Mason & Dixon - Part 1 - Chapter 13.2: A Paradox of Power

Analysis of Mason & Dixon, Part 1 - Chapter 13.2: It's All Theater, Musings on Responsibility, Climate Change, Mason's Horoscope, Letters to Bradley, Susannah Peach, Maskelyne's Horoscope

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Shortly after Mason was forced to go out and secure the roof, he and Maskelyne open up another bottle. Maskelyne, ever the philosopher, continues pondering about the many implications of Saint Helena. This time he compares it to theater: “A little traveling Stage-Troupe, is St. Helena really, all performance” (133). He states that whatever occurs here will weave its way into the very fabric of the entire real world (and as we have discussed, this is the rise of true capitalist imperialism), but that people will fail to realize this process is akin to set design and story writing. The stage is built, the story is written, actors flood out and speak predestined lines. The form of governance and economics that will emerge out of the so-called ‘Garden in Genesis’ will thus be made as realistic as possible. The actors and writers will make it appear as if reality has always been as such and that there is no alternative to the coming system which we are to live under. When it does finally emerge and people have accepted their fate as a natural reality, few if any will look back, visit their ‘Home Planet,’ or question when it was (or why it was) that things changed.

Mason, much to his chagrin, sees a bit of himself in Maskelyne. He knows that on occasion he wishes to forget his worldly obligations to better serve himself and his tasks. This leads him to think on his sons and how their existence, to some extent, bars him from fully being able to make the discoveries that he wishes to. There, too, is a spiritual chain that holds him back from fully devoting himself to his work: Rebekah. All of these distractions may be a form of prevention to Mason’s discoveries, but what he still fails to realize is two things. Firstly, the discoveries that he has been set out to find may very well fuel his goal to further science, but they are tasks crafted by powers far higher than he in order to serve Them two-fold or more. Secondly, the lack of spiritual connection which he believes himself to have could so easily be found if he were to find peace in family, both living and dead. Maskelyne bringing up the complex calculation of the universe’s entire body of stars, a calculation comprehensible by God and God alone, is something done to entice Mason into this lifestyle. What if he could solve something that would render him omniscient? This, however, is impossible. It is an evasion of the spirituality already present in nature for a spirituality that can only be conceived of in our minds. And likewise, both of these forms of spirituality will be washed away because of the ‘Age of Reason.’ The desire to seek answers to every single question will wash away the mystery and magic of the world, rendering stories of newfound paradises to amount to nothing but a random uncharted isle sitting at an exact degree, minute, and second of longitude and latitude. Imagine Eden, the stories of its lush foliage and pure animals, as nothing more than a random volcanic isle in a sea of thousands. What differentiates it from the others but story and myth? With that gone, what hope is there left for anything but what we see? And if all that we see is theater, our tools have now been even further stripped away to peel back the curtains and find reality once again.

Maskelyne, no matter how individualistic he may be, sees that the myths and stories which lay over the world serve this type of importance. Without a belief in the “Serpent, Worm, or Dragon” that rules the island, “within a few pitiable brief Generations, have these People devastated a Garden in which once, anything might grow” (135). His prediction of the coming world grows once again: he has set out Saint Helena as a colonial outpost which would grow into pure imperialism, has set out this emergence as an act put on to brainwash the populace that this style of life was the only possibility, has utilized acute pleasures to enhance this brainwashing, and has predicted an ‘explosion’ that would destroy this all once the people or the island grew too restless. But now, we see something that could put a stop to this all before that eruption could ever occur — the death of the Garden itself. The Fall. With humanity, as Maskelyne predicts, no longer believing in any of the world’s mythos, spirit, or magic, they will neglect nature itself. Though he does not say it directly (for he would have no knowledge of how the death of nature would occur) he is foreshadowing climate change and the rape of our natural world — where instead of being one with nature, humanity would extract the very natural resources that were harbored beneath Earth’s surface and pump them back up into the sky, increasing their entropy; where the impressive and awesome trunks of trees would become paper and lumber; where cheap oil would be extracted from palm, tearing away generational dwelling places of the fauna of jungle deeps; where decades old tuna, far surpassing the size and majesty of those who caught it, would be sliced up to be savored quickly in a city without an ocean; where the normalized routine of each driver would be to pump foul-smelling, deadly liquid into their steel cage so that they could travel to work five times a week.

Is all of this worth losing “the last soil from the last barren Meadow” (135)? Is it worth living on a world where all that we have are the material objects made from places we have never seen? If this is bound to occur, “Pray we may be gone by then” (135).

