Mason's Christian "Whiteness"? A long sentence on whiteness
Mark Kohut
mark.kohut at gmail.com
Tue Feb 3 10:31:29 CST 2015
I have to save this from Alice and go back to work but I
was going to post that I think Mason is, in Pynchon's creation,
guided more by religion, by P's take on that religion too..
On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 11:15 AM, alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mason's understanding of his sexual partnerships may be guided more by
> religious and legal definitions than by race definitions. In
> Melville's famous long sentence on whiteness he fishes for meanings in
> history, but M-D is directed at an audience circa 1850, for Mason, the
> enslaved are legally defined as non-Christian, so sexual encounters
> would violate Christian Law if the enslaved were a "heathen" by law.
>
> Applying Ham, and the Maternal Law of enslavement, as was the practice
> in the United States, so an enslaved mother's children were born into
> bondage, may not apply to Mason's "child" in SA.
>
> Not sure what if any research P did on the legalities of SA's mixed
> children, but ti seems that he has in mind, at least, the idea that
> white was a religious and legal good, an aesthetic and cultural good.
>
>
> The blacker the berry the sweeter....
>
>
> Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty,
> as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles,
> japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way
> recognised a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric,
> grand old kings of Pegu placing the title "Lord of the White
> Elephants" above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion;
> and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped
> in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure
> of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian,
> heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial colour the same
> imperial hue; and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human
> race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky
> tribe; and though, besides, all this, whiteness has been even made
> significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a
> joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings,
> this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things--the
> innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of
> America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge
> of honour; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of
> Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state
> of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the
> higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the
> symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire
> worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the
> altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made
> incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the
> midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest
> festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being
> held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the
> annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from the
> Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one
> part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the
> cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is
> specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord;
> though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the
> redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before
> the great-white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like
> wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is
> sweet, and honourable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive
> something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of
> panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood.
> -
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