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Readers who have read any of the works of Kurt
Vonnegut must have come across many things that caught their
attention. It is not only his unusual style that makes him
special in contemporary American literature. It is not only
Cheap Custom Essays on Vonnegut
the skill and various literary techniques with which he
manages to convey the main message to readers of various age
groups. It is not only the message itself which always makes
people think and discover startling facts about our world.
Looking on Vonneguts works from a holistic point of view,
a reader or a critic can see recurring themes and ideas.
Throughout this authors books, the reader can notice
a unique relationship between the created image of Humanity,
people in general, and Divinity, a divine power or God.
Humanity, in this case, seems to be in a rather peculiar
situation, unable to escape an invisible grasp that has
a hold on it. Vonnegut, through his life, novels and
stories, appears to have been looking for a way out of the
grasp, a way of making a m an free. In some books he
succeeds, in some he does not. What the way out (or the ways
out) is, is the main focus of this essay.
It cannot be very difficult to write about the themes
of one particular book by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Certainly, an
essay written on the themes of one book would not reveal
anything the reader might not notice during his own reading.
The reason for this is the fact that Vonnegut does not leave
any mysteries in his books, but with endurance explains
himself over and over again. This usually takes the wind out
of the potential critics sails. Kakutani, for example, is
irritated by this and writes th at what is most disturbing
about the novel Galapagos is
the authors tendency to repeatedly italicize the
moral of his story as in most of Mr. Vonneguts
fiction, deciphering the message is never the
readers problem, and Galapagos is obvious enough
without our having to be told, point-blank, that
Mandarax stands for the apple of knowledge or
that Captain von Kleist represents the new Adam.
(Kakutani17)
Characters, main or less important ones, tend to
reappear throughout Vonneguts work. For example Eliot
Rosewater, who appears full time in the novel God Bless
You, Mr. Rosewater, shows up to occupy a few pages of
Slaughterhouse-Five. Diana Moon Glampers playing her
important role in the story Harrison Bergeron, where she
destroys the worlds only hope of salvation, becomes
a wretched character in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Dwayne
Hoover first appears in Breakfast of Champions, then in
Deadeye Dick. Kilgore Trout, as the last example, shows up
in many novels, either as a minor or a major character
(e.g. SH5, BOC, JAI, TQK, ROS, GAL). This habit, this
tendency of reappearing characters makes Vonneguts novels
interchangeable.
It is not only characters which are interchangeable.
There are various recurring themes (predestination and
fatalism), ideas (handicapping people in order to be equal
in Harrison Bergeron and Sirens of Titan) and places
(e.g. Indianapolis, Ilium). Sale notices this when he says
that what he resists in Vonneguts books is the fact that
they
seem formulaic, made of interchangeable parts,
though this is one quality which may endear him to
others. Once Vonnegut finds what he takes to be
a successful character, motif or phrase he cant
bear to give it up, so he carries it out from novel
to novel. (Sale)
Underpants
Another thing that drives human beings is sexual
lust, Vonnegut says. He suggests that peoples inability to
control their animal drives leads the planet into doom,
mostly by means of overpopulation.
Mary Hepburn, one of the main characters in
Galapagos, describes, for example, how easily a teenage
virgin could be made pregnant by the seed of a male who was
seeking sexual release and nothing else, who did not even
like her (GAL14). In Breakfast of Champions Vonnegut
points out that most countries are in such a miserable
condition that there is no more space for people they have
nothing to eat. And still they go on having sexual
intercourse, which is, as Vonnegut reminds us, how babie
s are made. More babies were arriving all the
time--kicking and screaming, yelling for milk (BOC1-1).
With tongue in his cheek, Vonnegut shows that
babies is a wonderful way of overcoming wars, that even
after long lasting wars there still seem to be plenty of
people around (GAL). This, however, encourages many
people to think of murdering, wiping out cities etc. as
show business, as highly theatrical forms of
self-expression, and little more (GAL).
Humanity, evidently, as Kurt Vonnegut describes it,
is producing more than it can sustain, yet it is ignorant of
this fact. Just because something can reproduce, that does
not mean that it should reproduce, (HOC4) Vonnegut says.
