MDDM Ch. 66 Stig's Tale: An Interpretation

[Bandwraith at aol.com]

It is also interesting to note the contrast between the 
representation of these pre-Columbian encounters in 
Vineland between the natives and these: "Rogues and
Projectors and Fugitives... without pretext, no Christ,
no Grail, no expectations beyond each Day's Turnings,
to be haunted by Ghosts more material, less merciful,
than any they'd left at their backs" [634], with the
post-Columbian encounters and conquests in the name 
of Christ.

Somehow those later europeans would have learned
to simplify the complexities of mutual interaction
with the less tecnnologically advanced natives, even
"to Penstrokes in the glare of this Ocean's sky" [108].

They would have developed the less material
techniques of rationalization and redemption,
and honed them to a fine art- so much for guilt.


In a message dated 7/25/02 3:29:28 AM, jbor at bigpond.com writes:

<< As far as the battle "upon the Headland" goes, Pynchon's Stig's text
certainly equivocates on the issue of who "won" the day, or even what it
might mean to have "won" the day: "any question of who had prevail'd come to
matter ever less, as Days went on .... " (634.5). In fact, things are left
pretty much as ambiguous as the fate of Hsi and Ho at the end of Ch. 64.

best

 >>