GR 'Streets'

[Paul Mackin]

On Wed, 2003-04-16 at 07:46, jbor wrote:
> >> The fact that the destruction and carnage in Hiroshima is associated with
> >> Christian imagery adds to and
> >> confirms the negative attitude towards Christianity which is evident
> >> throughout the section (and the novel).
> 
> on 16/4/03 9:53 AM, s~Z at keithsz at concentric.net wrote:
> 
> > That is obvious. But what does the choice of imagery say about the
> > relationship between Christianity and Hiroshima? Between phallus and Cross?
> > What is meant by 'Tree?'
> 
> I think that Slothrop is making the connections between the newspaper image
> and these things. These are all things which have weighed heavily on his
> mind (of course, the news of the A-bomb dropped on Hiroshima has left him
> totally awestruck and in despair),


The atomic bomb was appalling of course like many other events of WWII
but if Slothrop was at all typical of American servicemen on that August
day of 1945, especially if he had prospects of taking part in the
invasion of Japan, his predominant emotion upon hearing the news would
have been one of relief.


 and there are interpretative
> possibilities both for why Slothrop makes the connections and why the text
> has Slothrop make the connections. The "Tree" is the one that stumps
> (sorry!) me too.

I immediately associated tree with the cross. This was for the obvious
reason that crosses are made from trees but also I seemed vaguely to
remember from somewhere some reference to Christ being nailed to a tree
or sacrificed on a tree or some similar thing. Don't remember where.


 Slothrop has lately become very alert to trees, talks to
> trees, has incorporated them into a sort of personal system of nature
> mysticism etc. The mushroom cloud does look a bit like the way a child would
> draw a tree. Of course, it is white (bleached, unnatural etc) and really
> only a travesty or pornography of a tree. I think its placement just before
> the ellipsis (and just before the narrative reverts from quasi-stream of
> consciousness - whether Slothrop's or a separate narrator's psyche) is
> indicative of the way Slothrop's thought processes might have been working,
> contemplating his own (American) Protestant heritage, his constant pursuit
> of sexual gratification, through the prism of what has been done to
> Hiroshima by the Americans, and he's perhaps considering and reassessing his
> own newfound faith in nature schtick in this light as well. The
> capitalisation of "Tree" could indicate an allegorical category, but if it
> was the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden then I would imagine that it
> would be "the Tree" rather than "a Tree". Perhaps a more generic "Tree of
> Life" reference?
> 
> >> There's a distinct break between this paragraph and the preceding one,
> >> which is where
> >> the newspaper photo is described as reminding Slothrop of the Cross, a
> >> "genital onset", and "a Tree".
> > 
> > How do you know the image reminds Slothrop of these things? Perhaps that is
> > the narrative voice's POV. And what is the place of the astrology reading?
> > Why is it there?
> 
> I think the narrative voice enters into Slothrop's pov and reports on what
> he sees (the newspaper fragment) and thinks and does ("He doesn't remember
> sitting on the curb for so long.... But he did." etc) in the second- and
> third-last paragraphs (and I see no obstacle to inferring that narrative
> strategy right back to the beginning of the section). I think it's
> consistent (both internally to the paragraph and in the wider context of
> Slothrop's personal and psychological progress as reported in the text) that
> he is the one making the connections which are reported.
> 
> In contrast, the astrological reading comes from outside of Slothrop's pov.
> It's a bit like the Tarot readings later on. I wouldn't go so far as to say
> that the text endorses astrology and the Tarot, but these interpretations
> are presented by the narrative voice in what to me seems an uncritical way.
> 
> best
>