Not Pynchon but Chaucer

[Eamon Aemon]

Are TRP's characters really so, well, as imaginative,
knowledgeable, and eloquent as, well, Tom Pynchon?

I hardly think so. Pynchon's characters always remind me of
Chaucer. Now that's odd, but no really, TRP and Chaucer have
more in common than you might think. Or, maybe they don't
and I'm high.  You can delete this message now if you can't
wait for it to get real "deep" and idiotic. 


When did Thomas Pynchon read Chaucer? Maybe never, but it's
still fun to think that he did. TRP, like Chaucer, works
with a relatively (particularly
when we consider that his novels have so many characters--GR
has over 300 characters) small repertoire of social roles
which he repeats more or less over and over and layers with
ideas. He may work, 
as he does in GR with various ethnic communities (Russian,
German, Herero,
Argentine, Kirghiz, American, English, so on) or
professions, occupations. He works, as
did Chaucer, with parallels, reductions and inverted or
distorted mirroring. One could go through any series in
their respective works and note  these, say in occupations
how scientists and mystics are inverted and so on and
identify lots and lots of parallelisms in both
Pynchon and Chaucer, like:

Franz Van der Groov to Katje/ William Slothrop to Tyrone/
old Tchitcherine to his son or pigs to Puritans/ dodoes to
Dutch/ pheasants to Germans/ aardvarks [Obsolete Afrikaans:
aarde, earth (from Middle Dutch aerde) + vark, pig (from
Middle Dutch varken]  to Hereros or kazoo to Slothrop/
guitar to Fierro/ dombra to old aqyn/ balalaika to
Tchitcherine. 

Also, like Chaucer, TRP works with reductions and parallel
love affairs and the (often inverted as in Chaucer, often 
hetero/homo) reflecting love triangle: Roger, Jessica, and
Beaver to  Pirate Scorpia and Clive, or Brock (mad woman in
the attic) Zoyd (in drag),  Weed (Brock's homosexual
fantasy), Frenesi, or Hector, Zoyd, Frensesi, and so on.  

We can identify all sorts of patterns, threes are common, as
they are in Chaucer (in Dante too, but that's different).
Majorie Kaufman has demonstrated that the multifarious
female characters of GR fit "into three not-very-tight
categories: the young, pretty, nubile, well-intentioned; the
generally older, generally aristocratic, rather thoroughly
decadent; and Mothers." 

Mothers have been masculanized (The
Virgin is a dynamo while Fathers are of two types, the
charismatic
(i.e. Weissmann) and the impotent Pernicious Pop. Of course 
the rocket is android androgynous-- both womb and penis). 

In Who Was Saved? Families, Snitches, and Recuperation in
Pynchon's Vineland, N. Katherine Hayles writes:

Losing ones virginity signifies inscription into a system of
representations that structure relations, interpret
responses, delineate oppositions. The expression
paradoxically constructs refusing to do something as a
presence, while making sexuality an absence or loss. Seeming
to impart value to virginity, it also defines power
relations between gendered partners that reveal how
vulnerable women are in a patriarchal society. The male is
the seducer; he wins if he can pop the cherry. The female is
the seduced; symmetry requires that she win if she can keep
her virginity in tact. In fact her virginity is useful only
as a bargaining chip, for if she hangs on to it for too long
it becomes useless, a sign of a spinster that no one
desires. Virginity is thus valued only as long as it is
imperiled. Let the pressure diminish and it loses its
currency. Like money and information it needs to circulate
within a system of exchanges to exercise its value. Unlike
them it is a coin that can stand only one transaction before
disappearing. Properly speaking, it signals an initiation
into the exchange of money and information that follows. 

To Chaucer now. When we read The Knight's Tale and the
Miller's Tale we get
contrasting views of the relationships of gender, power and
sexuality. Although male pilgrims tell both tales and the
target audience is male (true of TRP's narrators, narratees,
second person YOU  too, I suspect) the
relationship of power and sexuality to gender are
transformed through a series of reductions. Emily and Alison
represent two contrasting female stereotypes involved in two
contrasting love-triangles. The old carpenter, who is both a
churl and a cuckold, is a comic transformation of the
patriarchal ideal of male authority represented by Theseus
in the Knight's Tale. Moreover, sex and lust in the Miller's
Tale replace the
patriarchal ideals of love and virginity in the
Knight's Tale. To get an idea of just how complicated this
can get, one has to account for how 
The tales are integrated, very complicated indeed. Does TRP
integrate his novels in similar fashion? Well, may be not,
but keep that in mind and think about VL. 

