What are these people about?

[Terrance]

jbor wrote:
> 
> Terrance wrote:
> 
> > jbor wrote:
> >>
> >> I think that Terrance is right in that the "many" who are watching are the
> >> local townsfolk, the same "them" who might turn into a murderous mob at the
> >> sight of Quaker garb.
> >
> > But why would they turn on a Quaker?
> 
> Dixon is initially concerned that the locals have mistaken he and Mason for
> "two Hirelings of their Landlord and Enemy, Mr. Penn." (341.20) The Dutch
> Rifle is the first stop on their guided tour, and it is a "backwoodsman"
> haunt. I think that in these parts Quakers are identified with the Penn
> faction - the "Proprietors" - and are therefore much hated.

Yes, that's it. 

> 
> > One important thing I forget to
> > mention is that this is the major township on the edge of the wilderness
> > (Reform Church and German Pietists mostly) and not Philadelphia, which
> > is where Dixon decides to make himself less conspicuous by putting on
> > his Quaker garb and blending in. However, I'm still not sure why he
> > would go as Mason. I should think the mob would be more apt to commit
> > violence toward Mason.
> 
> Mason's clothing is nondescript, as you say, and not particularly stylish.
> He wouldn't be mistaken for a Macaroni, nor for a Philadelphia Fop. At first
> the locals are suspicious that the two are with the "Press", or are
> "Drummers of some kind" (i.e. travelling salesmen), which is the angle Dixon
> straight away picks up on. 

Agreed. 



I think the danger in being "Hirelings" of Penn
> and coming to visit the massacre site is that the locals might think the two
> are there to try to bring the Paxton Boys to justice, or to stir up trouble
> by writing a report in the city newspapers. The identification is
> Quaker-Penn, and it's also another example of the city v. country divide.

Right. 


> 
> snip
> > And why does Dixon say that Mason is sticking out if he is not?
> 
> He is sticking out in Philadelphia because his hat and wig are shabby, are
> not "adventurous enough". (303) Philadelphians are obviously extremely
> fashion-conscious. Mason's drab attire wouldn't stick out at all in
> Lancaster Town.

OK, but I'm still not sure that Mason's attire would blend in with the
locals at Lancaster. 


> 
> > It could be that Dixon is just pulling Mason's leg when he says that
> > people are talking about his wig and his clothes and that there is
> > little he can do to blend in. Again, I could read it as Dixon being a
> > bit pissed about the Molly/Dolly sour apples thing and the lady's
> > suggestion that Mason and Dixon are VERY CLOSE.
> 
> The sexual sub-text in the scene between Dolly and Dixon is a little more
> complex than that. 

Yeah, was just mentioning it is all. 


Dolly doesn't quite imply it, and even in interpreting
> her words as a "Suggestion" of homosexuality I don't think Dixon is annoyed
> at all - he makes a joke of it after all. (300.16)

I didn't make myself clear, but the emphasis should not be on the
suggestion of homosexuality, but the closeness, the identification of
Dixon as one half of Mason&Dixon and the problem Dixon is having, at
times, because he is the partner/assistant to a sullen and melancholic
man. 


> 
> > What provokes his disguise is not fear so much as common sense,
> >> keeping his instinctive impulsiveness in check - something which he has only
> >> lately learnt from his teacher.
> >
> > So going as Mason could also imply keeping his natural inclination to
> > seek adventure in check?
> 
> Dixon and Mason seek different sorts of "adventure" I think. Remember that
> Mason is fascinated by the Gothick. A voyeur, he seeks out the grotesque and
> gruesome. Dixon is much more inclined to adventures of the flesh. He has
> only come along to Lancaster as his friend's bodyguard, and actually sleeps
> in on the day when Mason visits the gaol. Note that it is Mason's
> description ("Almost a smell") and his paleness - the inexplicable sensation
> he has obviously experienced - which fires Dixon's enthusiasm to visit the
> scene. (346.19)

Right. 

> 
> I think that in the context of the situation he realises that to fall to his
> knees in prayer would be to expose his sympathies with the Indians and his
> antagonism towards the local townsfolk, and thereby open himself to danger.
> I guess he could just as easily have indulged in silent prayer, which is
> sort of what he does anyway, isn't it? (347.18) And, even so, he "feels no
> better for this Out-pouring". I think it's the feeling of powerlessness and
> injustice which gets to him.

He fears reprisal. Very powerful scene set in a land where people come
to have the freedom to practice their religion (to escape religious
oppression that often included massacre).  

