GRGR(4) - Slothrop's Rape

[David Morris]

>From me earlier:

>Main Entry: mau·vais quart d'heure
>Pronunciation: mo-ve-k[a']r-d[oe]r
>Etymology: French
>: bad quarter hour : an uncomfortable though brief experience
>
>I'd say it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what's going on up
there.

I think it's important to determine if Slothrop's rape and the whole Roxbury
nightclub scene is a memory or a fantasy.  Specifically I'm talking about
the part before his decent down the toilet.  My take is that Slothrop was
actually raped, and that during the rape he blanks out an takes his journey
to the underworld.  If you look at the text, he's first pondering whether or
not to follow the harp, knowing his ass would be exposed, when he's then
grabbed from behind and gets his pants pulled down.  Then he find himself
travelling down the pipes to elude his attacker.  Of course he doesn't
literally go down the pipes, but he does literally get raped.  This may have
been the event which sent Slothrop "transmarginal."