M&D - Chapter 11 - pp 111-113

[Becky Lindroos]

A bit late - 

Page 111
The Hanging of Lord Ferrars for the murder of John, his Stewart
Lord Ferrers killed Mr Johnson, his land-steward, was tried, condemned for murder and hanged at Tyburn on 5 May 1760. He is the last British peer to die a felon's death.  
http://www.masondixon.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Chapter_11:_105-115#Page_111
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Ferrers


Special coats made for the occasion with the Thirteen-Turn Noose Motif to the Braiding 
Traditional hangman’s noose has 13 turns
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangman's_knot

(In today’s day and age they’d sell t-shirts.)  
***
Mason sees Florinda at the dock (October, 1861).  They first met at the hanging of Earl Ferrers (real name - Lawrence Shirley) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Shirley,_4th_Earl_Ferrers) at Ferrer’s hanging on May 5,  1760.  At the time she’d apparently been “a rising Beauty of the Town” and Mason was attending the hangings to meet women.   It apparently  suited his melancholy following the loss of Rebekah.  

Florinda’s first words to him are rather forward (to my thinking!) - 

**  “Do you think he’ll get much of a hard-on then?”  

Hmmm…..   omg ….  yes!   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_erection

And then we get into a long subjunctive digression for a possible discussion of the "death erection”  and its relation to guilt or innocence  - and I have no idea when we come out of Mason’s mind. 

“He’ll be days late thinking up any reply to speech as sophisticated as this. “In my experience,” he MIGHT say, “’tis usually …” … “she will not blink, her nostrils may flare.”   It goes on from his apparently later fantasy of what he might have said,  to blending in with the scene of the hanging. 

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Page 112
Fwiw, a “modesty piece” is a little piece of fabric (lace or something) put in the cleavage of a low-cut bodice. 

and a “Fop” is a male clothes-horse- a bit overly concerned with clothes and appearance - 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fop

The scene changes swiftly from the heavy flirting of Florinda and Mason when Earl Ferrers arrives for his hanging. 

Ferrers is hung with a silk rope - (and so an unsubstantiated historical version goes) 

This section is wonderfully well detailed,  (seamen throwing unchewable sausages) and either found in some source or invented. Does it matter? (Perhaps in a different book it would).   A lot of popular history (non-fiction)  is written this way these days - not so dusty-bone dry as the textbooks when the authors take what is available from sources like letters and journals and then embellish “logically" for interest.

**  References to Indi:
  "Aye , Silk’s what they fancy out in India with their Thuggee,- ”  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thuggee    (Indian - refers to an act of Thugs)

and
** “… another tasty Bite for old Kalee,-“  
Try  “Kali”  -    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali
Fwiw, Kali is apparently the goddess of Time, Change and Destruction - 



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Page 113

*** Ferrers apparently not only got a hard-on but … he ejaculated -  

And then while Mason and Florinda are sipping French wine as if at a little soiree, there is some kind of problem with the gallows trapdoor 

***  "“These frightful Machines!' she pretends to lament, ‘ — shall our Deaths now, as well as our Lives , be rul’d by the Philosophers, and their Army of Mechanicks?'”

The trapdoor has malfunctioned and Mason explains so then the reader's question becomes why did Pynchon have Florinda say what she did?  - to raise the issue of machines - industrial revolution , measurements,  etc. and point in the direction of - (but not specifically “at”) the malfunctioning trapdoor problem - (And yes,  Ferrer strangled to death on the rope.) 

More on Ferrer and the malfunctioning trapdoor - This is from a new book called "The Thirteenth Turn: A History of the Noose” by Jack Schuller - Oct. 2014.  
https://books.google.com/books?id=ysYiBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=earl+ferrers+trapdoor&source=bl&ots=VQTlueSJ2A&sig=hsizqeNMc28zJP9yjeo9f4-7GOk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=v3frVJaBD9LHsQSevIKABg&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=earl%20ferrers%20trapdoor&f=false

And, at the end of the paragraph, that seemingly innocuous little sentence: 

