MDDM "Another Slave-Colony"

[jbor]

Bandwraith at aol.com wrote:

> But it's Pitt that asks "Why haven't we heard a tale about America?" and as
> we've
> been informed the paragraph before: "The Youth, as usual, not being consulted
> in this"
> regarding the choice of subject matter for the Rev's revelations, albeit,
> regarding the
> the moral usefulness of these tales. What we have been prep'd for as readers
> is a tale with moral value not a rehashing of colonial america. No surprise
> here, at any rate, by
> the sojourn entitled "Latitudes and Departures."

I disagree. The narrative which Wicks begins to recount, and which becomes
the bulk of the text of the novel, is a direct response to Pitt and Pliny's
admonitions at 7.22-27. It is ostensibly "a Tale about America". Mason and
Dixon are historical figures, and thus the 'Englishness' of their
biographies is unavoidable. However, Wicks is a fictional creation, and the
particular "Tale about America" he tells - the contours and limits of its
scope - is in fact a choice made by Pynchon. I could imagine a completely
different background story for a novel about Mason and Dixon's expedition,
one with the Penns and the Calverts setting the scene for the central
section, rather than what we've been given which has focused on, say, the
Vrooms and the Bradleys instead.

I think it's quite clear that the line about the selection of tales "for
their moral usefulness" (7.6) can't be taken at face value.
> 
> Whatever the novel had "long been reported to be about" was, as per usual
> with Pynchon, a risky bet.

For a long time (from 1978 at least) it was known that Pynchon was writing a
book "about" the Mason-Dixon Line, which is just what it is. I'd say the
actual focuses of the novel when it appeared would have surprised many
readers even so.

>> It seems to me that,
>> empathising with Mason's and Dixon's points of view as the text does,
>> Pynchon is setting up to deal that myth of a noble and glorious (and
>> 'independent') American heritage a bit of a mortal body-blow:
>> 
>>   "Not to mention the Americans...?"
>>   "Excuse me? They are at least British there,-- aren't they? The Place
>> *is* but a Patch of England, at a Three-Thousand Mile Off-set. Isn't
>> it? [ ... ] Dixon, hold, are you telling me, now, that Americans are
>> *not* British?-- You've heard this somewhere?"
>>   "No more than the Cape Dutch are Dutch...? 'Tis said these people keep
>> Slaves, as did our late Hosts,-- that they are likewise inclin'd to
>> kill the People already living where they wish to settle.-- "
>>   "Another Slave-Colony...so have I heard as well. Christ." (248)<<
>> 
> It seems M&D are somewhat at odds here, so "the text" (whatever that might
> mean) might be hard pressed 'to agree' with them both.

They're certainly in agreement about America, however, aren't they? And the
text does empathise with both Mason's and Dixon's points of view, as I
noted, even though those points of view are often separate, and sometimes in
total opposition, and through the course of the narrative to come they will
develop. In fact, it is by virtue of this technique that a textual dialectic
is generated.

> I'm not sure where "The
> myth of a noble and glorious (and 'independent') American heritage" that you
> are
> referring to is coming from.

http://www.fuzzylu.com/falmouth/bates/america.html

> the last reference I recall was "the Nation
> bickering itself into Fragments, wounds bodily and ghostly, great and small,
> go aching
> on, not ev'ry one commemorated,- nor, too often, even recounted"(6.10)... not
> particularly auspicious.

Indeed, and it is explicitly a narrative agency *outside* Wicks that makes
this observation.

> Ethics and motives of euro-imperialism not withstanding, Mason's primary
> reason
> for acknowledging the harsh reality of power politics, it seems to me, is to
> contrast it with his hope for a "Moment of Purity" as the price for such an
> iffy and personal wish. He seems to be unconsciously replaying  past battles
> with his father. 

I'd say he was seeking "the Purity of the Event" in order to assuage his
sense of loss and grief in the wake of Rebekah's death, and his paranoia
about covert manipulations of him by Bradley and other members of the R.S.,
and that he now recognises the "unreasonable weight of hope" he had placed
on the Transit. (247.21-25) I think he's kicking himself for his naivety and
has become even more glum and cynical than he was before he left for the
Cape. There's no reference to his father at this point that I can recall.

>> (39-40) Why Chas
>> and Jere have agreed to go there, whatever redeeming qualities the place
>> might hold, can only be guessed at: "the Food, the Lasses?" Or, as Mason
>> cynically observes, "[t]he Pay,-- I suppose." <<
> 
> Or, perhaps, the chance to be with Dixon.

I agree that they are increasingly enjoying one another's company, and that
the friendship bond between them is stronger. I'm not sure that that is
being presented - or even considered - as incentive enough, however.

best