re Object Lesson

Doug Millison millison at online-journalist.com
Wed Mar 13 15:23:11 CST 2002


Interesting idea. Of course my son is not dumb enough to run into anybody's
fist and thus actively create the sort collision Pynchon depicts in this
scene.  (He's also big enough to kick my butt now.)  He's been through
playground conflict-resolution training in grade school, later was an
instructor for his younger schoolmates in same, and has learned how to talk
about his problems and frustrations instead of acting them out violently.
As you may know, there's a lot of kids are growing up this way  (not all of
them unfortunately), one of the hopeful signs I see for the future.

If the text weren't ambiguous, there'd be no opening for this discussion in
the first place, the sequence of events and their causes would be perfectly
clear and all readers could agree on them.  That's not often the case in
Pynchon's works.

It's ambiguous here among other reasons because Pynchon leaves out so much
information -- he just gives us a few frames in the cartoon, as Dave Monroe
said.  How much time passes between the time Dixon places his fist and the
slave driver runs into it?  Pynchon doesn't say. Is Dixon's fist wrapped
around the whip handle, or does he make a fist with his free hand?  Which
fist is it, his left or right?  Does Dixon try to dodge the slave driver's
charge?  & etc. All we know is that Dixon wants to kill the man, but his
actions betray that desire, due, I suggest, to the interposition of his
Quaker instincts and his conscience.




Keith:
The text is not ambiguous. Act out the scene with your son. Have
him
move his face in your direction and place your fist in its path.
Your response
will be different than Dixon's because (1) you won't place your
fist there in
the first place, and (2) if you did, you would move it before your
son's face hit it.




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