1.2.4-Robertawickham

1.2.4 and 1.2.5
'''1.2.4 Tormentum Belli

The description of the loose cannon is gorgeously poetic, and actually mythic: murderous technology taking on a life of its own and killing its masters. The passage almost verges on sci-fi or fantasy, calling to mind the One Ring of Sauron or robots rising up against humans or any old story about a genie or spirit that escapes the sorcerer who conjured it.

'''1.2.5 Vis et Vir

Oh, look, more Latin titles.

It strikes me that the loose cannon gaining ‘mastery’ of the ship, tearing it apart from the inside, and threatening to shipwreck it is a pretty good metaphor for how these counterrevolutionaries saw the French Revolution. The people of the lower orders of society were tools, in their eyes, and now it turns out the tools have minds and agendas of their own, and those agendas are disruptive to everything La Vieuville and Boisberthelot believe in.

The parallel becomes especially clear when the narration states that, to save the ship, it’s necessary to grapple with “this lightning”—that is, the cannon. The revolution brings light but the people on the ship see it as a life-threatening type of light.

Tilt the kaleidoscope away from their specific political perspective, though, and the metaphor changes. The true battle is between humanity and raw violent force, between the man and the thing, as the narration says. Force itself is the threat, the loose cannon, not the revolution.

I like the glimpse we get of the man in charge of the cannon and responsible for letting it escape. He’s a brief and nameless character, but his appearance is very meaningful. He unleashed the violence; now he’s determined to contain it.

And he nearly dies in the process, but is assisted at the last moment by the still-nameless Totally Not A Peasant guy. The small, physically fragile human succeeds against the power of violence. Gee, I wonder if this is thematically significant or something.

Commentary
Pilferingapples oooh— carrying the idea with the gunner a little farther with these later chapters: he unleashes the violence, he risks himself to contain it, and then he’s executed for letting it happen in the first place. There’s so MANY things that could be standing in for, but I’m wondering if any of them are intentional…