M&D new question?

[David Morris]

The episode with Austra on the Cape was a great examination of the
slave/owner dynamic.  Pynchon is expert at portraying the possible
permutations of an exceptionally imbalanced power dynamic, and Austra is a
great example. Shades of the Herero there.

On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 4:17 PM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> As John B. recalls from p. 692:  “Slaves. Ev’ry day at the Cape, we lived
> with Slavery in our faces,— more of it at St. Helena,— and now here we
> are again, in another Colony, this time having drawn them a Line between
> their Slave-Keepers, and their Wage-Payers, as if doom’d to re-encounter
> thro’ the World this public Secret, this shameful Core.... "
>
> 101 appearances of "slave" and 18 of "slavery," plus a visit to Mount
> Vernon that raises questions about who's running the show, plus the whip
> incident...
>
> Yeahp, I'd say it's in the mix.
>
> On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 5:02 PM, David Ewers <dsewers at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>> I haven't read Mason & Dixon since it came out, but I similarly don't
>> remember slavery being a particularly central theme.
>>
>> I've just got a fuzzy outline of a curiosity stuck in my head, that the
>> War for Independence and subsequent coming together process would in some
>> circumstances be replacing (arguable, but still hard-won) meaning with
>> meaninglessness (as borders become sub-borders, exteriors become interiors,
>> etc.)...
>>
>> Cheers,
>> (another) David
>>
>> On Jan 13, 2015, at 1:18 PM, Becky Lindroos wrote:
>>
>> > On Jan 13, 2015, at 12:12 PM, David Ewers <dsewers at comcast.net> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> What do you think of the idea that, maybe to Cherrycoke, the Uniting
>> of the States itself (the artifice of it, or...?) contains some ominous
>> potential, maybe regarding slavery?  Maybe he understood that the line's
>> role would change from an simple separator of two distinct sovereignties
>> (one with slaves, one without...), to a sublimated, buried, so more
>> dangerous element of a larger identity (from schism to schiz-...)?
>> >
>> > I think we have to keep reading to find out - I don’t remember slavery
>> as being any kind of a theme or motif in the book but it might be there to
>> discerning readers -  ??
>> >
>> > Bekah
>> > who gave herself that online name after reading M&D the first time back
>> in ?? - (there were too many Beckys in my groups back then)
>> >
>> >
>>
>> -
>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>>
>
>
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