Gershom & the LED

[Terrance]

Bandwraith at aol.com wrote:

 but for the life of me, I
> don't quite understand why Pynchon would create a character
> like Gershom. What's the significance of a black/jewish
> kabballist as Washington's "man." Help me out of this
> dilemma.



I know it's not fair to ask a question as reply, but why did P create
the LED? What is the significance of the LED? 


These two characters, it seems to me, are just asking to be compared. 

While characters, including both Dixon and Mason  are all very
interested in the LED's relations with men, the dog's contracts,
history, philosophical,  theological, linguistic, natural and
domesticated evolution, etc., Mason and Dixon, don't seem to interested
in Gershom's. Instead the talk is much the same, travel, wars, language,
religion, entertainment, business, real estate, contracts, history, but
Gershom's relations to men, free men, is not discussed at all. 

But as readers, We can't forget that Gershom is a slave and that George
owns
Gershom and that George  may sell him on the blocks at any time. Gershom
is nearly completely absurd. How can he be Sammy Davis Jr. or a
Kabbalist or a Jew? Absurd! He can't be and isn't. But he can be a slave
of George Washington because we are in America in the latter half of the
18th century.  And he is a slave. 

How could men of reason, a LED even, not conclude that slavery was
completely absurd? While I agree with most of what Robert posted about
Labor, it's a very complex arrangement in this novel. Gershom asks the
boys for a copy of their contract. The boys could sure use a good
lawyer. That is, if they want to earn what their services are worth.
Recall that Mason does not want to sign the services of his own boys to
his own father. 

Gershom knows that the boys are poised to make a bundle if they have a
good contract, a contract with the right clauses that is. 

How ironic, for Gershom may be out "moonlighting" at the stand up spots
and earning a living, but his life is not his own until and unless he
purchases it, like a piece of property in Washington's Real Estate
portfolio, thus ending the contract Washington has on his life. 


The LED has a contract, an agreement with his exhibitors, no one owns
him, he is, after all, a British DOG. He is able to assert his rights,
to defend himself in a fight, to defend himself with the law, with a
contract, a partnership with others who likewise have rights and are 
protected and connected by  law. 

Gershom is a slave. All the other fragments Pynchon has shored against
this unyielding absurdity, are mute. 

Another (this time one of my favorite  inter textual comparisons)
character who sings out to be compared with Gershom is Black Pip of
Moby-Dick.