It was as though he and all other manshaped life about him had been returned to the lightless hot wet
primogenitive Female.
Before his identity as a citizen-soldier, Grimm absorbs those qualities attributed to the novel's "hot wet
primogenitive Female" and "womanshenegro": the dark swamp, the unclear and sluggish, the unmanageable (115, 156).
Joe turns into a kind of animal, feeling directly the "fecund mellow voices of negro women" and the "hot wet
primogenitive Female" (115).
Canfield's reading in Heroes and States emphasizes the cautionary promotion of "patrilineal,
primogenitive succession" in Dryden's play.