Bianca

[David Morris]

I think this explanation is sophisticated and convincing in a
power-theory analysis.  Innocence as a fetish and an illusion.
Reality free from Their mythology is Bianca and Ludwig.

And remember, Slothrop's regret isn't that he had sex with Bianca,
it's that he didn't take her with him, rescue her from her mother.

David Morris

On 11/9/06, Tore Rye Andersen <torerye at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> "In a corporate State, a place must be made for innocence, and its many uses. In developing an official version of innocence, the culture of childhood has proven invaluable. Games, fairy-tales, legends from history, all the paraphernalia of make-believe can be adapted and even embodied in a physical place, such as at Zwölfkinder." (etc., etc., GR, p. 419)
>
> Rando : "the manipulation of children in Gravity's Rainbow should be read as a means of resisting the state's long history of appropriating the innocence of its children for its prosecution of war." In other words, the sex-scene with Bianca (which I'd still argue could be read as a dream) is Pynchon's attempt to deprive the State of its cooptation of childhood. The soothing image of innocence to be found in places like Zwölfkinder or Disneyworld is merely, the argument goes, a sophisticated form of social control, meant to lull us into complacence in times of war, and the scenes with the seductress Bianca or Ludwig who peddles his ass for a few pieces of chewing-gum are meant to undermine this sneaky form of social control.