Oedipus Slothrop

[Eric Rosenbloom]

Pynchon used the name Oedipa in The Crying of Lot 49, if only to
lend tragic weight to her journey of self-discovery, but there are a
lot of oedipal concerns in Gravity's Rainbow, as Slothrop learns that
his father sold him to The Firm . . .

I've just been reading Erich Fromm's The Forgotten Language, about
dream interpretation and myth, aiming his bark between Freud and Jung to
say that the symbolic language of dream and myth is the voice of
suppressed matriarchy, or at least a reaction against authority. The
story of Oedipus is whether he will be a sacrifice to the Fathers (as
intended by his parents) or to the Mothers (as he in fact becomes, in
the grove of Colonus). Old Oedipus shrines are found near shrines to Demeter.

For Slothrop, the oedipal struggle for self is in throwing over
both authority (Laius-Broderick) and self-effacing submission
(Jocasta-Nalline).

The sphinx is an interesting symbol: a mother, the chthonic spirit,
devouring her children, a figure of the fear of death, or of the angry
forsaken. Greta Erdmann suggests this character, as a screen goddess, in
her bitterness, her insecurity, her quest for her daughter only to
destroy her. Her name combines Earth and Man. Slothrop figures her out,
and then goes on to her daughter, Bianca. 

Why does he have sex with a 9-year-old? Does he feel, that in the
context of that depraved ship, _Anubis_ (protector/devourer of the
dead), this is the only way his love can combat the death that surrounds
them? But he is also then part of that very process of destroying
innocence . . .

Like Haemon and Antigone, his love becomes part of what dooms her. And,
when he knows he cannot save her, like Judas for the Revolution and
Brutus for Democracy, Haemon sacrifices himself to destroy her
destroyer. Slothrop allies himself with the black forces of the Zone and
when his time comes gives himself to the earth rather than the Firm.

Jest sum thoths on da muthahs,
Erich Fromm Brooklyn

FAUST:  The Mothers! Mothers! -- a strange word is said.
MEPHISTOPHELES:  It is so. Goddesses, unknown to ye,
    The Mothers, named by us so unwillingly.

P.S.  Bianca is like the young models Balthus painted, perhaps, as close
as we dare get to the real power . . .  Or are these young temptresses
symbols of our soul, like James Joyce's Issy?  (Errich Fromm continues
his discussion of dream-myth symbology to find that it is also tied up
in the struggle to grow up, to break away from a passive dependent state
and into mature life and love . . .  well--gotta go!)

Mama's Dada,
Eric R



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