      In the first two tales, Chaucer has two contrasting
male
pilgrims tell tales that open for discussion many of the
topics treated by subsequent tales. The Knight's Tale is a
high romance, which explores, along with its weighty
philosophical and theological questions, the relationships
of gender, sexuality and power. The Miller's Tale is a
fabliau, that addresses the same themes in a different
social context and through a series of contrasts and
reductions provides a diametrically opposed view of the
relationships of sexuality, gender and power. 
        Alison and Emily can be viewed as two contrasting
female
stereotypes. Alison is sexual while Emily is chaste. Alison
is described as a stereotype of male sexual desire and may
represent Eve, while Emily is described as a chaste goddess
and may represent the Virgin. Alison is married to an older
man and in as is the dictates of her stereotype she cheats
on him.
Emily is not married and hopes to remain chaste. Alison uses
her cunning and sexuality to convince Nicholas to help her
make a cuckold and a lunatic of her husband, a buffoon of
Absolon, while he himself is literally burned for his part
in her antics. Emily is an Amazon and like her sister
Hippolyta, she remains a virgin until she is married to a
worthy knight. Emily accepts the agreement of Theseus, takes
pity on Palamon and makes "vertu of necessitee." 
        In both tales a love triangle drives the plot.
Through a
contrast of the love triangles the Miller reduces the
romantic world of the Knight's "noble storie" to the lewd
world appropriate for his "cherles tale." Even the great
view of the gods in the heavens and the high theological
themes of Christian providence are reduced to Nicholas's
meteorological predictions and a parody of the story of
Noah. The romantic love triangle of the Knight's Tale has
Emily at its vertex and nearly identical cousins and
brothers in chivalry at the base angles. In Alison's
triangle, a poor but sly clerk and a dandy but squeamish
clerk serve as rivals. Nicholas and Absolon are contrasted
by reduction with Arcite and Palamon in terms of class and
character. While the two cousins are nearly identical
knights, Nicholas and Absolon are very different clerks.
Nicholas is cunning and aggressive in his pursuit of Alison.
Absolon's attempt to win Alison is a parody of the
traditional courtly lover.
 In addition, the two clerks, through reduction, are
contrasted with the cousins as love rivals in terms of why
and how they pursue the woman they desire. When Palamon
casts his eyes on Emily, he is stung through the eyes to the
heart by her beauty. From his prison chamber he describes
the distant and free Emily as the goddess Venus. His cousin
Arcite is equally touched or wounded by her inaccessible
beauty and claims the privilege of his love over his
cousin's on the basis that he loves her as a women and that
his cousin's emotion pertains to religion. Palamon's claim
to Emily's love on the basis that he saw her first and
Arcite's claim to love her as a women and not as a goddess
are in fact not distinct. They both love Emily in a courtly
manner and the resolution of their conflict requires a
chivalrous solution. It is only after the cousins are free
from prison and engaged in knightly battle in the woods that
Emily is made aware of their devotion to her. In contrast,
Nicholas is living as boarder in Alison's home and makes his
desires known to her when "he caughte hir by the queynte,"
while Absolon professes his desire for Alison by singing "in
his vois gentil and smal" through the carpenter's window.
Emily is a stereotypical courtly lady and is the object of a
courtly love rivalry. Theseus offers her as the prize of an
elaborate knightly tournament. Alison is a stereotypical
temptress of male lust and offers sex to Nicholas and denies
sex to Absolon based on her desire to trick her husband and
have sex with "hende Nicholas." 
In these contrasting love triangles power as it relates to
gendered relationships is complicated by the reduction of
female virginity to sexual activity. In her Prologue, the
Wife of Bath asks, "I pray you telleth me; or wher command
he virginitee?" The Wife argues ingeniously that virginity
is at odds with marriage, the natural composition of men and
women, the decree of God to be fruitful and multiply and
doctrines of the church fathers. However, the Wife is
ultimately concerned with establishing the authority of her
own experience and justifying her claim to sovereignty in
marriage. My concern is with the paradoxical nature of
virginity as a social construct that the Wife of Bath takes
issue with in her Prologue. I want to consider its
implications as they have been worked out in feminist theory
and how the contrasting views of virginity and female sexual
power in the Knight's Tale and the Miller's Tale
respectively deal with power, virginity and sexuality.  


