapestry which spilled out the slit windows and into a void, seeking hopelessly to fill the void: for all the other buildings and creatures, all the waves, ships and forests of the earth were contained in this tapestry, and the tapestry was the world.(Pynchon 36)

They often contain repetitive words, that add emphasis to the point he is trying to make but can also be very confusing. His writing is also rich of details which you can see in the above quote. He uses imagery to let the reader really feel like they are experiencing what the main character is.