MDDM Ch. 72 Dixon and the slave driver

[Terrance]

Doug Millison wrote:
> 
> At 2:34 PM -0400 8/23/02, Terrance wrote:
> >That being said, it is not out of character for Dixon to whip a man or
> >kill one.
> >
> 
> This would, imo, add an incredibly sad and I think alienating (from the
> reader's POV) note to Dixon's characterization,  one that Pynchon does not,
> again imo, create in the novel. 

The novel is incredibly sad in my opinion. It is alienating and
fragmenting from this reader's POV. And, it is so because this is what P
has created, a sad, tragic, alienating, fragmenting, text. 

But don't get me wrong, the text does have happy times, funny ones,
comic, but it's mostly sad and tragic, alienating and fragmenting. 

But not to worry, it's only a text. 

And, imho, that Dixon does or doesn't whip the man is not a very
significant question and if he did or did not whip the Driver doesn't
really matter much to my reading of the book and Dixon's character. 



I think it would be out of character --
> Dixon is a bit excitable, prone to drink, drug and chase women, but he
> appears to understand the slaves' suffering as well as his own place in the
> System that enforces slavery and profits from the slaves' misery (imo, of
> course).  

Dixon is excitable. He drinks. He takes drugs. He chases skirts. He
empathizes with the the Native Americans, the Africans at the Cape, Coal
miners, Jacobites, the Irish, so on and on down the Preterit chain of
being. 

He doesn't seem to know is part. He and Mason are constantly discussing
their place in the System of Slavery and the SYSTEM that includes
slavery and they are unsure of their role in it. Dixon, unlike Mason, is
much more earthy and close to the ground. He empathizes with coal miners
while Mason can't even stick up for the Baker (his father) when the
System marches in to bust heads and steal bread and cut wages. Dixpn is
outraged by Slavery and when it is in his face he acts to stop it. He
acts violently. He is not a pacifist. 

He pulls back (paraphrasing, Otto) from whipping the
> slave-driver, which is  in character, in a way that whipping or killing him
> would not be -- that's a Line I believe Pynchon is careful not to let Dixon
> cross.

Dixon is a violent man. He is manic in all his emotions, including
anger.