MDMD5: Slaves and other stuff: Not about not about P

[Paul Nightingale]

Thankyou jbor, I have now reread the relevant sections of Ch7. I don't think
it a case of labelling characters in the way you seem to suggest, or seem to
suggest I have done here: rereading what I wrote earlier, perhaps I gave
that impression. I have already tried to outline my view that fictional
characters shouldn't be interpreted in that way, so perhaps I should take
greater care. Dixon the nice chap, Mason the racist: not what I intended.

Firstly, my analysis (as opposed to interpretation) focuses on the function
characters have within the narrative at any given time. I drew a tenuous
comparison between Ch7 and the carnival (or "Gala") in Ch3. There, of
course, Dixon was the out-of-towner, the (unsophisticated) northerner. This
is less a label applied to Dixon than a way of constructing the relationship
between metropolis and regions, particularly (in England) the north-east:
the emphasis, subsequently, on Dixon's class identity, his background in the
mining community is, I suggest, more important than his being a Quaker (even
before being expelled as a dissident). This is a power relationship. My
working definition of power is derived from Foucault, who argues that it
isn't something one 'has' or 'exercises over' another if that means the
other is, thereby, rendered powerless. The individual subject exercises
power by actively defining their relationship to the truth-game in question.
A truth-game (more properly, a discursive formation) is simply a way of
defining reality in a given situation.

In Ch7 the truth-game is colonialist, another take on the relationship
between metropolis and regions. Yet here, the first thing we might notice is
that Mason will appear as the gauche out-of-towner because he refuses to
surrender his anglocentric outlook. Dixon is more at home. Furthermore, we
should bear in mind that this is not English colonialism; according to Mason
it is "one of the colonies of Hell, with the Dutch Company acting as but a
sort of Caretaker for another". To what extent is this a comment on Dutch
colonialism, and Mason's appreciation of the Company's role? To what extent
is he commenting on the unsympathetic terrain (or "miserable
Viper-Plantation")? And how far is that related to the sexual shenanigans
that embarrass him?

Immediately preceding the "prolong'd Phantasies" passage, Pynchon writes:
"Mason, as he comes to recognise the sorrowful Nakedness of the Arrangements
here, grows morose, whilst Dixon makes a point of treating slaves with the
courtesy he is never quite able to summon for their Masters" (p69). The
wording perhaps makes the passage ambiguous. Mason cannot resist (a kind of)
enlightenment; while Dixon is motivated by his instinctive rebelliousness.
Perhaps the chapter deals with a conflict within Mason: that between his
confirmed Englishness (perhaps ethnocentrism is a better term than
anglocentrism) and his rational outlook (he dallies with the supernatural as
a way of confirming his stature as a man of science).

If you've bothered reading this far, Doug: apologies for the tedious
lit-crit.