> 
> I don't agree that they have "forgotten their own histories" or that they
> are being dishonest. I think it's the proximity and brutality of the
> massacre that gets to them both, and they seek to escape from it as soon as
> they possibly can. It is like Hell to them because it is as if God - any
> sense of divine justice - has deserted this horrible place.

Well, I agree that they are moved and I don't question their feelings or
the sincerity of their outrage. However, Dixon and Mason both think that
there is something in America, in the Wilderness perhaps, or in  the
land that has infected the  people ("What in the holy names are these
people about?"), that makes them Exceptionally violent and brutal and
evil-minded. Dixon thinks that nothing in his own history prepared him
for what he saw in the cape and nothing in the cape prepared him for
what he has witnessed thus far in America. But how could this be true?
Dixon and Mason,  as they have several times during the adventure thus
far, talk history. And although they too seem to have been down to the
river of forgetfulness, they know that their own histories are full of
tales every bit as brutal, violent, evil-minded as what they have seen
at the Cape and in America. In fact, although Dixon is more apt to
recognize this (his religious/politics being quite different from
Mason), there political discussions are deliberately positioned in the
text to call attention to this fact of history. I'll provide several
examples, but I have to ge look them up. Consider first, Mason's
discussion with the Slave (64-65) at the cape about Woman and Marriage.
Here, Mason is quite ignorant, but not quite innocent. Another example
would be at MD.84 where Mason has engaged a Child in a discussion about
the Mills (very important theme) and how they make use of Dowsers (this
goes to poor Peter no doubt) to find the Wells back home. The child
asks, 

"Have the Dutch conquered your land too?"

Mason's condescending chuckle is challenged by none other than Mr.
Dixon. No kidding. 

Lot of critical stuff on Pynchon Puritan roots, but not his Catholic and
Irish roots.  


> 
> >> But I also think that the contempt which the characters feel at this point
> >> is not so much for the Paxtons themselves as for these townsfolk who, it
> >> seems to Mason, have drunk of "Lethe-water" (346.23), who have forgotten so
> >> quickly that terrible massacre of some few months ago, who believe that some
> >> (karmic) "Debt is paid" (344.1) by such brutal and unprovoked slaughter, who
> >> quickly carry on with their petty personal and political squabbling as if
> >> nothing at all had happened: "In America, Time is the true River that runs
> >> 'round Hell." And, at chapter's end, it is indeed as if the lads are
> >> climbing the rungs of a ladder out of Hell as they leave Lancaster Town.

Right on. 


> >
> > Yes, just as in the Cape, but I still think the boys too have forgotten.
> > Forgotten their own histories. Dixon thinking it must be something in
> > the Wilderness that causes men to act with such brutality and Mason
> > thinking some Lethe waters cause the people to forget the Debts they
> > have amassed.
> 
> The townsfolk believe that, with the massacre, the "Debt is paid" (344.1)
> and over with for good. Mason is appalled at how soon the actual physical
> atrocity has been forgotten and converted into such a materialistic
> rationalisation. I think the "Debt" Mason refers to at 346.22 is something
> more spiritual than the evening up of accounts which Jabez refers to at the
> top of 346.

Yes, a spiritual Debt.  There are reasons why Jesus has tax collecting
friends and disciples. P is playing with all sorts of debt in this book.
Recall that it is the Debt the Dutch woman owe to African woman at the
cape. Here RC's gambling debts are more a matter of character and good
faith, but this changes in America (I think this is a very interesting
theme). Interesting that it is the grandfather that is is murdered in
the hypothetical explanation, putting a hole in the blanket. 


> 
> > Dixon thinks back only to the Romantic Feudal Raby.
> 
> And then to the brutalities he witnessed at the Cape. But these do not
> compare. Nothing in his experience compares to this massacre - "far worse
> happen'd here". (347.19)

Yes, **his** experience. 


> >
> >
> > It's easy, I think, to see the alignment, not so easy to see where the
> > text is critical of our boys here.
> 
> You're right: I don't see it at all. Certainly Dixon wants to get the hell
> out of there, and Mason, likewise, has already sought escape "guiltily" in
> the pages of _The Ghastly Fop_, but these responses are quite understandable
> imo. Honest admissions of an inability to cope with the horror.

Agreed, but I should not have used your term here--text. This is where I
think we have very different readings of the narrative and who is
telling the tales. This is one of the reasons I (responding, Dave
Monroe,  to a thread started not by me but Kai and Thomas) posted on
Melville and Poe. I read Pynchon as part of an American tradition, but
I'm quite willing, ready and able to discuss TS or DQ here. 

Snip, but I would like to respond to the rest as a separate topic..... 


Thanks again, 

T