MDDM Ch. 72 Dixon and the slave driver

[Otto]

Where, do you think, refers that "Now be a man, face me, and make it easier,
or must I rather work upon you from the Back, like a Beast" (699.2-3) to?

Otto

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Monroe" <davidmmonroe at yahoo.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, August 24, 2002 5:58 PM
Subject: Re: MDDM Ch. 72 Dixon and the slave driver


> Apparently, whether or not Pynchon's Dixon--vs.
> Robinson's, or the Dixon of lore, much less The
> Historical Jeremiah Dixon ...--actually whips the
> slave driver is another bone of contention here, or so
> someone who isn't one of whom I presume are the
> principal combatants here tells me ...
>
> So please ev'rybody consider this as being offered in
> the spirit of a neutral, non-partisan, close--
> actually, perfectly straightforward, but ...--reading
> of the episode in question.  If it agrees with one but
> not the other of you, well, it's what the text
> actually says, no more, no less, is all.  I'll leave
> any claims for its further significance to the rest of
> you.  All citations from M&D, Ch. 72, pp. 698-9 ...
>
> The short answer is, Dixon doesn't whip the Driver.
> Dixon "seizes the Whip," "rais[es] the Whip," tells
> the Driver to "'Turn around,'"threatens (?) that he's
> "going to kill [the Driver]...?,'" tells him then to
> "face me, and make it easier, or must I rather work
> upon you from the Back,'" "still greatly desires to
> kill the Driver," "shakes the Whip at him," "Thrust[s]
> the Whip into his red Coat," but not once here does he
> actually whip the Driver.  When the Driver says to
> Dixon, "'You broke my Tooth,'" his Tooth was broken
> when "Dixon place[d] his Fist in the way of the
> [Driver's] oncoming Face" and momentum took its course
> ...
>
> Do not be misled by Dixon's "'I'll guess you never
> felt this'" preceeding the Driver's "'You broke my
> Tooth!'"  The Tooth, again, is already broken (or so
> the Driver claims, at any rate ...) by the time Dixon
> "raises the Whip" and issues his
> speculation/(ultimately, unrealized) threat, the
> Driver having "stumble[d] away," his Face having
> presumably (and here I'm perfectly willing to let the
> mechanics which Pynchon would know well fill in an
> unwritten event) collided with that "place[d] Fist."
> The Driver has not been Whipped here, nor will he be,
> at least not in Pynchon's text ...
>
> Robinson's Dixon, on the other hand, takes a more Old
> Testament/Eumenidean (cf. Aeschylus' Oresteia on the
> shift from blood vengeance to justice, from the
> vendetta of the clans and the Furies to the law of the
> polis and Athena) line on vengeance, whereas Pynchon's
> Dixon ultimately and significantly turns away from his
> "desire to kill" ...
>

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