How do we read Jack and Jill?

[alice wellintown]

I'm not quite sure what Thomas R. Pynchon of Manhattan New York
believes or perceives. Whenever I write about P and attribute beliefs
or views to him,  I am writing about and attributing ideas to an
implied author, that is, the perceived author of the texts ( Wayne
Booth).  I prefer a Rhetorical approach, but as a pluralist, not a
relativist, I find value in looking at a text through several critical
lenses. And, while disputes from the past may cause critical
gridlocks, there is no reason why a rhetorical approach, for example,
can not find common ground with a genre approach, a formal approach,
or any other approach; there is no reason why a rhetorical or new
critical reader must reject the biographical source material, but the
author's biography is given less emphasis or none in some approaches
and is the foundation of other approaches.
Of course, my perception of the texts has been built, in part, on what
I have read about Thomas R. Pynchon in the biographical criticism--a
valuable critical approach. I also value the New Critical approach,
often derided on the P-list even by those members who practice it
best, perhaps without realizing it, or perhaps playfully. The New
Critical readers who once posted here have been silent of late.
That's too bad.

We are, like Ahab's harpooners. Each, after our baptisms in the black
mass of M-D, ch. 36, where Ahab hammers the doubloon to the mast,
looking into that mysterious coin, seeing what we want to see (M-Dch
99). There are no Starbucks on this ship of fools. No one is paid from
the "lower layer."

Pynchon was a Catholic, so was Joyce, so was Hemingway, Fitzgerald,
but the degree to which each of these authors believed in the
teachings of the Church or even in the grand ideas of Catholic or even
Christian theology is a matter that biographical critics may debate
for centuries.  Joyce, Ellman tells us, rejected the Church. This fact
is confirmed in the texts. Hemingway, as Malignd noted, was a Catholic
by marriage and more for the literary complexities it might add to his
stories than for the salvation of his soul. Fitzgerald is another
story and so too is Pynchon.  That said, some knowledge of Catholicism
enriches the reading of the any of the texts written by the authors
listed. Indeed, the two chapters from M-D are difficult to understand
without some knowledge of the Catholic religion. Parker, who has
written a great biography of Melville, claims that Melville only
attended mass (Calvinist-Protestant) to placate his wife and family.
Minus some knowledge of Calvinism, however, Moby-Dick is not nearly as
complex nor as interesting. Same goes for the other authors. The
Catholic mass in mocked in the opening chapter of Ulysses, for
example.

These critical issues are not limited to matters of religion. Melville
opposed the Mexican War and Slavery, but he was not one to go to jail
for his beliefs (Thoreau) or write abolitionist poetry (Whittier). In
fact, one reason Melville is so fascinating is that his beliefs, his
ideas, are far more complex than authors we can put on one side of an
issue. Frederick Douglass wrote novels. Not great novels, but of
interest because Douglass is so very interesting and important. The
Heroic Slave is no Benito Cereno. Melville was a deep diver. Paradox
and complexity, ambiguity, and rhetorical brilliance are only a few
reason why readers prefer Benito to the Heroic Slave.

On the surface, "Jack and Jill" seems a simple poem; boy and girl
climb a hill and fill a bucket with water. The boy falls down,
tumbles, strikes his head, and the girl come tumbling down after him.
What does the poem mean?

1. Man is destined to struggle and fail. Life is hard and all Men must die.

2. Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden, but Jack and Jill,
baptized with the water of Christ, though Fallen, will live.

3. The patriarchal society, of which this poem is a product, places
the female, in name and in position,  after and behind the male, even
as they tumble into death, for the female, an object proscribed by
male phallic/logo-centrism is so distraught by the tumbling death of
the male that she flings herself down the hill.

4. Jack and Jill are too young to work at such tasks; the poor
children of the working class are exploited and their attempt to rise
in the class system is thwarted by an elite or elect who thump those
who would usurp the crown or organize revolt, dignify the worker,
celebrate the democratic kingly commons.

The different meanings are constructed with different approaches. One
might support the first reading with Rationalists, the second with
Christians, the third with Feminists, the fourth with Marxists.

What is the tone of the poem?

The Rationaist might argue that the tone is foreboding.
 The Christian might argue that the tone is stearn optimism.
The Feminist might argue that the tone is pessimistic.
The Marxixt might argue that the tone is mournful.

The discovery of a document supporting the Marxist approach might make
it the dominant reading for a time.
A swing to the Right might, dispite the document supporting the
Marxist reading, make the Christian reading more popular.

But there is a limit to the readings and this number is not equal to
the number of people who read a text. Some readings are weak and not
worth much. Others are strong, so strong that they are only valuable
as misreadings.

Some texts can support and sustain strong readings. IV is not one of them.