MDDM Ch. 72 Dixon's act of violence

[jbor]

on 12/3/02 6:09 AM, David Morris at fqmorris at hotmail.com wrote:

> If anything, I'd say Pynchon is making a big joke out of Dixon's Quaker
> non-violence.  It's supposed to be funny!  It's not "legally" the same thing
> as throwing a punch, but the intent is identical, and the intent is the real
> point.

Yes, I agree with this, though it's a bitter sort of humour. The narrative
voice which recounts Dixon's punch is heavily ironicised, as it also is
again when it poses the rhetorical question for Dixon on the following page:

"What's a man of Conscience to do?" (699.19)

There is no answer to this, of course. Dixon's conscience dictates both a
universal act (i.e. killing the slave-driver in order to end his brutal
trade in human misery), which goes against his pacifist principles, and a
localised mercy (i.e. not killing the slave-driver because of the sanctity
of every human life), but one that will also allow the man to continue in
his reprehensible trade. Little wonder is it that at that moment of aporia
"his Voice breaks".

His final words - shrill, as Scott noted - aren't very convincing at all,
and the slave-driver is quick to pick up on his sudden loss of conviction.

I think the confrontation ends on a pessimistic note. The slave-driver's
snarl is an ominous warning, that even if from now it "will lie in a Quaker
Home", this Whip - a metonym - will soon enough be used again. The South
will not give up slavery without a fight. The North will need to resort to
violent and bloody battle to end it.

I take Dixon's final recognition of "his Obligation ... to keep Silence upon
the Topick" (700.1) to be an admission of the terrible insight he had at
that moment in the street where his conscience failed him, his realisation
that for justice to be served effectively in some situations it is necessary
to become an "'Instrument of God'" and act decisively - and with decisive
force.

best