Bad Sneakers & a Fina Salada

[Albert Rolls]

>I doubt Pynchon would write or think this now.  What's odd about the 
>comment though, is that it foreshadows the brutal gang-rape of the young 
>Herero girl in Chapter 9.  Young Pynchon certainly never implies that that 
>girl was asking for it.  Did Pynchon mature between the writing of these 
>two chapters, or does he think that a free woman deserves rape, where a 
>slave is subjected to it?
>
> Laura

That's an interesting critical question, expecially since rape involves 
questions of power, taking it away from the woman who should have the power 
to say no. If such power isn't assumed in advance, does that change the 
meaning of the act as the novel presents it, regardless of whether or not 
Pynchon had matured between the writing of the two chapters.