MDDM Dixon eats and Mason don't

[jbor]

Terrance wrote:

> It is against Nature for a young guy like Mason to stay wrapped up in
> black. He should get out more. Get out in public. Socialize. Meet other
> women. 

I think Dixon elaborates his meaning that it is "against Nature" for Mason
"[n]ot to be seeking another" *Wife*, which is just what he says at 391.9.
Recall also that Mason is quite a bit older than Dixon.
 
> But when I read "against Nature" I read the homoerotic theme as well.

Just clarifying, but wouldn't that be reading homophobia rather than
homoeroticism into Dixon's comment?
 
> Mason, knowing quite well what Dixon is saying, that is, that it is not
> normal to keep up his black mood, retorts with a defensive and juvenile,
> "What! to mourn my Wife?"

Yes, I agree.

> And Dixon replies, "not to be seeking another...?"

I.e. wife.
 
> So Dixon is being a good sport, he's being kind, looking out for Mason
> and himself, but Mason is just **Stuck** in the black.

Despite the attempt at a pun ... (Is it?) Yes, of course, and he's being
visited by Rebekah's ghost at regular intervals as well, which is
compounding his melancholy. I think Mason's deeper emotions reveal
themselves at 437.20, after the disappointment of Maskelyne's appointment.

> Mason looks at Dixon's shins, then looks out into nothing, he says if
> they were back in Glouster, Dixon's advise would be, Naturally, common
> and expected. 
> 
> In fact, recall that when Mason visited his kids this was the advice he
> got. Well, actually he got a little more than advice, he got guilt and
> propositions. 
> 
> But now they are far from the simple country life and its social
> pragmatics. 
> Mason has been to London. And he's going to NYC. OH BOY! I know a place
> on 19th street, The Noose, or the Ramrod might be better.

I realise that you're trying to "out" Mason here, and there's certainly some
potential for a reading of this sort in the passage describing how Mason
walked "Lust's less-frequented footpaths" (110.14) back in London in the
year after Rebekah's death, but ultimately I don't think it holds up. I
think the decadence and debauchery in London which Mason witnessed covered a
broader spectrum than just homosexuality, though that's quite probably one
aspect of it. (For example, I don't believe the Medmenham Circle was a
homosexual coterie. Their motto was *Fay ce que voudras*: hedonistic, and
somewhat self-indulgent, rather than exclusively or primarily homosexual.)

The impression I get is that Mason has remained celibate ever since Rebekah
died. Even though he did walk on "treacherous ground" (110.9) - and
sometimes still does (399.8-14) -  and he seeks out morbid and Gothick
experiences (such as Lancaster gaol, which proved to be *too* horrible, to
the point where he had to block out the experience by immersing himself in
escapist literature), he remains a non-participating voyeur. He watches, he
knows what goes on at the "Hellfire Club" and what the "Acts never
specified" (399.13) are, but he "see[s] no point" to any of it. Just as we
saw at the Cape, he does not indulge, never succumbs to carnal temptation.

> Mason says,
> perhaps he has been unmann'd.

"[U]nmann'd" as in lacking the typical male instinct to wed and bed (or,
vice versa). Homosexuals aren't "unmann'd".

> Out Out damned black spot. Out of the closet, out of the house, out of
> it. 
> 
> That's how I read it.

Thanks for the discussion.

best

> Oh dear what can I do, babies in black and I'm feeling blue
> tell me ooooo, what can I do.