MDDM: Washington & Gershom

[Doug Millison]

At 2:59 PM +1100 7/12/02, jbor wrote:
>on 12/7/02 3:22 PM, Doug Millison at millison at online-journalist.com wrote:
>
>> the key distinction that M&D makes -- the axmen work
>> for Mason and Dixon as employees, they are not forced to do so as slaves.
>> If they get tired of the work or their treatment, they can leave whenever
>> they want to.
>
>... and it's very odd to see you suddenly embracing the virtues of
>capitalist enterprise. Any port in a storm, I guess.

Odd to see you continue to blur the key distinction between slave and
employee.   Slaves -- Washington's included -- were not free to quit and go
away if they got tired of the work.  That's why Washington advertises for
the return of his escaped slaves, exercising his property rights.


>
>Gershom, of course, in the novel _Mason & Dixon_, has been granted the
>liberty to perform, to earn a private income, and GW really doesn't seem all
>that concerned about whether or not he completes his "duties" at Mt Vernon
>at all (279.29).
>


Where is the scene in M&D in which Washington makes this grant of liberty
to his slave?   I don't think there is such a scene, instead you jump to
this conclusion based on some of the elements of passages that Pynchon
leaves ambiguous and layered with nuance and irony, and ignoring other
relevant passages in the novel.  This is your interpretation, your opinion
only.  Gershom remains a slave, he does not enjoy the "liberty" for which
so many Americans (and Africans) died in the revolution, because he is
Washington's property.  Funny that just as Pynchon doesn't show us
Washington "granting" liberty to Gershom, Pynchon doesn't show Gershom
volunteering to be Washington's slave, his property, a thing that
Washington can buy or sell -- but we can read the novel and understand very
well that Washington did no such thing as give his slaves "liberty" in his
lifetime (they weren't freed until after his death; he advertised for the
return of escaped slaves during his lifetime), and we know equally well
that his slaves didn't volunteer for the job, they or their forefathers
came to America in chains.