MDDM Ch. 4 "Bongo" and the benign stereotype

[Jasper Fidget]

Interesting observations.  Surely, when one reads century+ old
literature--"pre-sensitive" to stereotyping (to wrap it up in a
phrase)--there is the accidental--as in unintended--tension between the
pre-sensitive context of its creation (and possibly setting) and the current
context in which we read, which is the force that compels libraries to ban
_Huckleberry Finn_ and lots of Conrad's books.  Are these books innately
harmful or have we made them so through our own modern values?  That sort of
social / temporal dichotomy turns up routinely in historical novels, and is
an important issue for the novel-as-history, necessitating in non-fictional
accounts all sorts of disclaimers about other times, other places, other
customs.  Are "negative" stereotypes necessarily harmful in a context where
this *issue* of stereotyping is non-existent; and are the stereotypes
themselves *more* harmful when existing within a context where they are
identified--eg could you write _Huckleberry Finn_ now?  Would it in any way
resemble the original, even if it were exactly the same?  (I am reminded of
the Borges story where its author has written the complete text, word for
word, of Don Quixote, and, in publishing it now, has produced an entirely
different book.)  Do we charge innocently intended language (whether or not
actually innocent) with more power than perhaps it deserves through the way
in which we read it, and through the historical context in which we read it?
And is what we perceive as harmful language in general made harmful (or more
harmful) by the social structures which condemn it?  I would say *already*
(but always?) "'negative' or discriminatory in a harmful way".

Jasper Fidget

----- Original Message -----
From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2001 11:18 PM
Subject: MDDM Ch. 4 "Bongo" and the benign stereotype


>
> Captain Smith to M & D as he sends Unchleigh and Bodine up the mast ("with
a
> watch and compass") to verify the approach of the *l'Grand*:
>
>     " ... You'll note how very Scientifick we are here, Gentlemen. Yet,"
>     turning to a group of Sailors holystoning the deck, "ancient Beliefs
>     will persist. Here then, Bongo! Yes! Yes, Captain wishes Excellent
Bongo
>     *smell Wind*!" (36-7)
>
> Captain Smith addresses Bongo, the Lascar (a "deck ape" seems to be the
> imbedded pun), as he would a domesticated animal. (He's similarly
> condescending to Unchleigh it must be pointed out: "there's a good
> Lieutenant" he says as he sends him poop-wards.)
>
> While it reminds me of the way Queequeg and other of the dark-skinned, and
> thus "savage", crew members aboard the Pequod are regarded and addressed
(by
> Ahab, by Ishmael, by the implied narrator and the implied reader there -
and
> thus by Melville as well?), of some of the special skills which these
native
> crew members possessed, and of the way that these skills and these crewmen
> were valuable, valued and generally beneficial to Captains Smith & Ahab
and
> their respective crews, I think that Pynchon throughout this text (and his
> other texts as well) is begging the question about "stereotypes" in
general,
> and questioning whether or not they are always (and already?) "negative"
or
> discriminatory in a harmful way. Ethnic jokes, rustic brogues (Dixon),
> effeminate Fops (Derek and Algernon), lewd sailors, Bongo here, the
> "Frenchies" later: I get a sense that Pynchon is considering these
> stereotypes, and the very process and function of "stereotype", from a
> couple of directions. For a start, if you're depicting a character or
> community or era in which stereotypes prevailed, and where they were
> accepted unequivocally and as a matter of fact, by both the stereotyper
> *and* the stereotypee, as with Captain Smith and Bongo here, then you will
> need to represent this acceptance of the stereotype or else you will end
up
> distorting the "truth" or reality of the historical situation and
> environment (by imposing a later or foreign system of values). Secondly,
it
> seems self-evident that there must surely be, or have been, a seed of
> "truth" which motivated the emergence of the stereotype to begin with, and
> Pynchon is at pains to *represent* rather than simply reproduce his
> stereotypes. Third, the fact that narrative agency in the text constantly
> and overtly shifts around between the C.18th and the late C.20th, and that
> the purveyance of the various stereotypes is not really rescinded or
> challenged or even questioned by *any* of the narrative voices, leads me
to
> wonder whether Pynchon is perhaps deliberately flouting the trends towards
> political correctness (vis a vis stereotyping in particular) which have
> predominated in the last twenty years or more.
>
> best
>
>
>
>