MDDM: Chapter 48 Rosencrantz, Guildenstern & Captain Zhang

[jbor]

Cyrus wrote:

> In another comic scene, Mason and Dixon realize the pranksters must be Darby
> and Cope. When confronted, they confess and reveal they haven¹t been too
> accurate in their measurements. Comedy continues incessant. What are Darby and
> Cope? Chain-men or Chinamen?> 474.14-15  "Pity, really. None of us has seen a
> Chinaman before."

The amusing confusion of identities, particularly 471.1-14 and the
Shakespearean echoes at 472.35 and 473 ("well met" ... "Stichomythia" ...
Mason's and Dixon's parodic rhyming couplets at 473.15-18), is very much a
deliberate play on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, both Shakespeare's original
duo and as they are in Stoppard's travesty, and recalls Eliot's 'Prufrock'
and Beckett's _Waiting for Godot_ as well.

> "Soon," promises the oracular Squire Haligast.
> 
> Is this a "prophesy" for the Chinese immigrants soon to arrive in the
> Americas?
> 
> http://www.ailf.org/heritage/chinese/essay01.htm

I think it's a forecast of Captain Zhang's imminent appearance at the Camp
(and in the narrative, foreshadowed once already at 142.27), at least.

best