MDDM Ch. 72 Dixon's pistol?
jbor
jbor at bigpond.com
Fri Aug 23 17:17:02 CDT 2002
Judy wrote:
> If I may hazard an insight...I did come across evidence
> which indicated that friends left home packing. And even
> weighty Quakers were said to have threatened another human
> with a firearm.
And have elected to serve in an active capacity during wartime.
Of course, the earlier incident in the novel doesn't indicate that Dixon
"packs a pistol" at all. He and Mason argue about the "real" sounds outside
the tent: Mason thinks it is "a Dog", Dixon "Indian Drums":
Outside something is creeping by. "Hold!" Dixon seizing a Pistol and
diving out the tent-flap, into the rain with a smoothness Mason has
rarely observed. ... (493.33)
This incident indicates that Dixon is, potentially, a man of action, that he
is brave, braver than Mason at least, and that he is willing to use a weapon
to defend himself and his fellows. But it's not *his* pistol.
At 698.12 Dixon's sarcastic response ("Rustick Joakery") is directed towards
Mason's hyperbolic adoration ("To act for all those of us who have so
fail'd." "All...?" Dixon begins.) after the stand Jere took against the
slave-driver in the Baltimore Street. Dixon is joking wryly about being
awarded or having to adopt different attire ("Shall I have ..."), imagining
himself all dressed up as some maverick avenger (or, indeed, as a comic-book
superhero: QuakerMan!), in a "Cloak" which will afford him "access to my
Pistol". The Pistol here is part of the same totally imaginary, totally
hypothetical, totally ridiculous outfit as the whole "U-niform".
The irony here, as I see it, is that Dixon, in his red coat and Quaker hat,
does become a sort of semi-legendary or heroic figure by his intervention on
behalf of the slaves in the street.
best
> These were different times. How different we
> can only speculate. It appears that you are indulging in
> comparisons that perhaps the author avoided. Or perhaps we
> happened upon the same letters in the archives on Cherry
> Street.
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