Otherwise, Humanity could suffocate. The word locusts also
comes into mind; or Planet Gobblers, which is a short
story written by Kilgore Trout. The story was
about us, and we were the terrors of the universe.
We were sort of interplanetary termites. We would
arrive on a planet, gobble it up, and die. But
before we died, we sent out spaceships to start
tiny colonies elsewhere... (PSU0)
Humanity, however, does not realize that there is Earth only
and after it gobbles up this planet, there will be no more
food, no more planets to consume.
Big brains
Vonnegut does not only describe the drives of
Humanity, he even uncovers the source of these lusts and of
all the bad things Humanity does. In Galapagos, the source
is Humanitys imagination, destructive ideas, peoples
oversized brains. If catastrophe comes more easily to man
than courtesy and decency, Contemporary Authors suggests,
mans large brain is to blame (Contemporary Authors,4).
Can it be doubted that three kilogram brains were once
nearly fatal defects in the evolution of the human race?
(GAL8) Vonnegut asks. He asserts that the planet is
basically innocent, except for those big brains (GAL).
These brains are irresposible, unreliable, hideously
dangerous, wholly unrealistic and they are simply no damn
good (GAL5).
These brains make people lie, for example (GAL67).
They are the irresponsible generators of suggestions as to
what might be done with life (GAL78). They generate crazy
ideas in the heads of human beings who cannot help but carry
them out. Vonnegut calls this aspect of human brains
diabolical (GAL66).
They would tell their owners, in effect Here
is a crazy thing we could actually do, probably,
but we would never do it, of course. Its just fun
to think about.
And then, as though in trances, the people
would really do it--have slaves fight each other to
the Death in the Colloseum, or burn people alive in
the public square for holding opinions which were
locally unpopular, or build factories whose only
purpose was to kill people in industrial
quantities, or to blow up whole cities, and on and
on. (GAL66)
Even Kilgore Trout realizes in Breakfast of Champions
that evil is put into the world in the form of bad ideas
(BOC15). Furthermore, Vonnegut illustrates the danger of
wild ideas on the saying If wishes were horses, beggars
would ride. He shows that since people discovered tools
(and weapons, consequently) the homicidal beggars could
ride (BOC8). In simpler words, Humanitys brains managed
to make peoples wishes (crazy ideas etc.) come true.
Suicidal Tendencies
A rather common tendency that Humanity seems to have
in Vonneguts works are suicidal tendencies. How often the
reader encounters characters who die prematurely of their
own will. So often, the bad ideas in peoples brains make
them do such a horrible thing as commit suicide.
In Timequake, Vonnegut says that people are the
smartest animals on the planet, who hate being alive so
much. (TQK5) In Welcome to the Monkey House, there are
so called suicide parlors, where people can kill themselves,
or rather have themselves killed in a humane way, by a nice
woman, with a last meal, with pleasant atmosphere etc.
(WTM8-47)
A rather common manner of ending ones life is eating
Drano, a poisonous chemical normally used for cleaning
drains. Celia Hoover, the wife of one of the main characters
of Breakfast of Champions and Deadeye Dick, commits suicide
this way. (DED10) Drano appears also in Vonneguts later
books as a succesful tool of deliberate self destruction.
Vonnegut also writes that the Earth itself, Humanity itself
looked as if it were eating this chemical.
The planet itself was breaking down. It was
going to blow itself up sooner or later anyway, if
it didnt poison itself first. In a manner of
speaking, it was already eating Drano. (DED17)
Stupidity
From reading Vonnegut, one can easily conclude that
Vonnegut intends to show that people are stupid, that
Humanity as a whole is stupid, dumb and ignorant. With
several characters the writer takes it to the extreme, such
as Kimberley in the Chemistry Professor. The plays
commentary calls her scatterbrained (PSU61), but
stupidity could be the image the reader forms when reading
about her going to look up an unimportant comment in the
library, a comment that has been uttered just by the w ay,
and even more when, after a few pages, Kimberley enters
again and asks innocently Which building is the library?
