"A BRUTAL, INDECENT SPECTACLE": HETEROSEXUALITY, FUTURITY, AND GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN

[...]one could argue that I've missed it, that I've withheld an awareness of Elizabeth's pregnancy so that I could make my argument about the utter failure of heterosexual futurity in the novel, an argument troubled, perhaps, by this "little voyager" waiting in the wings. Rather, the novel's litany of death and procreative failure, sexual excess, and onanistic waste makes it impossible to read the baby-to-be as anything other than a cruel and ironic jab at Gabriel, a reminder that he's stuck in the changing same, the repetition of hope, followed always by failure.