MDDM Ch. 72 Dixon and the slave driver

[jbor]

MalignD wrote:

> Lastly, has anyone commented on this, on page 696:
> 
> "The Driver's Whip is an evil thing, an expression of ill feeling worse than
> any between Master and Slave,--the contempt of the monger of perishable goods
> for his Merchandise,--in its tatter'd braiding, darken'd to its Lash-Tips
> with the sweat and blood of Drove after Drove of human targets, the metal
> Wires work'd in to each Lash, 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."
> 
> Any guess as to what is intended here?  I read this to mean that the
> corollary of hate--what naturally follows (for the hater?)--

I initially misinterpreted "Hate's Corollary" to mean love and went off on
an s & m tangent which isn't applicable here at all. I wonder now whether
the corollary of hate in the context is injury, or death.

Bandwraith noted the distinction made in the first sentence between
slave-driver and slave-master, which I think is noteworthy. I think the last
bit implies that those slave-mongers who gamble that the roles will not be
reversed are probably going to be far more brutal than those who gamble the
other way. (I think this particular slave-driver falls into the former
category.) And, so, the idea of the "same Denial of Mercy" refers to an
equivalency in the extent or degree of the punishment inflicted should roles
be reversed ... ? 

I'm not sure about the atonement/expiation angle. I don't think there's any
inkling of redeeming doubt or remorse on the part of this particular
slave-driver. I think he thinks Dixon's suggestion that "[s]ooner or later a
Slave must kill his Master" is madness, so gambling on the reversal of roles
doesn't enter into it for him at all.

best

> is to beg for a 
> denial of mercy should the roles be reversed, gambling, in some instances, on
> the chance that they indeed will be reversed.  Which is to say, I think,
> hoping they will be.
> 
> I read this as saying that those who hate to the extent that, say, a slaver
> hates his slaves, perhaps begs for the whip, seeks someone to force on him
> the atonement he can't manufacture on his own.  If that is the meaning, it
> might be argued that, if one believes Dixon acted violently and didn't stay
> his own hand, he nevertheless offered the slaver a kind of longed-for mercy;
> i.e., his action was something more than an act of personal violence and
> momentary anger.  (I think, however, to read the incident thus would require
> believing the narrator's opinion identical to Dixon's and not a biased
> retelling.)