I was struck by a passage as I was reading today. In it, Slothrop, Otto, Narrisch and Springer are walking along and the townspeople begin to crowd them, begging, when Springer pulls a gun.

"They're hungrier today," observes Narrisch.
"True," replies Springer, "but today there are fewer of them."
"Wow," it occurs to Slothrop, "thats a shitty thing to say". (503)

This is the first time in the book so far that I remember any issue of right or wrong in a society or real judgement/morality has been expressed by a character, or at least by Slothrop. Part of what makes the book somewhat interesting to me is its complete amorality to this point. It also makes the explicit sex much easier to stomach, as it occurs in a vaccuum, with only the valences that I/readers bring to the text.

As I was walking back to the dorms just now, I was thinking more about the passage the final group presented on page 291, in which Slothrop figures out he was sold as a child to IG:

"He knows what the smell has to be: though according to these papers it would have been too early for it..."

I was reminded that Freud's stages of child development include an anal phase, immediately following the oral phase we experience during infancy. The theory is that during the oral phase, we seek out our mother's breasts, and explore with our mouths for love and approval. We then progress to the anal phase, which is about CONTROL- we learn to control (or not) our bowels and exert some authority via our ability to shit.