        In the Knight's Tale the value imparted to virginity
is an
integral part of the ideal power structure of a patriarchal
society. Theseus represents the ideal authoritative male who
sets thing right in the romantic world of chivalrous knights
and courtly ladies. Theseus has conquered the Amazon and
taken Queen Hippolyta as his bride. The Amazon women have
conveyed an independent female power to their chastity.
Theseus defeats their social construct of virginity and
imparts a value to it that is consistent with his
patriarchal authority. Emily embodies the transition of
independent female virgin power to the paradoxical power
assigned to virginity in a patriarch. 
        However, the story of Creon and the wretches
complicates
and challenges the power of patriarchal authority, including
those imparted to virgins and reveals the vulnerability of
all women to the abuses of patriarchal power. Moved by the
piteous circumstances of the old women, Theseus takes pity
on them and defeats Creon. In so doing, Theseus, once again,
establishes himself as an ideal patriarch and confirms the
power structure that imparts value to virginity. 
The description of Emily as a "lilie upon his stalke grene"
is what attracts Arcite and Palamon. These men become fierce
rivals for the love of a virgin they have never spoken with.
Unlike the rivalry of Nicholas and Absolon, the cousins do
not make advances toward the women they desire but rather
are fixated on defeating each other. When Theseus finds them
in the woods engaged in battle he wants to know, "what
mister men ye been, That been so hardy for to fighten here
Withouten juge or other officere, As it were in a listes
royally?" At last they are able to profess their love for
Emily. Once again Theseus is moved by the piteous appeals of
women and in accordance with his patriarchal authority
orders the men to settle their dispute in a chivalrous
tournament. Although Emily would like to remain a chaste
daughter of Diana, Theseus will exercise his authority and
marry her to the tournament victor. 
        If the Knight's Tale challenges and finally confirms
the
ideal patriarchal power structure that includes virginity,
the Miller's Tale, in contrast, presents the total absence
of it. Alison is a married woman. Nicholas and Absolon,
however, are attracted to Alison's lechery and not her
maidenhood. A patriarch does not impart Alison's power to
her. Her power lies in the availability of her natural
sexuality. Nicholas does not take Alison to bed after
defeating Absolon in a chivalrous tournament prescribed by a
patriarch. He wins Alison's prize by subverting authority by
knavery. 
        If Theseus is the ideal male representing
patriarchal
authority in the Knight's Tale, the Carpenter is his
complete counterpart. The Carpenter is a fool and a jealous
cuckold. He is so obsessed with his wife that he neglects to
consider what role men play in his being a cuckold. Theseus
defeats the Amazon and marries their queen. The old
Carpenter marries a young wife that he can not govern.
Theseus defeats Creon and imparts value to Emily's
virginity. The old Carpenter is tricked by Nicholas and
permits Absolon to woo his wife as he lies next to her in
bed. At the end of the Knight's Tale, Theseus unites Palamon
and Emily, "And Emelye him loveth so tenderly, And he her
serveth al so gentilly, That nevere was ther no word hem
betwene  Of jalousie, or any other tene." At the conclusion
of the Miller's Tale, the Carpenter "he was holden wood in
al the toun." 
        




NOTES

1. Hayles, N. Kathrine. Who Was Saved? Families, Snitches,
and Recuperation in Pynchon's Vineland. Critique, Winter
1990, Vol. XXXII, No. 2, 77-91




Jill said, 

"Try to find out why we need or want to measure and discover
the
dimensions and reactions of everything that is the world,
yet, when you do,
does it cause a loss of some better alternatives? Learn math
and physics.
Yet  the more educated you become about things, the more
you'll feel like a
luddite."

Why learn math and physics? In the Luddite essay TRP
(following so many) begins by debunking Snow's Art and
Science dichotomy, but also talks about the necessity of
specialization. What math? What physics? Theoretical? Will
learning math and physics bring us any closer to nature, to
god?

What would that Einstein say?  

What about Werner von Braun? 

Roger Mexico? 

Mexico can't understand the healing distribution of those
Roman priests, his woman can't understand him. 

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin?

 How about the social sciences? 

What about Pointsman's "shameful fascination" with
Slothrop's penis?   [82]

Some very dark are films projected on that white ceiling, 
"Methodist versions of Christ's kingdom" where
scientist/mystics, Pavlov, Freud, Jung, Brown, are all
darkened by the white Light. 

 Sometimes? 

Wer, wenn ich schriee, horte mich denn aus der Engel
Ordnungen? 

Are we cut off  by being human and not dogs? 

What does Rilke's dog say about it? 

 Are we destined only to Long? 

I hear the faint whisper of Rilke or is it Weissmann
whispering to his boy? Or an Angel? Is it only as Dave
Monroe said, simply a futile grasp, a futile attempt to
Transcend or as jbor says, denial, or is it as Jill says,
bondage, sin, death, and what some will resort to to break
the cycle? 

In the Preface to the Second Edition of the Critique of Pure
Reason, Kant goes through a series of branches of knowledge
that have become scientific, and he inquires what the
condition was that made them scientific. In each case, of
course, the answer is the same: the knowledge became
scientific when the mind recognized its role in the
constitution of the science.

became scientific when reason approached nature not in the
character of a pupil who listens to everything the teacher
has to say, but of an appointed judge who compels the
witness to answer questions that he has himself formulated
(Kant's CofPR, B xiii,p20). Mathematics became scientific
with the realization that the mathematician was not to
inspect what he discerned either in the figure , or in the
bare concept of it, and from this, as it were, to nread off
its properties; but to bring out what he had himself put
into the figure in the construction by which he presented it
to himself. 

"A new light flashed upon the mind of the first man (be he
Thales or some
other) who demonstrated the properties of the isosceles
triangle. 
The true method, so he found, was not to inspect what he
dis-
cerned either in the figure, or in the bare concept of it,
and from
this, as it were, to read off its properties; but to bring
out what
was necessarily implied in the concepts that he had himself
formed a priori, and had put into the figure in the
construction
by which he presented it to himself. If he is to know
anything
with a priori certainty he must not ascribe to the figure
any-
thing save what necessarily follows from what he has himself
set into it in accordance with his concept."