MDMD18: Cryptick Intestinal Commentary

[Doug Millison]

Tying those back to GR works, not only to the "evacuation" of the opening
paragraph but also to the pig imagery, and the sympathy for pigs about to
be slaughtered.

At one level,  I think we can also read this effigy episode in terms of the
larger scheme of anti-corporate politics in the novel:  plastic people
manipulated by the system, puppets with invisible puppeteers jerking the
strings.; which is not to say this is the only possible reading, of course.

Re the encounter of Mason and Dixon with George Washington,  Pynchon's
focus on the real estate developer aspect of the Father of our Nation  is
an interesting choice.  Re George and his slave, however else Gershom may
function in the novel, he serves to remind us that Washington was, until
his death, a slave owner, abeit apparently conflicted to some degree about
the institution of slavery, publicly opposing it to a certain degree but
also enjoying the labor of slaves on his estate.