With each passing generation, this style of life becomes more and more normalized. Mason asks Maskelyne if his own father (Mason’s, that is) would have disapproved of Mason’s ‘stargazing.’ His father was a miller and a baker, making food from the Earth with his own hands in an amount that could feed a town. While it is often that we make fun of how our elders cannot understand “the hope of the Young, the new Music their Families cannot follow, occasionally not even listen to,” (135) there is something to be said for the dwindling connection that each new generation has with the natural world around them.¹

The conversation turns to a comparison between astronomy and astrology — respectively, the mathematical and scientific findings and interpretations of planetary bodies versus the magical and thematic readings of them: another comparison between the material and spiritual. Ironically, despite Maskelyne’s belief in certain spiritual aspects of the world, whether he is willing to do anything about them or not, he admits to having fully commodified them as well, selling his astrological readings for sixpence. So, while he calls astronomy “ever a Whore’s profession” (136), thus inferring that it is selling out one’s own labor for money, he is also unaware or detached from the fact that he has rendered the spiritual version of the same study to another commodity.

As they wait for the viewing of Sirius, hoping to fix the calculation of its parallax now that the Plumb-line has been corrected, Maskelyne suggests that they do a reading of each other’s astrological natal charts. And in his commodification of this magic, he again attempts to placate Mason by placing them both on the same level,² saying, “But as we’re old Charlatans together, maroon’d here in this other-worldly Place, and withal sharing the same ruling planet” (137). This, once again, confounds Maskelyne’s character. He is much more aware and dubious of the theatrical nature of this counterfeit world and aware of the horrors it is causing now or will be causing in in a few decades, in a century, and in a thousand years. But nonetheless, he is entirely willing to let it absorb him. He makes use of his status and power, persuading Mason to believe that this indoctrination — an indoctrination that Mason does not realize — is something natural.

So, Maskelyne gets to work deciphering Mason’s ‘Natal Chart,’ coming to the conclusion that many coincidences are arising between him and Dixon. While it is not an impossibility, the fact that both of their signs are “rul’d by Venus and the Sun respectively,” especially with their massive connection “in the Sign of the Twins,” (138) is too much to completely dismiss. Coincidences exist, and in fields such as astrology, readings are often built so that they can fit into any person’s own view of themself. However, it is impossible to be entirely dismissive of coincidences so stark even if one were to reject that magic entirely. So, as the coincidences continue to pile up, the realm of astrology feels like it has some true bearing on our existence, or at least Mason’s. Whether or not Mason believes or will end up believing any of this is unclear, but what it does potentially do is reinforce his desire to find a deeper connection with the spiritual realm that he seeks. And if that connection be with Dixon, then may their friendship grow ever greater because of it.

The mention of Dixon between the two starts a little spat, both of them accusing the other of being in cahoots with some of the higher powers that help run the EIC (though Maskelyne doing it more so out of fun while Mason does it to defend himself). Mason is close to Samuel Peach whose daughter, Susannah Peach, is married to James Bradley, the current Astronomer Royale. And while this is at least a tether tying him to power, it’s nowhere near being in direct relation with someone like Clive of India. Maskelyne looks below the surface once again, possibly instilling a sense of paranoia in Mason. What if the two of them, neither (yet) being in any position of true power, were “both Subjects of the same Invisible Power” (140)? Those same Shadow Leaders (1.7) and Invisible Gamesters (1.4) who we have read about, beginning wars that they could so easily pay for and that would actually turn a massive profit for them in the long run. Though while Maskelyne is the one prodding, it turns out that he too has some hesitancy in how he is being used. He states, in regard to Clive of India, that “He’s not yet ready to make use of me, that’s all. Someday he must…I’ve been paid for…it shan’t cost him anything” (140). While Maskelyne is confident in his abilities and his rank along with being the one who is prodding Mason and trying to make him paranoid, knowing that he is being used doesn’t sit well with him. He is a part of the tactic which is so common today, giving certain people a taste of power (or even a great deal of power) in order to control them. Think of the senators who enable atrocities in order to keep their positions. Who funds them and why? How willing are they to truly commit these acts? And when it comes down to it, will this gift of wealth and power be collected on? Or, think of Jet, Greet, and Els — how (in 1.9) they were revealed to be the most oppressed class of the oppressors, and are given that taste of power when they are allowed to oppress those below them. These politicians, children, and groups in general are pawns, or at best rooks, only ever able to see where they are predisposed to see. The kings and queens of the world, moving freely or being defended by all, hold the sway these lowlier pieces could only ever hope for.

Mason feels some resentment knowing that “Long before they met, Mason felt his sidling Advent” (141). He was there before Maskelyne was and correctly sensed that he would take the place of what should have been Mason’s. But is this really so bad? To some yes, to others, not so much. It is a balance between what They are going to collect at the end and the power one can gain in the immediate present. Less power may be bad in the short run, but your indebtedness to the system will be minimal as well. Maskelyne, having far higher ties, will have his debt and potential collections exponentially rise.

