The Jesuit Strain

[Terrance]

David Morris wrote:
> 
> >From: Terrance <lycidas2 at earthlink.net>
> >At 439 it appears that Mason is willing to pull off the jackass costume and
> >play another role, if only briefly. That is, the text circle back to an old
> >issue--Dixon reminding MR. Mason that he is "not a fucking Jesuit."
> 
> >From the first Chapter of Ulysses:
> 
> http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/29/61/frameset.html
> 
> '"You wouldn't kneel down to pray for your mother on her deathbed when she
> asked you. Why? Because you have the cursed jesuit strain in you, only it's
> injected the wrong way."'

And that's where it all begins, at least that's the first allusion to a
Jesuit in Pynchon--Stephen in MMV. But Pynchon wants Bloom and Stephen
(and I suspevt that the characters are conglomerates that include P's
friends and family and actors and literary charaters and historical
figures and ideas--like Adams on history and the like), the  Jesuit and
the Jew. So we get both. Next, we get Benny Profane, a half Roman
Catholic Italian and half Jew from Brooklyn and from MMV the same
robotic mother figure, red headed don't you know,  and we keep getting
these again and again.