Gravity's Rainbow - Part 2 - Chapter 3.1: Proxy War Games

Analysis of Gravity's Rainbow, Part 2 - Chapter 3.1: Slothrop and Dodson-Truck Play Prince

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“‘Oh, […] Slothrop, you pig’” (206) are Katje’s first words to him as they wake. With that one-off line, Katje predicts Slothrop’s inevitable descent from the average American to the post-War bourgeoisie — the upper-class man prone to the world’s innumerable immoral fetishes and products that will soon become an arm’s length away from them all, where Slothrop will revel in and become a part of that blood cult, even for just a moment.¹ Now, how could Katje predict such a thing? She is the Mother of the Night; she has seen the Underworld already — Blicero’s own furnace. His very depths of Hell. She has been witness to that same blood lust that will encompass the world — for, Blicero being the virus that will soon infect us, she knows how his genetic material will weave its way into our lives.

For now, though, being the Ivy League intellect that he is, Slothrop retreats downstairs for his “refresher on technical German” and some schematics on “some German circuit schematic whose resistors look like coils, and the coils like resistors” (206). He is indulging his highly intellectual hobbies (because really, who else studies technical German for fun²), but is simultaneously aware that this may in fact be information that he will need in the near future; Slothrop — despite his apparent, occasional idiocy — has become well aware of the Third Reich’s infestation of the world, and so is making use of his free time to ready himself.

Sir Stephen Dodson-Truck (husband of Nora Dodson-Truck: the employee in Psi-Section at The White Visitation who works with the freaks and who is the lover of Carroll Eventyr³) makes his way onto the scene, coming from The White Visitation, materializing on the beach out of nowhere in order to assist Slothrop with these studies. And though Slothrop, upon Dodson-Truck’s arrival, realizes that he is just another part of the plot, feels that something is different with him. Perhaps it is his “love for the Word” (207). With all of these characters making their way onto and off of the beach, Slothrop contemplates why he is not attempting any sort of escape despite his knowing that they are all plotting against him. First of all, the entirety of this plot seems disjointed and does not lead him to believe that his life is at risk. And secondly, he is at least being treated well, so he’d rather be here under the sun “than freezing back under the Blitz,” (207) because the members of this plot don’t seem wholly willing to be there either. And while Katje and Stephen may be an obvious part of this plot, they are not the ones who are in control. So, for the time being, Slothrop believes it is better to just stay here and wait.

As they stand there, again within the room of high-backed chairs and gilt edges, Slothrop realizes something about They who play at these tables: “Their odds were never probabilities, but frequencies already observed” (208). While They purportedly gamble just as the Preterite do, it is not true gambling, for They make the rules, or at least have crafted a system in which they can be omniscient over. This system is more than something as obvious as the stock market or the larger Market, it is the patterns of human life from point to point — Slothrop himself, for instance. They gamble on our lives in ways that are far less transparent than their bets on corporations, but if they can profit, then of course their investments also find their way into the seemingly insignificant things that influence our day-to-day actions. And while those moments between the start and endpoints are up to us to live as we want — giving us that false sense of free will — the endpoint is exactly where They want us to land.

The current endpoint, and what is also start point of another trajectory, is this meeting between Slothrop and Katje. Many instances in Slothrop’s recent life (sleeping with his map of women, his work at ACHTUNG, his studies of technical German, and so on) felt like they were all his choice. And to some extent, they were. But they all led here either way, so his free will, real or not, did not entirely matter in the end. Each of these points was the beginning and the end of another parabola, a Rainbow, where birth and death were inevitable, but the moments in between were life, freedom. No matter what those moments of life were used for, we, Slothrop, Katje, or anyone really, will end up in that same desired location before another parabola begins.

After his nude chase scene, Slothrop got a taste of his first change of identity, though it was one put upon him as he was given the English uniform by Teddy Bloat. But now, speaking of free will, he willingly begins to take that identity on himself. As they remove “his ID, his service dossier, [and] his past,” (210) he decides to grow a mustache, and with just a bit of suggestion from other parties, he decides to make it English style. Because again, he has turned from America, briefly to a blank slate, to England. It must be kept in mind that he is always America at heart. Whenever he takes on an identity other than his own, it will be an exploration of America through the lens of that guise. So, for now, we will be exploring America’s future through post-WWII England, and what is more American than the literal lust for death?

Slothrop’s continuing study of German rocketry induces erections after each session, signifying America’s (or the West’s) sexual fascination with war and death. Dodson-Truck, who we know is assisting in these study sessions, is also taking notes on Slothrop as he studies. Perhaps They need this information about the fascination with death. This fascination may even be natural, but with further information and statistical data on it, They could easily find a way to utilize our own lusts against us — to use them to “keep turning a profit” (209). One easy method to turn this profit, or to win the war, is not to just win it, but to force every other group out of the game. So Slothrop, attempting to get information out of Tantivy, suggests a game of the same sort — one which America will perfect in a couple of decades: not fighting battles that matter, but destabilizing nations into submission. While America will perfect this technique, it was the British who invented the modern version of it, hence the exploration of America’s future using the English past.

The method eventually is not strictly American. As America perfects the technique, other nations realize that they may as well join in, and the world is no longer able to distinguish who is doing what, who is destabilizing who, or who is to blame for anything going on. While those nations, or the players of the game, are becoming destabilized by other nations, there is often another plot hidden even further beneath the surface. In this instance, Slothrop has put on this entire fake war to discover a few facts from the drunken Dodson-Truck, who now is almost too drunk to stand. The perfect opportunity.

Slothrop brings Dodson-Truck out onto the beach where they witness a sunset, a symbol of the colonial trek westward into something once considered the pure expression of otherworldly beauty, now the blood mark on the horizon — something “to penetrate and to foul” (214). This setting sun beats down on the two, a symbol of a long-gone world of wonder and mysticism. Watchers on the edge, like the Angel over Lübeck, look over them in pity. All Stephen can do is weep while Slothrop too looks on, sympathetic and in pain. He may be America, but along with everything horrible we have done, he encompasses the good in us as well.

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Up Next: Part 2, Chapter 3.2 (the rest of the chapter)

1. This won’t make full sense to first time readers and shouldn’t be thought about too much. We won’t get to this part until both halfway through Part 3, and at the end of Part 3.

2. See Part 1, Chapter 3 for further references of Slothrop’s penchant for technical German studies.

3. She was one of the main Points-of-View in Part 1, Chapter 17