MDDM Ch. 70 Interdiction

[jbor]

Terrance wrote:

> this
> razzle-dazzle "Let them have more than their daily ration of Spirits"
> statement is perhaps the meanest idea to come out of Dixon's mouth in
> the entire novel.

Yes, I'd agree it's pretty short-sighted. But I don't think he means it in a
negative way. Dixon likes to imbibe, thinks nothing of it. Apparently the
Native Americans also like to drink ("Heaven help us if we run out of
Whiskey" 673-4), he enjoys their company ("all this mix'd Society" 674.14)
and so he sees no harm. We know better, of course, but Dixon doesn't. Just
like Mason, who can't get outside of his own subjective point of view and
comprehend that the Native Americans do not see this almighty gash
encroaching through their lands in the same way that he does, as some benign
and dispassionately scientific[k] endeavour, Dixon can't understand that his
natural gregariousness and generosity will not endear him to nor assure his
safety amongst the tribes either.

I think they change positions on wanting to proceed, although both know deep
down that they will not, and that they are not permitted to: " ... the
Paradise denied him by ... British American Policy ever devious." (679-680)

>> Is the end of Ch. 69, when "[t]hey wake" (from the dream which has been the
>> Commission), in fact the "moment of the Interdiction"?
>> 
> 
> Care to elaborate?

It was a question, but I think they "wake", in a metaphorical rather than
literal sense, to the realisation that the Line will proceed no further:

    They both dream of going on, unhinder'd, as the Halt dream of running,
    the Earth-bound of flying. ... (677.10)

The Warrior Path, Crawfford's mention of the Indians' "Trail to Wisdom":
these are emblematic of "the Interdiction", the rupture or cessation of the
westward adventure, the moment that M & D look at one another and realise
that *their* Line (and their partnership/marriage) is at an end.

I'm not sure about the significance of the relationship between the Lambton
Worm story (an actual legend) and the way the Line is described in Ch. 70
either, but I do think that connection is being made.

> Mason does an interesting thing here and he does this periodically
> throughout, he tidies up the dialogue. In this example, he "tidies up"
> Dixon's "Invisible creature" and "IT" metaphor, first to "it is all of
> us...labor" and then to "this Line has a Will to proceed Westward" and
> then "We", this after Dixon still insists on an "influence" and a
> "Current." 

I'd say Chas is reinterpreting Dixon's comments to fit into his own
Christian, rationalist schema. I think Dixon is more inclined than Mason to
empathise with non-Christian and supernatural points of view: the Native
Americans seeing it as a "great invisible Thing that comes crawling straight
over their Lands, devouring all in its Path" (just like the Lambton Worm),
and Captain Zhang's *Sha*, "that Current strong as a River's" (679.4).

Mason describes this process as "tidying up these thoughts a bit", but what
he is really doing is translating the ideas through the prism of his own
worldview, trying to use logic ("But those are Threats we did not make") to
refute Dixon's reification of the Native Americans' viewpoint.

best