(PSU68) Others, more important characters, may be seen as
stupid as well. Howard, for example, sees Billy (SH5) as
a vaguely dissatisfied dupe, and adds that he is a blank
and stupid man (Howard1). In Cats Cradle Bokonon says
that he could write a whole book, a history of human
stupidity and use it for a pillow (CAT11).
In Hocus Pocus, ignorance, conceit and dumbness show
up to be the most frequently pin-pointed problems of
Humanity. The main character, Eugene Debs Hartke, for
example, speaks about a Jack Patton who was
against everybodys reproducing, since human beings
were, in his own words, about 1,000 times dumber
and meaner than they think they are.
I myself, obviously, have finally come around
to his point of view. (HOC4)
Later, Hartke continues and says
I think that William Shakespeare was the
wisest human being I ever heard of. To be perfectly
frank, though, thats not saying much. We are
impossibly conceited animals, and actually dumb as
a heck. Ask any teacher. You dont even have to ask
a teacher. Ask anybody. Dogs and cats are smarter
than we are. (HOC146)
He continues with the outpour of his heart and calls the
board of Trustees of Tarkington College dummies, people who
caused the war in Vietnam dummies and even himself the
biggest dummy of all (HOC146).
From the several examples shown above, it is clear
that Vonnegut does not have a very high opinion of
humankind, but rather a contemptuous one. Bryant notices
that Vonnegut cites human stupidity and the human condition
as the two chief obstacles to the achievement of the highest
good, and that it is human stupidity that leads men to
kill and cheat and steal (Bryant) .
Machines
Another quality of Humanity corresponds with the
above described stupidity. This quality is seen when
Vonnegut describes people as machines. The impulses by which
the reader forms the image of Humanity as a machine are both
direct and indirect. In Sirens of Titan Vonnegut explains
the term machine. In his opinion, to be a machine is to be
vulgar, to lack sensitivity and imagination, and to be
purposeful without a shred of conscience (TIT00). These
traits, or most of them, can be recognize d in most human
characters in Vonneguts books.
Humanitys vulgarity is obvious from perhaps
everything Vonnegut has written from how people talk and
how they act, from their animal attitude towards sexuality
etc.
Lack of sensitivity is also a very often used quality
of humans. Vonnegut demonstrates this by many ways the
previously mentioned Humanitys attitude towards sex
(lacking sesitivity altogether), human greed (people are not
stopped by anything in their chase for silver and gold) and
the omnipresent shadow of war, when people forget the value
of human life altogether and turn into homicidal imbeciles
(HOC).
That people are purposeful is also a very often
expressed quality of humans. People keep doing what they
seem to be programmed for, what they seem to be designed
for. One of these purposes is surely the already mentioned
reproduction. An example of this can be found, for example,
in Deadeye Dick
The actress playing Celia could ask why God
had even put her on Earth.
And then the voice from the back of the
theater could rumble To reproduce. Nothing else
really interests Me. All the rest is frippery.
(DED185)
Another aspect of Vonneguts novels that can hint at the
issue of purposefulness, is people being reduced into
unthinking entities by various institutions. People are
often seen as robots under orders, willing to do anything.
One of the most often described institutions is surely the
army. For example, the main character in Hocus Pocus says
that he was a professional soldier and would have killed the
returning Jesus Christ if ordered by a superior officer
(HOC). In Sirens of Titan Vonnegut describes soldiers as
people with antennae in their heads, controlled by radio to
do anything the commander chooses (TIT6).
The only exception from the traits of a machine
applied to Humanity is the lack of imagination. It cannot be
said that Vonneguts characters lack imagination. On the
contrary, human imagination is often emphasized. It is
a very important quality of Vonneguts Humanity.
This chapter has so far dealt with indirect
indications of peoples being machines. However, this trait
is also very often defined in the text directly. This direct
definition is perhaps most common in Breakfast of Champions.
One of the Kilgore Trouts books, Now It Can Be Told, says
that all people, all living things are machines and the only
entity with free will is the reader of the book (BOC17-5,
5-7). Another example is people being seen from the
viewpoint of Tralfamadorians (Vonnegu ts favorite race of
aliens). These beings see everything what happens, what
happened and what will happen, at the same time.
