Century's child raised Motherless

[Thing]

David Morris wrote:
> 
> Maybe They are, and maybe not.  So far anyway the only "THEM" is distantly
> implied and only in Stencil's ruminations.  He's aware also that his inner
> Whitehall might be the house of a mad prophet.  Whatever may be the truth,
> Stencil is only literally "going through the motions,"  which is at odds
> with his having a deep-seated emotional need at the base of his actions.

Sidney creates a structure that imposes order on otherwise
exasperatingly random events, allowing some sort of
response. The catch 20, 20th century boy and girls,  is that
it is not "real" and only permits private meanings and
interpretations.  Herbert's desire to discover what V. is,
what is it, is his legacy from his father" and it leads him
to make connections that others, including the narrators,
even the Stencils and the readers, suspects may be spurious.
Stencil, then, highlights the problems inherent in
discerning reality and interpreting reality reliably. 


Stencil embodies a search for meaning and identity which,
even this early in the novel, he seems to fear. Is Stencil
only ostensibly seeking V. and knowledge of how his father
died? Will he learn the "truth" about either? He is
motivated by information about V. contained in Sidney's
diary: 

There is more behind and inside V. than any of us has
suspected.
Not who, but what: what she is. 



The change from "who" to "what" parallels the searches of
Robert Graves and Henry Adams or V.s change from human to
non human. Margravine's playful suggestion that V. is "for
victory"  describes V.' s in this doubled role, this
mirrored yo-yo, the force, the mechanical force of history
described by Adams and the historical but very personal 
life of Herbert since V. may very well be his mother, a clue
we can be sure he won't follow. If she were his Mother he
would not be he who looks or searches for V. He would have
to have been conditioned, say like A Slothrop. Searching
provides some purpose, some guide, some cord that tugs, but
if it were him MOM, finding her would not be a question of
what now? He would fill himself with human love, mother's
love, and it would burst out of his heart with songs and
love for the world, but love has been directed entirely
inward,toward this acquired sense of animateness. Having
found this,  he finds it hard to  release, it is so dear to
him. To sustain it he must hunt her but not find her. For if
he finds her there will be nothing but half self
consciousness and motherlessness for real.  He will try,
like a child that has lost her mother, not to think,
therefore, about any end to the search for her. He will
yo-yo, tug and pull the cord. Ironically, Stencil's "sense
of animateness" is supported by the search for
inanimateness. And the search for the inanimate, is also a
search for death. So, there is this old problem, the one
almost all the major characters in TRP's fiction have to
confront, the Modern questers given, that Modern man quests
and he may even acquire some knowledge of the grail, the
gods, the machine, THEM, V., but communion, complete
knowledge or faith brings with it annihilation. 

Of course this could all be nothing more than  extensions of
my own overactive imagination nurtured by a desire for
identity.