MDDM Washington & Gershom & Martha

[Samuel Moyer]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Doug Millison" <millison at online-journalist.com>

> Pynchon doesn't actually show Martha serving Gershom, does he? P makes a
> point of showing Martha serving George (281)  and Mason (283), but not
> Gershom (and that's not surprising, since he is their slave, after all).

> Martha calls Washington on his male chauvinist ways, too:
>
> "Smell'd that Smoak, figur'd you'd be needing something to nibble on," the
> doughty Mrs. W. greets them. "The Task as usual falling to that Agent of
> Domesticity unrelenting, the wife,-- as none of _you_ could run a House
for
> more than ten minutes, in the World wherein most of us must dwell, without
> Anarchy setting in."  (280)
>

I think "none of you" refers to all present... meaning that she does serve
Gersh, though who can know... he does get to smoke and converse... so why
not eat?

on 281 Gersh shows that he has a good understanding of the political
situation and he is acting as an advisor to GW... maybe not a formal
advisor... but GW listens and in the presense of a guest from the Royal
Society.  How would a normal slave be able to make a statement like "They
fail'd to get the Bishop-of-Durham Clause"?  (top 282)

Cherrycoke is presenting Gersh as free to join in the conversation and as
capable of doing so...

I am probably at fault for thinking of Cherrycoke as a real person... I
wonder what is motivating this particular story... and where did he learn
about what was said?  From Dixon I assume... Mason was busy talking with
Martha (which is why she singles him out with an offer of food).  So
logically Dixon reports the conversation to Wicks and he retells it 12 years
later to an audience of relatives, some of whom he depends upon for food and
shelter.

I think if we imagine ourselves in that Philadelphia room eating dough nuts
and drinking coffee/ whisky... and listening to the good Reverend, we'd
probably understand what he was really up to... and I think he is commenting
upon the worth / (god-given equality) of Blacks to a crowd that may not
quite agree with him, but knowing afterall, that this is the Wicks who was
arrested in his youth for exposing crimes of the stronger against the
weaker....  and Wicks uses the most popular figure he can (GW) in presenting
that equality...

I am sure my argument isn't iron-clad... but I hope we can move away from
the historical GW who did own and work slaves... but is clearly presented as
forward thinking in the novel.

Sam