ATDDTA (10) Back To The Future - Re: Hanged Man

[Dave Monroe]

--- Keith <keithsz at mac.com> wrote:

> ... read the last paragraph on page 272 ...
> 
> http://tinyurl.com/yof9ah

Indeed.  What up with that Pynchonian hanged man? 
Here's something on T.S. Eliot's deployment ...

46. I am not familiar with the exact constitution of
the Tarot pack of cards, from which I have obviously
departed to suit my own convenience. The Hanged Man, a
member of the traditional pack, fits my purpose in two
ways: because he is associated in my mind with the
Hanged God of Frazer, and because I associate him with
the hooded figure in the passage of the disciples to
Emmaus in Part V. The Phoenician Sailor and the
Merchant appear later; also the 'crowds of people',
and Death by Water is executed in Part IV. The Man
with Three Staves (an authentic member of the Tarot
pack) I associate, quite arbitrarily, with the Fisher
King himself.

http://eliotswasteland.tripod.com/notes.html#f46

55. On his card in the Tarot pack, the Hanged Man is
shown hanging from one foot from a T-shaped cross. He
symbolizes the self-sacrifice of the fertility god who
is killed in order that his resurrection may bring
fertility once again to land and people. 

http://eliotswasteland.tripod.com/notes.html#f55

http://eliotswasteland.tripod.com/

One of the earlier signs that Eliot's little band of
"Greeks" may bear watching derives from the strong
resemblance between Eliot's bungling Madame Sosostris
and Virgil's bungling Sibyl of Cumae. One might be an
updated version of the other, with a nod to a real
life bungler. Jessie Laidlaw Weston, after all, is not
at her best in the chapter in From Ritual to Romance
that deals with Tarot cards. In Eliot's recycling,
Madame Sosostris (Jessie Weston?) names all the Tarot
cards wrong except for the Hanged Man. The Hanged Man
is an actual card among the Major Arcana of the Tarot
pack. But somebody other than Madame Sosostris must
have named it wrong, because the name of the card is a
misnomer. The Hanged Man is actually a hanging man.
The face of the card shows him suspended by one foot
from a cross-bar.

Because Tarot cards are used for the wrong (wicked)
purpose of reading the future, we may be left with one
of Eliot's several riffs on negatives and double
negatives. If two negatives make a positive, are
Madame Sosostris' wrong (wicked) wrong (misidentified)
cards actually "right" cards? Or Madame Sosostris may
redeem herself (become right) by at least having the
good grace to name the wrong (wicked) cards wrong
(incorrectly)....

http://web.missouri.edu/~umcastselist/sloane12.html

And, in general ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hanged_Man

http://trionfi.com/tarot/cards/12-hanged-man/

http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/pkt/pktar12.htm



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