Part 4 - Chapter 2: Love and Hate in the Time of Gladio

Analysis of Gravity's Rainbow, Part 4 - Chapter 2: Mexico at the Heath, Jessica and Roger, Milton Gloaming, IG Farben's Surveillance, Mexico at Twelfth House, Mexico Joins the Counterforce

Roger Mexico was last seen on the sea with Pointsman, Jessica, and Katje. It was on this beach where Pointsman officially began to break down due to the loss of Slothrop and the subsequent shutting down of the White Visitation. Since it’s been so long, here’s a quick recap on Roger and Jessica. Roger Mexico was the statistician working for the White Visitation who began seeing patterns in the locations where the V-2 rockets were landing in London — the Poisson distributions which also predicted Slothrop’s sexual encounters. He was born well before the War began and possessed a stubborn and nihilistic anti-establishment worldview. Jessica Swanlake was his wartime lover. She had been in a true relationship with ‘Beaver’ (real name: Jeremy), but given the war was in progress, decided to stay with Roger in an abandoned bombed-out district in order to truly live. She had Beaver for his stability but loved Roger for his passion (though she did often internally chastise him for his ‘childishness’ — i.e. his nihilism and hatred of those who he worked for). And given she was born more into the War as opposed to well before it, her life was defined by it. The two of them were truly in love, though Roger knew she had that deep desire for stability which he imagined would lead her to sever relations when the War was over, and passion was no longer a necessity.