VL: the Deal

[jbor]

on 4/9/04 2:26 PM, jbor wrote:

> The deal had actually been orchestrated by Brock to keep Frenesi away from
> Prairie (294, 304-5). Frenesi, of course, is still sleeping with Brock at
> this point, as she had been (literally and symbolically) for some time. Her
> "steadfastly smiling" presence at the gaol when Zoyd is released (304), as
> well as the fact that the chapter opens with her goading Brock into a rage
> with the information that she has a child with Zoyd (294), intimates that
> she is the one who has manipulated this situation. Thus, this "arrangement"
> through which Zoyd and Prairie will be supported by the state is *her*
> legacy to the daughter she abandoned. The chapter ends with the information
> that, over the years as Zoyd and Prairie established themselves in Vineland,
> the "mental disability checks ... arrived faithfully as the moon" (321).

And cf. Frenesi's own "arrangement":

      She recognized the envelope right away. It was the stipend check
    she'd been looking for like a late period since last week. ... (84)

The repetition of this menstrual imagery pretty much confirms those other
hints in the text that it is Frenesi who is behind Zoyd's deal.

best