Esther & Stencil

[alice wellintown]

In Adams's novel, the conflict for/of Esther, who will she marry,
love, share her life with, is quite allegorical. In the end it comes
down to several things including, self sacrifice (an allusion to
Iphigenia) Genia, in greek, as in gyne cology or myso gyne,
women...and the church's cross and resurrection of the body, which
Esther rejects as she rejects the church man she loves.

One of the reasons I so like that mason in M&D. I know, I know, like
Dixon is like the maryanne and mason the ginger, but Mason falls off a
horse and has got all that st. paul stuff goin on.

is paul mackin still in touch. hi paul,

alice

On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 1:42 PM, Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Love 'is shit.....
>
> thanks.
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>
> To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Wed, August 4, 2010 1:02:54 PM
> Subject: Re: Esther & Stencil
>
> Why Esther?
> 1. I've noted the bible story and how and why Esther got her name.
> Ratchel, Benny, Jews in the sick crew.
> 2. Esther is a novel by Adams (Adams published it under a pen name--a
> female name--note the comments Adams makes about females and art in
> the Virgin-Dynamo chapter, and how, in america, venus was stripped or
> rather covered). Esther is an artist, or tries to be, she studies
> under a male artist, but, although she is clever and has certain
> feminie insights and majicks, she is passive and unsure of herself, as
> the men battle for her mind, even as they patronize her and envy her
> natural creative force.
> 3, Esther in Adams's novel is related to Old Esther Dudley, so we are
> told by a character in Adams's novel, and Old Esther, we are told is a
> puritan in hawthorne's rarely read tale of that name, "Old Esther
> Dudley."
>
> from Adams's novel, Esther
>
> "She hit the mark at the first shot," answered Hazard. "I must make them
> all ask that question. Tell me about your cousin. Who is she? Her name
> sounds familiar."
>
> "As familiar as Hawthorne," replied Strong. "One of his tales is called
> after it. Her father comes from a branch of the old Puritan Dudleys, and
> took a fancy to the name when he met it in Hawthorne's story. You never
> heard of them before because you have been always away from New York,
> and when you were here they happened to be away. You know that half a
> dozen women run this city, and my aunt, Mrs. Murray, is one of the
> half-dozen. She is training Esther to take her place when she retires. I
> want you to know my Uncle Dudley and my cousin. I am going to have a
> little tea-party for them in my rooms, and you must help me with it."
>
> Old Esther is re-worked and becomes a Pyncheon.
>
> Old Esther Dudley, the title character of Hawthorne's story "Old
> Esther Dudley," represents one type of female character that Hawthorne
> developed, an older woman who serves as a legacy and relic of the
> past. She is proud of her once aristocratic connections, eccentric in
> her behavior, and gifted with what seem magical abilities to call
> forth the "presence" of those long gone. She has great affection for
> children, who do not mind her eccentricities, and often treats them to
> gingerbread. Old Esther refuses to leave the Province House when the
> British retreat during the American Revolution, sure that a Royal
> Governor will return. She sees maintaining the Province House intact
> and ready for use as her sacred charge. She remains faithful to this
> charge until her dying day, the day that Governor John Hancock arrives
> to open the building for the new republic.
> In her manner, appearance, and view of the past, Esther anticipates
> the character of Hepzibah Pyncheon, who plays a major role in
> Hawthorne's novel The House of the Seven Gables. Both women draw their
> sense of self in part from their relationship to a house in which they
> have resided for years. Their ability to preserve the house as they
> anticipate the return of its rightful resident gives each woman a
> feeling of pride and of obligation. For Esther Dudley, the figure who
> arrives at the house is not the man she expects, and she dies
> believing she has welcomed a traitor. Esther becomes a symbol of a
> displaced past. Hepzibah is more fortunate, in that her long
> imprisoned brother Clifford does return to House of the Seven Gables,
> but his arrival initially does not bring the happiness that Hepzibah
> anticipated.
>
> Now, the lit crit term, meta-historical fiction (now used to descibe
> Pynchon) can be traced back to romance and the sublime. New
> historicism, and P, w/o using the term, directs us to Pearce's coining
> of the term 1958, when, after re-reading hawthorne, and hawthorne's
> preface to these almost lost meta-historical fictions, Pearce, opposed
> the dominant new critical approach.
>
>
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