MDDM Dixon eats and Mason don't

[Terrance Flaherty]

jbor wrote:
> 
> 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?

Yes. Both.  I should have said that. And thanks for asking. The topic of
homophobia is of course unbelievably complex. But why shouldn't Pynchon
take it on? He's interested in all sorts of complex subjects.  The
leading explanation for homophobia postulates that homophobia is based
on personal discomfort with intra-psychic homoerotic thoughts repressed
in the subconsonscious. As much as Mason and Dixon fuss and fight, they
are men in love. They are not lovers. I want to emphasize that when I
started talking about this I made it a point to say, Dixon and Mason are
not lovers, but rather, as  Leslie Fiedler says of Ishmael and
Queequeg,  "ambiguously intertwined" even as they are, as you noted,
quite different than the sailors od Melville's novel.  This marriage, I
submit, is  Pynchon's contribution to the  homosexual-pastoral tradition
of American fiction. I'm reading the homophobic into Dixon statement
because of the language Pynchon uses here--"Against Nature" and because
I read this undercurrent in their relationship throughout the text.
Sometimes this undercurrent is played out by minor characters, doubles
of Dixon and Mason. It involves questions of fidelity, power, age, etc. 
Sometimes an idea, say fidelity, is played out in other relationships
(the Duck). 
The power struggle includes  (Mason being the boss, Dixon being the
subordinate but brave Quaker sent out into the elements and the
danger--he even carries a gun at one point, the gun or the sword or the
interments of work as penis in this novel) ironic twists on the  ideals
of "romantic chivalry." DQ?    



> 
> > 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.

Agreed. Mason is not looking for a wife, he's got one named Dixon. 

> 
> > 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.

OK, but are these the deeper emotions? Mason is a depressed soul. He
lost his wife, he left his kids, he's out in the woods drawing lines. He
has political and career ambitions and these seem to be slipping away.
What did he do to get in favor with the RS? Why did he marry his wife?
Her family was half silk and half textile. Mason is a divided soul. All
these are true, but his deeper emotions, I think, have to do with his
being unmanned. He's completely lost his interest in women. That is,
unless they are too young. But, as miserable as he is, he wants to be
miserable with Mr. Dixon. 

 
> > 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.)

Yes, I was outing him, but the sexual, homosexual or otherwise, is not
the point. 
I wuz having a bit of fun again. 

 
> 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.

Right. 

> 
> > 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".

Yes. 



> 
> > 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.


To NYC we go and Amy dressed in black. Gothic soul mates?