MDDM Hey? Fool?

[Terrance]

jbor wrote:
> 
> Mason and Maskelyne talk as they walk back through James's Town. Maskelyne
> is paranoia personified. He suspects that the island is a "conscious
> Creature, animated by power drawn from the Earth, assembl'd in Secret, by
> the Company." (128)

Thanks for the summary and notes. 

This is the age of Reason. What is insanity? Who is insane? And who has
the power to decide if  a person is insane? Who decides what should be
done with them? Should they put the nuts on an island? Or a boat? In
prison?  What if those in power accuse their political foes of insanity
so that they may ship them off to an island or put them in jail? Isn't
this what happens to Wicks? 

Maskalyne seems to be a bit confused or he is a fool to Mason/Lear. 

I think that Maskelyne says he once believed that the island was a
conscious creature powered and controlled by the Company, but now, as he
and Mason are talking about it,  he holds a slightly different belief.
He still tries to walks softly and he advises Mason to follow suit. 
Insane people can often recognize the insanity of other insane people
around them, but often fail to have the reflexive capacity to recognize
their own madness. Maskalyne says there is a large population of insane
persons on the island and they walk softly. He says  it's possible that
the insane walk softly because of some enforced law, some authority--the
governor or the Company troops, but says it is more likely an awareness
that they are treading on a Slumbering Creature. In fact he says this is
his reason for continuing the practice of walking softly. So, it seems
that Maskelyne believes that he was once crazy to think that the company
was the force beneath the earth controlling the conscious  island (or
planet as he likes to think of it), but now believes that the island is
a conscious creature not controlled by the company. In fact, he says
that no curfew is enforced and that the people are awake at all hours.
He says they are extra attentive to life, life so precarious that they
move about with great civility. Sounds like good advice. No? 

Why does Maskalyne fear squalor and licentiousness? Does he really fear
it? Or is afraid to admit it to Mason? Much as Mason is afraid to admit
it to Dixon. Dixon having little fear of anything as far as I can tell. 

Mason, like Lear, is a bit nuts too. Isn't he?  

Maskelyne fears squalor and licentiousness, while Mason, free of Dixon
for a brief time, yearns for it. 

"This is the most excellent foppery of the World" 

			--Shakespeare