MDDM Ch. 72 Dixon and the slave driver

[jbor]

on 24/8/02 12:11 PM, Doug Millison at millison at online-journalist.com wrote:

> And the difference between "hating" and "expressing hate" would be?

A rather obvious, and important, grammatical difference: the difference
between using the word "hate" as a verb and using it as a noun. In Pynchon's
text it's a noun. In yours it was transformed into a verb.

    The Driver's Whip is an evil thing ....

It is inanimate, a "thing". It is not once bestowed with agency, nor is it
personified in the paragraph as hating, begging, experiencing pleasure or
gambling. Its "purpose", or use, is "to express hate with", or "to beg for
the same Denial of Mercy" (i.e. in an act of Love, s & m). The person who
wields it is the one who gives the whip its "purpose".

Hope this helps.

best