MDDM Ch. 72 Dixon and the slave driver (Italics)

[jbor]

on 26/8/02 12:01 PM, Terrance at lycidas2 at earthlink.net wrote:

>> The modal verb ("must") doesn't indicate future tense here either. It's not
>> framed as a question at all; it is a statement which accompanies Dixon's
>> action of whipping the man "from the Back".
> 
> 
> I can follow your grammar, but not your logic.

I was questioning or disagreeing with the way you had rewritten the
utterance as a future tense construction. But you seem to have changed your
position on that now, so OK.

Modal verbs express degrees of certainty. The verb "must" is at the extreme
end of the spectrum, expressing necessity, intention, deliberateness (here,
also impatience, contempt). Try putting any other of the modals (can, could,
shall, should, will, would, might, may) into the sentence and see how it
compares.

Further, the lack of a question mark does indicate that it isn't framed as a
question, whatever else Dixon might use question marks for. Can you find
another example in the text where Dixon asks a question but doesn't use a
question mark? And why would he be asking the slave-driver anything anyway?
He's the one calling the shots. It's rhetorical, not interrogative, imo.

What of Bandwraith's point regarding Dixon's exclamation at 699.13?

    "Now then!" cries Dixon merrily.

He's certainly relishing a return to action of some sort, isn't he?

And what about the relative pronoun "this" at 698.35? The man has turned
away and cannot see the whip. Dixon sees that he has turned away. Thus, the
relative pronoun used by Dixon, if it were meant to stand for "the whip", is
ambiguous in and inappropriate to the context of situation. By his use of
the relative pronoun Dixon indicates that he knows the slave-driver knows
what the pronoun is meant to stand for. The "this" has to refer to something
which is immediately tangible to the slave-driver, i.e. the sting of the
lash, which occurs on the "you've" three words prior to it. Dixon's
utterance here simply doesn't make sense any other way.

Play it out your way. Dixon takes the whip off the man. The man comes after
the whip. Dixon makes a fist and puts it where it will hit the slave-driver
in the face (i.e. Dixon punches him in the nose). The driver turns and
staggers away. Dixon follows and says " ... I'll guess *you've* never felt
this." Unless there's a whipstroke on "*you've*" the proximate referent for
the relative pronoun is the punch.

On the subject of the italics. You assert unequivocally that they do not or
cannot indicate or represent Dixon's whipstrokes. What, then, in your
opinion, do they represent?

best
 
>> 
>> " ... Now be a man, face me, and make it easier, or must I rather work
>> on *you* from the Back, like a Beast, which will take longer, and
>> certainly mean more discomfort for *you*." (699.2-4)

> I can agree that the
> modal verb phrase does not indicate future tense
> here.
> Although it's not easy to tell that it is not framed as a question since
> when Dixon speaks Pynchon uses the question mark as an inflection mark
> or whatever, so not having a question mark here doesn't tell us that
> Dixon is not framing his "or
> must I rather work..." as a question.
> 
> I can think of lots of examples of this phrase, "or must I rather
> work..." framed not as a question, so I'm not saying that the phrase
> itself is necessarily interrogative, only that I can't quite figure out
> how your conclusion,
> 
> {{{it is a statement which accompanies Dixon's
> action of whipping the man "from the Back".}}}
> 
> follows from what you say about the modal verb.