**  “He notes a sudden drop in the local Temperature.” 

which might have several  of meanings: 
1.   Realistically:  The local temperature did go down and it’s unrelated to the paragraph. 
2.   Representationally:  - The temperature between Mason and Florinda cools because of Mason’s techie talk. (local) 
3.  Symbolically:    Ferrer has gone to hell.  (still local but different cause). 
4.  Metaphorically - Was Mason strangled by Florinda?  
 5.  Literarily:  is Pynchon using a type of “sentimental" narrative fallacy (seeing cause and effect where they are not necessarily  linked for the sake of the narrative)  called the “pathetic fallacy” (see Ruskin - a stickler for realism) in having the weather imitate the emotional content (for the sake of the story)? - Does he do this often?  -  I’d personally say yes, definitely and he uses it quite a lot.   -  This is NOT a bad thing to do - it simply doesn’t reflect “reality.” 
6.  Alternatively:  What if there are trapdoors in space/time and … what if they don’t work right (whatever “right” would be) and the victims (us) get strangled instead of hung.  (lol) 

****
Ah - enough of that!  

**  Bubb Dodington, George  -  a very wealthy English nobleman who was involved in politics, lending money to the nobility and spying on the Catholic Jacobites - , 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dodington,_1st_Baron_Melcombe

“Georgie is a particular friend" of Florinda and Mason envies him.  

“There’s one says Pearse as he fell in the well…”    
Gloucestershire proverb -  (Gloucestershire Notes and Queries, Volume 1 and page 391,  if you get lost) - https://books.google.com/books?id=69AxAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA391&lpg=PA391&dq=There%27s+one+says+Pearse+as+he+fell+in+the+well…&source=bl&ots=fNeRMcRddO&sig=TV7a-t_2jPaYlzmRnI0jemcv9QI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jorrVL-WA4ihNruWhKgO&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Pearse%20&f=false   : 

And then we are told “What Mason does not, consequently, understand, is that, having recon’d him harmless, she has decided to get in a bit of exercise, in that endless Refining which the Crafts of Coquetry demand, using Mason as a sort of <it> Practice-Dummy.”  

** Is this whole Tyburn hanging scene another example for the themes of  commerce, slavery and the gallows (all or part) on a different level?  Or is it something else - Mason’s background with women?   Why is Pynchon including this event and why in this manner? 

The times change back to 1861 and Florinda and Mason discuss Florida’s “men” as the evening and its smell of ocean and Eastern cooking approaches. Then enter Florida’s fiancé, “a Figure that lacks but a Scythe in its Grasp,” Mr. Mournival (great name), a “tall cadaverous Personage, whose Eues cannot be clearly seen, hides in the Twilight.  Charlie, Charlie … You must have been one of the Zanies?”  

Dixon is apparently there - or he suddenly appears so the chapter ends with: 

 "A Chinaman, a Jesuit, and a Corsican are riding up to Bath …”  (Why to Bath?) 

********************

And by our own Toby Levy:  http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/levy_mason_and_dixon.pdf 


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Chapter 11 and other questions - (lol) - 

1.  If the Rev. C. did not go to St. Helena, how can this part of the tale be told?   How does that apply or relate to books of history - sources? reliability? etc? 

2.  Is Uncle Ives’ question (#2)  answered or evaded by the Rev. (105-6)? 

3.   St Helena’s eerie atmosphere and eternal gale-force winds causing hallucinations and sadness: not exactly the best place for poor Mason, assigned there by the Royal Society.  How is it for Maskelyne?  This is the story coming up I guess - 

4.   And do we have a more complete answer to the question of why the book started where it did - the letters re Transit at the Cape? 

5.  Are the characters of Mason and Dixon getting “rounded out?”  (ala Forster) 

6.  Is the setting static or dynamic or something in some middle somewhere?    

7.  What other typical history or literature questions would a discussion of this book use -  
A. “Who is the narrator and is he reliable?”;  (done so far)  
B.  Does the setting work as a character?   (???) 
C.  Are the characters  “flat" (as in stereotypes) or “rounded” (as in “individualized”).   Some of each? 
D.  Are women treated as diversions, like wine and song,  so far in the story?  Does this treatment change from scene to scene and/or woman to woman?  Should it? (Perhaps not if all the other characters except M&D are at least semi-stereotyped? - what other stereotypes of women could be used for a category as big as "women.") -  Lots more on this later in the book. 
 
Bek



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