MDDM Chs 39 & 72 Dixon and slavery

[jbor]

on 12/3/02 3:30 AM, Doug Millison at millison at online-journalist.com wrote:

snip

> I suspect that Pynchon is using Dixon to make a point about
> slavery, how people react to it (or not -- Dixon didn't manage to "see"
> slavery on his earlier trip to Virginia), how to end the suffering that
> slavery entails without more violence and suffering.   It is interesting
> that Dixon, earlier in the novel before they come to America, does seem to
> be aware of slavery, he and Mason talk about America being another
> slave-owning place before they get to America, but then Dixon appears to
> ignore it when he travels through a slave-based society in Virginia.  What
> is it about America that can thus dull sensibilities in this regard?
 
I don't think Dixon's sensibilities are dulled so much as that he is
preoccupied with other issues. He is concerned about his own complicity in
some grander scheme - just what that is, and who is orchestrating it,
he doesn't know. So he is trying to work out who he is being manipulated by,
who he is an unwitting agent for, how he fits into that elaborate scheme and
just how much responsibility he has to bear for what it is that he's
actually doing in, or *to*, the colony.
 
He does travel on the same "Rolling-roads" as the slaves on his way to
Maryland. (393.18-23) And he doesn't ignore or condone slavery here (nor at
the Cape). In fact he seems to seek out the slaves' company, prefers to take
the routes that they are forced to take, empathises with their social
status, is accepted amongst them. I just don't think he has yet fully
realised the appallingly racist assumption upon which the institution of
slavery is founded.
 
> jbor:
>> Dixon has just punched him in the face hard enough to
>> break a tooth
> 
> I don't think you can support this categorical statement with evidence from
> the text, which remains, at best, ambiguous about Dixon's "punch".  Pynchon
> writes that Dixon stops his punch and the slave driver runs into his fist,
> leaving it ambiguous.  Did Dixon punch him or not?  Pynchon doesn't answer
> that question in the text, obviously, given the way that we've seen
> reasonable people can disagree about how to read this episode.  Pynchon
> could have made it crystal clear, I expect, had he wanted to do so.
 
Well, no. Pynchon doesn't write that Dixon "stops his punch" or "pulls his
punch" at all. This is what is written:

      Dixon, moving directly, seizes the Whip,-- the owner comes after
    it,-- Dixon places his fist in the way of the oncoming Face ... (698.32)
    
I think that it's pretty clear that Dixon makes a fist and that a punch
lands forcefully in the slave-driver's face, and that Dixon intends for this
to happen, and that this is what Pynchon's narrator means to communicate in
the sentences in dispute. (NB the fact that Dixon is "moving directly"
towards the slave driver, then the slave driver "comes after" Dixon, then
Dixon thumps him. NB also the rapid-fire way in which the phrases and
clauses are articulated here.)

I also think it's reasonable to assume that an action is accompanying every
emphasis on the word "you" in Dixon's following speech, as Scott originally
suggested, and that Dixon strikes the man with the whip at least four times,
while telling him to turn around and take his comeuppance like a man. (NB
that Dixon says "I guess *you've* never felt this" and "must I rather work
on *you* from the back, like a Beast", referring to the blows with the whip
he is landing upon the slave-driver's person as he speaks). This is why the
slave-driver is on the ground at 699.8, and "cringing there among the
Waggon-Ruts" at 699.19.

I think the interpretation you offer hinges on a pretty idiosyncratic
interpretation of that one sentence at 699.33, on the assertion that that is
the pivotal clause in the whole passage (whole book?), and on a minimisation
of the significance of abundant evidence to the contrary in everything else
that's going on in the scene (and the book, which Terrance has been at some
pains to detail). I don't think the argument that "Pynchon could have made
it crystal clear had he wanted to" is a particularly convincing one. In
fact, I think the scene is "crystal clear" as is. I have a pretty vivid
visual of it in my mind, at least.

Again, though, I'm happy to agree to disagree with you, as we're obviously
not going to convince one another or anybody else or reach any consensus on
this point. No use going on about it endlessly, is there?
 
snip
> 
> jbor:
>> I don't think that what you are advocating is a viable or
>> responsible option in many real life situations,
> 
> Ghandi, the leaders of the successful nonviolent struggle against apartheid
> in S. Africa, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, and many
> others would tend to disagree with you here, I expect.
> Was it violence that brought down the Berlin Wall?
 
I'll stick with my statement, and note that it's not Gandhi or Martin Luther
King who get a guernsey in _GR_, but John Dillinger and Malcolm X.

I'll also note that there was much bloodshed and violence, and many lives
were lost, in each of the "nonviolent" struggles and campaigns you list
above, and that both Mahondas and Martin Luther fell to assassins' bullets.

And I'd add, echoing Frost's gruff farmer, that sometimes good fences *do*
make good neighbours. And that perhaps it's time to start building another
"Berlin Wall", this time one which will separate Palestinians and Israelis.

I don't disagree with the other points you made in your post.

best