Atdtda38: Our own little republic, 1076-1077 #2

[alice malice]

http://www.eoht.info/page/Human+molecule+%28Wikipedia%29

On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 8:38 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Throughout his literary career, Henry Adams displayed an insatiable
> interest in the nature of woman. In his early essay entitled, the
> “Primitive Rights of Woman," Adams attempted to demonstrate the
> importance of woman in the earliest foundations of  the family and
> society. Adams' Tahiti (1901)demonstrated how primitive woman
> utilizing her intuition, protected the society from man-caused
> disaster. In his Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (1904) and Education
> of Henry Adams (1905), \ Adams established woman, particularly the
> European woman of the twelfth century, as a symbol of natural forceand
> instinct.  Adams' "A Letter to American Teachers of History" (1910)
> demonstrated what he regarded as scientific proof of the superiority
> of instinct, which he depicted as the force underlying woman's great
> force in society, over reason, which he regard­ed as the faculty most
> used by man. In the Chartres and the Education, Adams offered the
> theory that the highest point of unity in man's history had been
> reached in the period of time, 1150 to 1250 A.D.  In these works and
> in his "A Letter to American Teachers of History" he attempted proof
> that mankind had steadily dissipated its energies from the thirteenth
> century in accordance with Kelvin's Second Law of Thermo-dynamics thus
> arriving at itspresent state of multiplicity in the twentieth century.
> The period 1150 to 1250 A.D. was chosen by Adams as the period in
> which "man held the highest idea of himself as a unit in a unified
> universe" because of the strong cohesive nature of the Christian faith
> at that time--a faith which resulted in the crusades and the great
> cathedrals.  This period was marked by great feminine influence as
> evidenced in the intense worship of the Virgin Mary and the erection
> of many of the cathedrals, particularly  Chartres,in her honor.  Also
> Adams recorded as proof the great power wielded by the three queens,
> Eleanor of Guienne, Mary of Champagne, and Blanche of Castile, all of
> whom helped to initiate the cult of courteous love.  As a contrast to
> the position of woman in the thirteenth century, Adams noted in the
> Education what he perceived as the degraded position of American woman
> in the twentieth century.          Both of Adams' novels, Democracy
> (1879) and Esther (1884) have as protagonists women unable to accept
> suitors because of moral or religious conflicts.  Many critics writing
> on these novels see these women as prototypes to Adams' conception of
> the twelfth century woman.  While there is a small case for this
> position, I believe it may be demonstrated that the two protagonists
> resemble the modern American woman described in the Education much
> more closely and, furthermore, that they show points of marked
> dissimilarity to the Virgin of Chartres, Adams' symbol of twelfth
> century womanhood.
>
> http://blue.utb.edu/gibson/Esther.htm
>
> On Fri, Aug 29, 2014 at 7:10 AM, Paul Nightingale <isread at btinternet.com> wrote:
>> If the first part of the section describes a particular moment, the second
>> part describes the evolution of the Yashmeen/Stray relationship from a
>> specific conversation ('Yash said one day', 1076) to any number of different
>> occasions (the next line: 'Stray ... would sigh'). The school essay - its
>> writing and grading, if not its content - calls upon personal experience,
>> Jesse at Ludlow, his teacher in 'the olden days'. However, for the female
>> characters here, personal experience is written differently. On 1077 Stray
>> is allowed to be introspective, reminiscing about 'a delirious moment or
>> two, usually in city hotel rooms considerably to the east of here' and
>> therefore in the past, given their progress and current location in 'the
>> last corner of the US map'; this introspection is available on one of the
>> few occasions when the narrative has not positioned her in relation to the
>> male pov. For the most part Stray is seen in relation to Reef and/or Frank,
>> even if sexual relations with women are alluded to.
>>
>> She is introduced on 200 and 'real pregnant' on 201; the narrative has
>> already placed her between Reef and Frank, and will frequently, thereafter,
>> reintroduce her from Frank's pov (eg 464 and 920, where the presence of male
>> companions, 'lover boy' and 'some impossibly good-looking Mexican dude'
>> respectively, is emphasised). On 202 there is, from Frank's pov, 'a
>> possibility that Stray and Sage [might] just fling up their hands and go
>> vamoose town together', a line that might now read differently; and any
>> desire to evade male attention is echoed, arguably, in the suggestion that
>> 'our own little republic' would be better off without men (1076). On 464,
>> again from Frank's pov, Stray is linked to 'some motor outlaw' (perhaps one
>> of the 'peach-fuzz desperadoes' of the page before); however, a few lines
>> down, 'attractively costumed waiter girls ... [are] throwing her certain
>> glances'. This latter observation goes nowhere as Frank's attention fixes on
>> 'lover boy himself'. By the top of 465 a male gaze is dominant, even though
>> the earlier reference to 'waiter girls' implies an attendant female gaze.
>>
>> From the outset, and by way of contrast, Yashmeen's relations with women are
>> made rather more explicit, undermining any attempt to position her solely in
>> relation to a male gaze (surveillance by the TWIT on 496 and Russian spies
>> on 595 notwithstanding). Throughout, Stray functions as an object of desire
>> for Frank, even when asserting her independence, eg: '. no more little
>> dainty .22 beneath some ladylike frock but a serviceable Colt strapped to
>> one pair of, he could not help noticing, interesting legs in britches of
>> trail-grade whipcord' (920). Reference here to Colt and britches suggests
>> admiration for her competence coexisting with admiration for her body.
>> However, for Stray, there is nothing similar to the writing of Yashmeen. On
>> 224 she is 'gathering appreciative looks from passersby male and female',
>> which does, perhaps, recall Stray's 'waiter girls'; but Ratty subsequently
>> tells Cyprian that '[s]he, prefers, her, own, sex' (491). Sex with other
>> women then takes place on 498 ('the classmate ... slipping naked into
>> Yashmeen's own narrow bed') and 502 ('at the mercy of the Silent-Frocked
>> corps'), all of which means that her subsequent relations with Cyprian and
>> Reef are played out after her bisexuality is established. Consequently, if
>> Stray is always an adjunct to the Traverse story, the current section
>> suggests that bringing her and Yashmeen together has been one of the
>> purposes of the narrative.
>>
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l