A and V

[LARSSON at vax1.mankato.msus.edu]

Andrew Dinn writes:
"Also, I was                         
intrigued for some time by similarities between `Vineland' and `The
Scarlet Letter', particularly that burning letter `A' seen in the
night sky (`A' screaming comes across the sky!), but also the
`dysfunctional' Prynne family who somehow manage to transcend their
supposedly preterite status and the fringe presence of the Indians
both as a threat and as a source of novel insights (e.g. the mention
of their knowledge of natural medecines) - Is it ok to commit genocide
in the name of being a Luddite?"

There *is* a thread in American lit., especially of Puritan background, that 
assigns Meaning to the world in semiotic fashion, only to hold back and
suggest (in deconstructive fashion) that there is no There there.

See Hawthorne's discussion of the blazing meteor in TSL, Ahab and the whale
(hey, maybe it *is* just a whale!) in Moby Dick, u.s.w.  One might even add
the mountain in Mailer's THE NAKED AND THE DEAD (as a Jewish would-be Puritan
writer then), among others.

Don Larsson, Mankato State U. (MN)