Pynchon as propaganda

[jbor]

on 9/4/03 3:09 AM, s~Z at keithsz at concentric.net wrote:

>> If it's what the chaplains are preaching to the men, and if it's
>> what's happened/happening/going to happen to the dead soldiers, then what's
>> the point of the passage?
> 
> The point of the passage is not to contrast theism and atheism, for which
> there is no evidence in the text.

As I've already shown, both the tone and the semantic content of the passage
do rely on the opposition of Christian faith in life after and death and a
view of death as final and irrevocable. The chaplains tell the soldiers a
myth about redemption and salvation. But the soldiers just die. That's the
purport of the passage.

> People of faith do die. The text is silent
> on what happened to them afterwards.

Precisely. It does not endorse the Christian schema which is proposed right
there in the very same paragraph.

> It is to contrast Christian faith as
> solace and hope in the face of death with Christian faith as instrument of
> death. 

I see. Onto that trip now. That's part of it, certainly, but not all of it.
The text is silent on the motivations of the chaplains, just as it is silent
on whether or not the soldiers are Christians. As I said before, I fully
realise that even suggesting that atheism might be a driving force within
Pynchon's texts is tantamount to treason here, and not open for civil
discussion. The possibility that a "God" or gods don't exist is consistently
excluded, both in general discussion and in discussing Pynchon's texts
specifically. 

best

> The message offered by army chaplains stands in stark contrast to the
> closing images in the section of the Virgin gazing down on the sacrifice of
> Hiroshima. The phallic mushroom cloud has the same 'hey-lookit-me smugness'
> as the Cross.
> 
> The fireburst came roaring and sovereign. . . .
>