GRGR (15): Good & Evil (was Enzian...)

[Peter Petto]

At 08:06 AM 12/6/1999 rjackson at mail.usyd.edu.au wrote:

>Yes. This the crux. Why does Pynchon focus on the liberated Dora
>prisoners "rampage after the material" (296.15) three times in the
>narrative. Because *after* they were liberated these survivors once
>again enter the realm of (relative) freedom in the Zone, and the
>"normal", "human" values and morality must surely once again apply.
>Sure, we, Pynchon, Marvy, Glimpf and the rest (though maybe not
>Slothrop) know about the absolutely heinous acts that went on in Dora
>*prior to* the liberation, but *after* the liberation, in the context of
>Slothrop's safety, these liberated prisoners are as much a threat as
>Marvy's marauding Mothers (oh the irony), and just as debauched. And
>it's not only the context of time, but the individual human's
>perspective on events, which changes the moral, and actual, odds.

I get the impression from rjackson's comments and the discussion that 
followed that the misbehavior of the liberated Dora prisoners compromises 
the strong moral message of GR.

I don't really understand why. In the arena of dog psychology: if I beat a 
dog daily and after several years liberated him, I wouldn't expect him to 
be kind or friendly to you.

    p3++