V-2nd - Chapter V, Part I

[Mark Kohut]

Yes and I'd argue that this chapter is also, in P's way, a parody of Great White 
Hunterness...



----- Original Message ----
From: "kelber at mindspring.com" <kelber at mindspring.com>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Sent: Mon, August 9, 2010 4:52:07 PM
Subject: V-2nd - Chapter V, Part I

Don't know if Joseph Tracy's able to take on his hosting duties.  In the 
meantime ...

Chapter V, Part I contains the most oft-referenced section of the book:  the 
alligator hunt.  


Here's a web site exclusively devoted to all things alligator-in-the-sewer:

http://www.sewergator.com/

Like the Esther's nose-job sequence, it seems kind of written to stand on its 
own.  And there's not much here about the clash between the human and the 
inanimate.  Instead, Pynchon's introducing a theme that's going to become a 
major one later in the book (Chapter 9 - descriptions of the Herero Massacre)and 
throughout the rest of his works:  colonization, leading to genocide.

Here's a priest (and "At no point ... did it occur to anyone to question the old 
priest's sanity")intent on converting those who cannot or will not be 
converted.  And, as it goes in such situations, unless the locals renounce their 
culture and convert to their conquerors' "faith," there's nothing left but to 
hunt them down and shoot them.  Enter Profane, foot soldier in an imperialist 
war against rodent and reptile alike. One can argue (all right, I'm arguing) 
that Christian missionaries, bibles-in-hand, have been as destructive a force in 
decimating local cultures as their military brothers-in-arms.

This is the beginnings of Pynchon's method of eloquently underplaying the 
horrific to make a gut-wrenching point.  


MB
DRO
ROSHI,

indeed.

Laura