Lionel Merble was a machine. Tralfamadorians,
of course, say that every creature and plant in the
Universe is a machine. It amuses them that so many
Earthlings are offended by the idea of being
machines.
Outside the plane, the machine named Valencia
Merble Pilgrim was eating a Peter Paul Mound Bar
and waving bye-bye. (SH5154)
Another way of direct definition of this character trait is
considering the parts of human body to be components of
a machine. Talking about anatomy Vonnegut often uses words
like wires, motors, switches, computers etc. (e.g. BOC).
The idea of pre-programmed human being appears also in
Timequake, where Vonnegut suggests that its genes which make
us behave in this or that way (TQK118). Genes are some kind
of programming of human beings, they cannot be changed.
No-one chooses genes, they are inherited. A child gets
his/her genes at conception and has to live with them
through the rest of his/her life. This also may allude
humans to machines.
To sum up, Vonnegut argues that human beings are
robots, are machines (BOC). He both indicates this
directly and indirectly. Vonnegut also provides a formula
(defining the term machine) by which the reader can see
this by him/herself (TIT00). There is, however, one
element in the formula, into which the image of humanity
does not fit. This element is human imagination.
Family life
The last feature that needs to be discussed when
describing Vonneguts humanity is the appearance of families
in the novels. Vonneguts families seem to be undergoing
a crisis, just as everything about Humanity that has been
described so far.
People often say that family is the basis of every
state and every human society. Should family be broken, the
society would break as well. The problems would start among
the young people, but then, as they would grow up, become
the heads of their own families and have their own children,
the problems would appear among their posterity as well the
brokenness spreading from generation to generation. This is
exactly what is happening in Vonneguts writing. The family
in Vonneguts books just se ems not to work properly.
Especially the relationship between father and son often
fails to function correctly.
Kilgore Trout can be one of the examples. His three
marriages failed and his son, Leon, ran away from home when
he was sixteen. It was because I was so ashamed of him,
Leon explains the reason (GAL55). When I got to be
sixteen, though, I myself had arrived at the conclusion my
mother and the neighbors had reached so long ago that my
father was a repellent failure, ... He was an insult to life
itself... (GAL56). Kilgore Trout had a depressing
childhood, too (BOC1). Another example of not very good
relationship between father and children can be found in
Bluebeard, where the main character, Rabo Karabekian says
One might think that my two sons, Terry and
Henri Karabekian, . . ., might enjoy coming here
with their families. Terry has two sons of his own
now. Henri has a daughter..
But they do not speak to me.
So be it! So be it! I cry in this manicured
wilderness. Who gives a damn! Excuse this
outburst. (BLU6)
Deadeye Dick also shows the reader (in the
relationship between the main character and his father) that
an unsuccessful father can only produce an unsuccessful son.
In this case, the father is a painter, a failure of
a painter, actually, and the son becomes an unsuccesful
writer. The fact that parents pass a great part of
themselves on their posterity is demostrated or mentioned in
many of Vonneguts books. In Hocus Pocus, for example, the
main character says
And if I feel that my father was a horses
fundament and my mother was a horses fundament,
what can I be but another horses fundament? Ask my
kids, both legitimate and illegitimate. They know.
(HOC146)
To mention another example, the fact that Kilgore Trout was
not very successful caused the same in his son, who was
flunking every course but arts at school (GAL56).
Bluebeard shows another problem in the family members
of a family not caring about one another the husband not
caring about his wife and wife not caring about her husband.
...my Mother, who let herself become quite heavy,
and who didnt care much what her hair looked like,
either, or her clothes. Mother didnt care because
Father didnt care. (BLU14)
There are more family problems, such as divorce and
child abuse in Vonneguts books, but there is no need to
examine them in detail.
