GRGR Finale Re: Homophobia in GR?

[Doug Millison]

rj:
>Furthermore, the manner in which the liaison between Weissmann and Enzian in
>the Sudwest is depicted actually overturns the stereotype as it is the youth
>who freely initiates the sexual act between the two men (100). A subversion
>of the expected power dynamic is repeated in that final scene with Gottfried
>and Blicero as well (721-4).


How free is the colonialized individual in the power of a 
high-ranking representative of the oppressing Authority, I wonder. 
Even without GR's colonial setting, the psychodynamics of sexual use 
and abuse of young people by adults -- which is a motif throughout 
GR, after all, via Slothrop and Bianca, Pokler and his "daughter" -- 
makes it very difficult to assert with confidence that the younger 
person is acting freely, without coercion, not under duress. Seems 
clear to me that Pynchon wants to highlight this, when he chooses to 
characterize Enzian as a minor, not an adult, jailbait, rather than 
make him an adult homosexual male freely consenting (although even as 
an adult, he would be a colonial subject in that particular power 
relationship with Weissmann/Blicero). There's no reversal, not in any 
kind of practical sense that would prevent Gottfried from serving as 
sacrificial victim, nor that would undo the crimes that have burdened 
Enzian and his Herero brethren. The exploiters prevail, after all, 
and we're all waiting for the missile death as a result, when the 
novel closes. And Pynchon only escapes to tell us.


>Readings which appear to isolate and see implicit vilification of one or
>another of these groups appear to me to be coming at the text with such
>prejudices and stereotypes already in place [snip]


A fancier way to call somebody a bigot.  Cool.  I've been faithfully 
following Terrance's posts ever since he started writing on 
Pynchon-L, and it seems to me that his critique encompasses all of 
GR's sexual and power relationships. I wouldn't say he's singling out 
homosexuality for a critique that doesn't also apply to other forms 
of sexuality in the novel. An even-handed approach, you might say.


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