Fwd: Mason's Christian "Whiteness"? A long sentence on whiteness

[Mark Kohut]

Pynchon shows a bald commercial act (in the offer), selling everything
is the new world, a woman, a woman who knows it; women who see
themselves only that way and a man who is a Puritan about it.

Cherrycoke is selling sex in his storytelling, "Black Women!"...House
full of desperate women....in some way, P inverts
the Harlequin-like romance...that it is all about sex for gain, no
love at all....

On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 2:13 PM,  <kelber at mindspring.com> wrote:
> Is the Christian objection to fathering a baby that will be born as a slave, or to having sex with a (non-Christian) slave, or to slavery itself? Would doing something non-procreatively sexual with Austra be OK? Or having sex with a slave who was converted to Christianity? What about sex with prostitutes in general? Having sex with another man's wife doesn't seem to give him Chritian-qualms. t think the big turn-off for Mason (Pynchon's 20th-century construct of Mason, that is) is that Austra is inviting him to participate not in a sexual act, so much as a commercial act - the production of a high-valued commodity.
>
> Laura
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
>>From: Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com>
>>Sent: Feb 3, 2015 11:31 AM
>>To: alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com>
>>Cc: "pynchon-l at waste.org" <pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>Subject: Re: Mason's Christian "Whiteness"? A long sentence on whiteness
>>
>>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.
>>> -
>>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>-
>>Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l