V.V. (17) Rachel and Benny

[jbor]

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>From: "Samuel Moyer" <smoyer at satx.rr.com>
>

> I am looking at V. pages 383-385, the Rachel and Profane - MG bit there
> myself and will post later today...  (Why was Profane Scared? top of 384.)

My guess is that he was scared because he suddenly saw how predisposed an
otherwise apparently reasonable person could be to "love" a thing. The
experience of seeing Rachel making love to her MG started Benny thinking
about "a world of things that had to be watched out for" (384), and his own
status in such a world as a "schlemihl", which he earlier defined for Mafia,
perhaps not quite honestly but only in order not to have to have sex with
her, as "hardly a man: somebody who lies back and takes it from objects,
like any passive woman" (288).

But his recognition that "everybody is some kind of schlemihl" (384) is
possibly an indication of positive progress for Benny, and he has begun to
embrace community, even if it is only to smoke dope and hang out with the
WSC at the Rusty Spoon!

I think another aspect to this scene is the way that Profane is scared off
by Rachel's smothering love, a type of ownership in itself, as when she
says: "My man"; and then literally becomes the "monkey on his back". (382-3)

best