Gudrid's vision (MDDM Ch. 66)

[jbor]

on 26/7/02 12:32 AM, Bandwraith at aol.com at Bandwraith at aol.com wrote:

> Gudrid's vision is problematic, but my feeling is
> that the retelling of it at this juncture in the
> narrative relates somehow to that passage (which
> I can't seem to locate at the moment) wherein
> the native confides the concern that while the
> they were able to find in their dreaming a space
> for the europeans yet to come, that such possibility
> was not mutual.
> 
> Snorri's mother seems on the verge of experiencing
> an actualization of that native dream of her, but
> just at that moment, violence over the weapon occurs
> and the magic is broken.
> 
> So, the Gudrid of the large eyes is a projection, if
> you will, but a projection of how she must have
> appeared to the natives, in their dreams, which
> given a different turn of events she might have
> accepted as a dream of her own.

I think this is certainly a possibility. It's noteworthy that Gudrid, of all
of the Thorfinn expedition, was Christian:

Thorstein left a widow, beautiful and intelligent, the Christian woman
Gudrid Thorbjarnadottir.

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/vikings/saga3.html

And there is a Christianised version of the sagas also, the 'Hauksbok':

http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/2/16/h16-4206-e.html

But I don't think either of these factors are in play in Pynchon's text.

I wonder if the inclusion of Gudrid's vision is meant as a lead-in to the
way Mason and Dixon hear the "great Ghost of the woods ... whispering to
them" to turn back in the main narrative which follows in the chapter, as
another firm example of the "Ghosts more material" of Native American
culture? I think we're moving into the section of the novel when Native
American perspectives and their oral traditions are going to figure
prominently, although these have already been pre-empted in the cameo
appearances of people like Sir William Johnson and Evan Shelby.

I agree with your previous post too. I think Pynchon is certainly showing
how pagan Thorfinn and his group felt the sort of shame and guilt in their
bloody encounter with the "Skraellings" which later colonising Christians
will rationalise away as "God's will".

best