Pirate's Gift/dream theory

[Bonnie Surfus (ENG)]

On Mon, 29 May 1995 LOT64 at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 95-05-28 21:03:50 EDT, you write:
> 
> >I'm coming to believe that there is very little accident or
> >happenstance in
> >Pynchon's work.  Coincidence, yes: in the purest meaning of the word,
> >coincidence can be deliberate.  Not to dredge up the chaos-fractal
> >thing
> >again, but Pynchon's universe seems to be one where an incident
> >examined
> >alone seems accident, but when examined in relation to the whole it
> >seems
> >not accident.  I'm just starting Complexity, by M. Waldrop, and it's
> >giving
> >me ideas...
> 
> Cal,
> I think you're making an important point about the strategy Pynchon uses in
> GRAVITY'S RAINBOW.  There is such a complex web of repetitions of motifs,
> taking a very long -shot type view of a scene, and then zooming in to closely
> examine a seemingly unimportant bit of minutiae, and then turning into an
> emblem of a crucial theme.
> In rerereading GR, I am continually being struck by the incredible journeys
> of digression where the least little inanimate object suddenly acquires a
> point of view that sheds a whole new light on the subject that was the
> starting point of the digression.
> For example, when (p.107 Viking) Pirate, Osbie, and Katje are discussing
> where she can go after her recent exfiltration from the "house in the
> forest"the scene shifts to her 17th century ancestor Frans Van der Groov
> hunting dodos.  Then, as if in extreme close-up, Pynchon cuts to the fuse of
> Van der Groov's matchlock.  "Hemp gripped in the teeth of the steel snake,
> ready to be lit, ready to descend, sun to black-powder sea, and destroy the
> infant, egg of light into egg of darkness, within its first minute of amazed
> vision, of wet down stirred by these southeast trades..."  He goes on to talk
> about the weapon making an axis between himself and the  victim.  This image
> of an axis is used describing Gottfried (the Rome-Berlin Axis) and a number
> of other times in the book.  The rocket is also seen as an axis between the
> launchers and Slothrop.  Then the matchlock musket is rhymed with Pirate's
> Mendoza.  Much like the Hansel and Gretel scene between Katje, Blicero, and
> Gottfried is echoed by the puppet show watched by Roger and Jessica.
Well, this snake image is one that I was finding as fractal--the snake 
image a scaled down version of other snakes, serpents, dragons, 
scorpions, etc. ---Even the chained bondels in _V._  But that 's another 
paper, I guess.  The axis, crosshairs images, the black cross inside the 
red circel of the mandala.  

bonnie
> Does this trope or micro-metaphor have a specific name in rhetoric?  My
> classroom memories of this are hazy. Help me out if you know.
> 
>                                       Ron Churgin
> 
> 
> 
Aren't these just recurring allusions, images?  
I suppose you could call them enthymemes, as the writer might assume the 
reader's familiarity with the connotative power of the words/images.  

bonnie