re Re: MDDM Washington

jbor:
>even though he's not technically "free" in this society. The word Washington
>uses on a couple of occasions is chosen carefully by Pynchon: they are not
>his slaves but "Tithables".

A distinction, yes, but in the religious sense of the word that seems to be
in play here, a person pays a tithe on income, produce, or property; people
owned as property are generally referred to as slaves (in the situation
here, slave-owning Washington and his Tithable, Gershom), or, sometimes,
chattel. Most important, I think, desgignating a person as property is
dehumanizing.  Gershom is Washington's court jeste, his wind-up toyr.  Not
technically free, you got that right -- a strange defense of the practice
of slavery.

>Where's the connection with W.C. Fields as "child-hating drunkard"?

Perhaps you don't recall his quart-a-day habit and his famous answer to the
question, How do you like children, Mr. Fields?

"Barbecued."