This ‘sidling Advent’ was felt due to Mason’s close work with Dr. Bradley, the current Astronomer Royale of the Royal Society. Mason had been tasked with reading and deciphering letters sent to the R.S. regarding the calculation of longitude. (This scene takes place quite a number of years back before even Rebekah’s death). These letters had various absurdities in theory and belief due to the fact that any furtherance in science within this realm would garner an immense reward of twenty thousand Pounds.³ So as Bradley’s assistant, Mason went through all of these letters posing ideas ranging from theory based on legitimate scientific evidence, rantings on the impossibility of the task, psychotic and baseless rationale, entirely new philosophies building upon previous ones, methods supposedly revealed via supernatural and extraterrestrial beings, all ranging from short letters to novel-length treatises. This extensive passage is reminiscent of the vast amounts of legitimate, fabricated (whether purposeful or due to ignorance), and genuinely insane theorization regarding science in the online community or in the modern world in general. For example, the debate behind the current vaccine controversy ranges from scientific evidence to the most absurd theories you may have ever seen. Or, another example, the debate around abortion being based on treatises of women’s right to those about messages within spiritual and biblical texts. It really is a profound example of how anyone in any state can expound upon whatever topic they so desire, and without a properly critical mind, any possible writing can influence one’s opinion on a topic.

Through the reading of these letters, Mason comes across one from Maskelyne, and despite it being incomprehensible at times, Bradley does find it to be more worth paying attention to, so tells Mason to keep that one specifically.

Susannah Peach, Bradley’s wife, enters. It is revealed that Susannah is not long destined for this Earth, and that while Bradley wished for a son, she only ever provided him with a daughter also named Susannah. This brings some memories back to Mason. Not only does he lust after Bradley’s wife, but it seems as if they also had a fling. Mason, therefore, has both lost a former lover to someone infinitely more powerful than him and has also been forced to witness this relationship flourish, always wondering if he was still on her mind. In the same way, Maskelyne has taken something from Mason — not a lover, but opportunity. So, Mason’s character is continuously built by showing how power is stripped from him piece by piece, but also how he is told to be (or tells himself to be) okay with it.

Back in the period where Mason and Maskelyne were reading each other’s horoscopes, it is now Mason’s turn to do the reading. Maskelyne’s horoscope is, you guessed it, “indeed mostly fortuitous” (Biebel, 74).⁴ As someone with this elevation in power, he finds luck far more often than someone like Mason, who himself finds luck more often than those ‘soldiers waiting to die’ (1.4). Luck, it turns out, may not be some karmic body, but is instead something that comes with one’s position in the world and is only called luck to make one’s position seem attainable by chance. Nonetheless, there are some aspects of Maskelyne’s horoscope that he does not love. Namely, something about his inability to accurately communicate or receive messages properly. He seems quite perturbed that his horoscope did not end up perfectly, and Mason, though implicitly, tells him off. In a friendly way, he states something along the lines of, ‘well, everything has worked in your favor up to this point.’ And given he is Maskelyne’s brother-in-law in Clive of India, it does not seem all too likely that misfortune is about to find him anytime soon.

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Up Next: Part 1, Chapter 14

1. Personal footnote: I do think that this is a tough idea to broach. Each newer generation is understanding our oppression more and more, but their disconnect with reality grows. It seems to be an inverse relationship between understanding and apathy.

2. Maskelyne is ‘Elect,’ though as Biebel states, he is not fully ‘Elect.’ Instead, Maskelyne is similar to someone such as Pointsman in Gravity’s Rainbow in that he has far more power and influence than those who work under him, and at times he may even have some of the power that They have but can also be thrown under the bus in a moment’s notice. Mason is also ‘partially Elect’ given his status over the true Preterite (the true common man); however, he is more akin to someone such as Pirate Prentice or Tyrone Slothrop, also in Gravity’s Rainbow. The three of them (Mason, Slothrop, and Pirate) have power over that same common man, perform services in favor of the true Elite, but are heavily skeptical of whom they serve— one of them even going on a journey which will lead toward his comprehension of how these systems actually work just as Mason will do.

3. This is the same reward we learned about (1.7, pg. 74). There was a massive reward for it and Maskelyne was paired with Waddington to utilize Hadley’s Quadrant to perfect that technique of calculating longitude. This is why Mason was replaced — so that Maskelyne, who had friends in higher places, could be the one to gain wealth and notoriety and thus rise higher in the ranks.

4. Biebel, Brett. A Mason & Dixon Companion. The University of Georgia Press, 2024.