As a result of malfunctioning families, Humanity often
experiences and suffers from loneliness. Vonnegut realizes
the need for a family. Human beings are genetically such
gregarious creatures, he says. They need plenty of
like-minded friends and relatives almost as much as they
need B-complex vitamins and a heartfelt moral code
(PSU04). He uses a Christian saying One Christian is no
Christian. and changes it to One human being is no human
being. (PSU16). Wilbur Swain speaks in Slap stick with an
old lonely man
An old man crawled up to me afterwards and
told me how he used to buy life insurance and
mutual funds and household appliances and
automobiles and so on, not because he liked them or
needed them, but because the salesman seemed to
promise to be his relative, and so on.
I had no relatives and I needed relatives,
he said.
Everybody does, I said.
He told me he had been a drunk for a while,
trying to make relatives out of people in bars.
The bartender would be kind of a father, you
know- he said. And all of a sudden it was closing
time. (SLP15-16)
Vonnegut also shows that loneliness might be the reason for
the bad things in the world all the damaging excesses of
Americans in the past were motivated by loneliness rather
than a fondness for sin (SLP15).
Summing up Humanity
This part of the essay has shown the overall image of
Humanity in Vonneguts books. It has illustrated that
Humanity (as a literary character) is ugly, dirty,
funny-looking, fat and is definitely not going to win
a beauty contest (SLP51). It has been born with some of
these qualities, and the others were caused by Humanity
neglecting itself. The environment, where Humanity lives is
as miserable as its physical appearance the Earth has
turned into a cramped, neglected, dirty, smelly place.These
negative qualities are, however, strongly overpowered by
inner qualities. Humanity is seen as a machine moving
incontrollably forward, driven by several fatal lusts
(such as greed for money and wealth, ambition, sex). The
machine never stops, decency is unimportant, human lives are
unimportant. The monster moves onward, destroying
everything that gets in its way. However, the machine also
seems to be driven by a much higher force, by something
completely out of Humanitys control.
Human life and its value
Showing that people are playthings or puppets or pawns
or players also leads to the right conception of the value
of human life in Vonneguts writing. Frequent occurence of
death depicted in various ways is constantly present.
Generally speaking, there are two most remarkable views on
life and death. One of the views shows that human life is
priceless, very valuable, item of the highest importance.
The other view contradicts the first one, because it shows
that human life does not really have any value, that it can
be and often is wasted for almost any reason.
Life without price
Some works of Kurt Vonnegut show that human life does
not have a very great value or high price. This can be
concluded from several hints. In Galapagos, for example,
Vonnegut puts a star to every name of a person, who is going
to die in the following chapter. It is a rather amusing
feature at first, but later it makes the reader wonder about
the value of life, about the question whether that is all
that can be said about the loss of human life. This person
is going to die the star seems to say -- only that and
nothing more, no compassion, no feeling, nothing. The
greatest effect of using the stars with names of people
close to death is reached by using the star with Mandarax
(an amazing computer capable of doing almost everything,
from translating and interpreting all languages and quoting
famous people and famous quotations to, for example,
diagnosing a mental illness, or arranging flowers). The
computer is mentioned numerously throughout the whole book
and close to the end a star wi th the name Mandarax preceeds
its drowning in the sea. By using the same tool for both
human death and the end of Mandarax, Vonnegut appears to say
that the value of human life equals the value of a computer,
of a machine. The reader may wonder whether this example may
show that when a person dies in the book, it should evoke no
more feelings for the dying one than for a piece of
electronic equipment.
Furthermore, to stay with the novel Galapagos,
Vonnegut uses one phrase everytime somebody dies he
wasnt going to write Beethovens Ninth Symphony anyway
(e.g. GAL44-45). In this way, another view is shown and
that is the opinion that the human life is valuable as long
as the person does something important in peoples eyes for
example, write a famous symphony. Otherwise, there need to
be no tears and no emotions about a dead person, who was
just another human being, one out of many. Similar phrase as
the one about Beethovens Ninth Symphony is used in
Slaughterhouse-Five. It is much shorter but, on the other
hand, it is used much more frequently. Everytime a character
dies, Vonnegut says So it goes. The epitaph appears one
hundred and six times altogether throughout the novel. It is
no wonder death occurs so often in the novel, since the
prime topic of the book is the fire-bombing of Dresden in
World War Two. The phrase seems to suggest that it is not
a great tragedy when some body dies, that it is normal, and
does not deserve more time speaking about it than necessary.
