MDDM Ch. 72 Dixon and the slave driver

[Doug Millison]

"its purpose purely to express hate with,
and
Hate's Corollary,-- to beg for the same denial of
Mercy, should, one day, the roles be revers'd.
Gambling that they may not be. Or, that they may."


Whose purpose?  The whip's, "The Driver's Whip" being
the noun referred to by the pronoun "its".

Re the whip, Pynchon writes, "its purpose purely to
express hate with"  (how can a whip hate?  good
question, but that's the sentence Pynchon writes
here),  "its purpose ...... to beg for the same denial
of Mercy" (another of "its" purposes, according to
this sentence).


> Whips don't "beg", nor do they
> experience "pleasure", nor do
> they gamble. 

The way Pynchon has structured this sentence, this
Whip does, this whip expresses something, it's a kind
of metaphor, in this sentence Pynchon also calls "The
Driver's Whip" "an expression"  (world-as- text!), and
repeats the "its" ("its tattered braiding" ... "its
purpose") structure.  


>  accurately
> interpreted

There's a loaded value judgement.  Some
interpretations are more equal than others, even when
they misinterpret the sentence structure of the
passage being interpreted.  Interesting strategy.




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