"your mother hoping to hang that Gold Star"

[Abdiel OAbdiel]

--- Paul Mackin <paul.mackin at verizon.net> wrote:
> On Sun, 2003-03-09 at 22:21, Sean Lawler wrote:
> > The "gold star" refers to an award given to
> mothers who lost sons in the
> > war.  So the implication is that everyone is out
> to get you, even your
> > mother, who prefers the romanticized notion of a
> dead hero son to you, an
> > actual living son.  This passage has been on my
> mind a lot lately while
> > watching endless CNN People in the News segments
> about families tearfully
> > (cheerfully?) waving their loved ones off to war.
> 
> It's a partial answer to Roger's famous meditation
> on WHAT THE WAR
> WANTS. p.131
> 
> My mother is the war declares Roger . . . . P.39
> 
> P.


My mother is the war.  What the war wants.  It is only
a partial answer to the question (a question that
Roger and many other characters ask, including
Slothrop and his Mother). One of the wonderful things
about GR is how questions raised by the novel's
narrators and character/narrators shift from
consciousness to consciousness (often from altered
consciousness to altered consciousness).  In addition,
there is that famous YOU consciousness.  Slothrop's
mother is drunk. 
How pitiful all the human characters are in this
novel. 
It's a pity that some readers insist on applying the
shifting thoughts of the  "poor crippled
consciousness" to current events. It's amazing to me
that anyone would compare hanging the gold star to
anything on the Tube.  



__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Tax Center - forms, calculators, tips, more
http://taxes.yahoo.com/