In Deadeye Dick, when somebody dies, Vonnegut does not call
it dying. He writes that this person had their peephole
closed and when they are born, they simply have their
peephole opened. This, again, seems to show, that human
life is no more than peeping through a hole and death
means only an end to this.
In Deadeye Dick, Vonnegut calls a neutron bomb
a friendly bomb, because it destroys people and leaves all
the property untouched. (DED4) DeMott asks a difficult
question Why do human beings take satisfaction in creating
a neutron bomb that destroys only human beings, not their
accoutrements? (DeMott, 18p.1) In this example property,
houses, cars, home equipment and other valuable things
appear to be worth much more than human lives.
A rather common theme in Vonnegut is showing people
who are reduced to mere numbers, be it soldiers (such as in
Sirens of Titan), or workers (e.g. Player Piano) or anybody
else. People reduced to numbers do not have much value,
either. In the story The Lie (WTM-6) Vonnegut shows
a young boy, Eli Remenzel, who is supposed to go to a very
prestigeous school, only because all the Remenzels in
history went there. On the way there, his mother counts all
his predecessors and finds out that Eli is actually number
thirty-one. His feelings do not matter, his wishes, his
fears do not matter. The only thing that matters is that he
is number thirty-one. The theme can be found in other works
as well, for example Sirens of Titan, Hocus Pocus, or Player
Piano. In Harrison Bergeron this theme can be recognized
as well. Vonnegut shows the readers a society where everyone
is completely equal, equal even in things as absurd as body
weight or intelligence or how one looks like. This, however,
redu ces the human being into a mere number, too. The person
loses his individual features, ceases to be special any
more. The people in Harrison Bergeron, through acquiring
equality, reach uniformity and deformity of self instead.
To go further from showing unimportance of human
beings as individuals, it can be said that the same view is
taken for humankind in general, for Humanity. The novel
Galapagos demonstrates this very apparently. There is an
apocalypse and only a few people survive on the Galapagos
Islands. However, evolution does its work with this remnant
of humanity and people evolve into different kind of
species, a species with flippers instead of hands and
a brain that is much smaller and much less capable. Again,
there is no feeling or compassion for the lost species. It
seems that the world is better off without people, at least
people as we know them. It seems that the phrase He wasnt
going to write Beethovens Ninth Symphony anyway can be
applied here, too, meaning that the same way people are
unimportant and there is nothing special about them,
Humanity is unimportant and there is nothing special about
it, either.
The only thing that matters human life
The previous section has shown that humanity appears
to be disposable. However, this cynicism is not shared
everywhere in Vonneguts work. On the contrary, there
appears another view which shows the value of human life in
a different light.
In Timequake, when Kilgore Trout observes dead and
dying people, a completely different attitude to human death
is seen. While the epitaph he was not going to write
Beethovens Ninth Symphony anyway could be inscribed
emotionlessly upon the grave of humanity in other novels,
Kilgore Trout does not share this
The dead and dying were widely scattered, rather
than heaped or enclosed in a burning or crumpled
airplane or bus. They were still individuals. Alive
or dead, they still had personalities, with stories
to read in their faces and clothes. (TQK110)
This humane view of dead people seems to be a rarity in
Vonneguts books.
In the apocalyptic novel Cats Cradle, there are many
other clues that can lead to the discovery that human life
is valuable. For Bokonists, there is one thing that matters,
one sacred thing. It is not even God, there is just one
thing. The answer to what it is, is neither the ocean, nor
the sun. Its Man ... Thats all. Just man (CAT14). For
example, when a Bokonist is about to commit suicide, he
always says Now I will destroy the whole world
(CAT160). Todd calls this kind of mora lism vague, so
undemanding, a dreamily humanist nihilism... (Todd107).
