MDDM Dixon's act of violence

[Doug Millison]

Please read M&D, page 397, where Dixon makes this straightforward
announcement and explanation of his pacifist stance, when challenged to
fight:

"Did they tell You I was a Quaker, Sir, and would not fight?"

Thus setting up his encounter with the slave driver later in the novel
where, after consulting with his conscience, he manages to suppress his
murderous urge and refrains from fighting, injuring, or killing the slave
driver:

"[...] Dixon still greatly desires to kill the Driver, cringing there among
the Waggon-Ruts.  What's a man of Conscience to do? It is frustrating."
[699]

Instead of hitting or killing him, Dixon takes the whip, which then passes
down to his descendents, and frees the slaves.

It's interesting that Pynchon chooses to let Dixon remain faithful to his
Quaker pacifism in this encounter, instead of sticking with the historical
record which would have Dixon yielding to his baser impulses.  Given the
other material that Pynchon has worked into M&D regarding the suicidal
nature of the project to kill the evil other, his reworking of Dixon's
character would appear to be in keeping with the politics of nonviolence
that serve as a subtext for the novel.

I don't like it, but I guess I can understand the need Terrance and jbor
feel, to resort to character assassination when their attempts to rewrite
Pynchon as a war monger fail.  As you so often like to say, please stick to
text, girls.