Marvy

[Aaron Yeater]

I always figured the ole' boy's castration was not a come-uppance, as 
such, but a moment of comic incompetence by "them"--it's an old 
set-up, the switcheroo-- "Prince and the Pauper,", for one-- the old Danny Kaye 
movie in which the clown  'becomes' a French general, for 
another--most notably, Chaplin's "The Great Dictator"--in 
which the fool (or schlemiel, as might be apropos to Slothrop) is 
mistaken for an authority figure.  Here, the authorities mistake a 
fool of their making (Marvy) for one they don't control (Slothrop) 
and Slothrop escapes, protected by the conspiracy's ability to 
control it all.  It is, in that sense, a humanizing moment...

my $.02...

-ay-