Bryant finds more truth and maybe the foundation about
the human worth in Vonneguts writing
Human worth -- and hence significance --
resides in the being of the human.The self is its
own reason for being its being is its own
guarantee of its value. (Bryant0)
Vonnegut, showing Humanity in the worst light possible, over
and over again describes that human lives are precious and
valuable in themselves. People do not need to prove to be
worthy, their worth is there no matter what kind of person
they happen to be. Vonnegut depicts ususally broken down
people, criminals, failures etc., while still showing the
fact that their value is great, beyond measurement.
Bugs in Amber
The lack of free will is a common feature in most of
Vonneguts books. In Slaughterhouse-Five, for example
Vonnegut introduces the phrase bugs in amber. One of the
examples is the passage which shows (from the view of the
Tralfamadorians) that the future is given and that one
cannot change it.
All moments, past, present, and future, always
have existed, always will exist. The
Tralfamadorians can look at all the different
moments just the way we can look at a stretch of
the Rocky Mountains, for instance. (SH57)
Another passage of the novel describes the theme more
directly. It is the part when the Tralfamadorians kidnap
Billy Pilgrim and he asks why?.
Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?
Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in
the amber of this moment. There is no why.
(SH576-77)
This concept views the world as a kind of amber and
everything in the world as a bug trapped in it, unable to
control what it is doing, having no free will at all.
Humanity, according to this, cannot help what it is doing.
Thus Bokonon and Jonah in Cats Cradle can sing a Bokonist
tune
We do, doodley do, doodley do, doodley do, What we
must, muddily must, muddily must, muddily must;
Muddily do, muddily do, muddily do, muddily do,
Until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily
bust. (CAT178)
Timequake, Vonneguts latest novel, deals with free will, or
the lack of it, very directly, too. In the story, there is
a timequake that causes the time to go back ten years.
Everything the people went through during the ten years,
they have to go through again, without any chance of
changing things. Vonnegut calls it a rerun (e.g. TQK1)
or an automatic pilot (e.g. TQK1). Just like a pilot
who has no control over a plane that is flown on an
automatic pilot, the characters and whole Humanit y has no
way of controling what is going to happen next.
The structure of Vonneguts novels itself reveals the
fact that everything is set and the characters have no way
of changing the storyline. The plot is usually revealed in
the first couple of chapters (e.g. GAL, SH5, HOC, BOC etc.),
the reader almost always knows what is going to happen next.
The narrator often occupies a vantage point for observing
the whole story. In Slaughterhouse-Five, for instance, it is
the view of Tralfamadorians who see in the fourth dimension,
therefore see everything that has happened and that will
happen. In Galapagos it is the viewpoint of a ghost
narrating the story a million years after it actually
happened, therefore seeing it from a very similar point to
the Tralfamadorians?.
If there is a puppet which is actually doing
something, there also must be a puppet master. It is
difficult to recognize the puppet master, though. The
enormous force (SH5164), the source of all acts of
Humanity differs from book to book. In Galapagos it is the
peoples big brains. In some other books (e.g. HOC, BOC,
DED), it is chemicals or fault in the construction of the
human being
It is a big temptation to me, when I create
a character for a novel, to say that he is what he
is because of faulty wiring, or because of
microscopic amounts of chemicals which he ate or
failed to eat on that particular day. (BOC4)
Some of the most gruesome accidents, says Vonnegut, were
caused by people who had rendered themselves imbecillic or
maniacal because by ingesting too much of what, if taken in
moderation, could be a helpful chemical (HOC8). Wilbur
Swains mother, in Slapstick, is described as a symphony of
chemical reactions (SLP58). In some novels the source is
the sexual drive or other physical needs. The key word is
probably the word physical. Vonnegut often sees the fault
in the body. In Bluebeard, for example, that fault is seen
in the meat I would hate to be responsible for what my
meat does. When people do something terrible, it is the
meats fault (BLU46).
On the other hand, in Breakfast of Champions Vonnegut
muses about the idea of God being the cause. He uses
a parallel the destructive testing division at the
Pontiac Division of General Motors, where
various parts of automobiles and even entire
automobiles were destroyed. Pontiac scientists set
upholstery on fire, threw gravel at windshields,
snapped crankshafts and driveshafts, staged
head-on collisions, tore gearshift levers out by
the roots, ran engines at high speeds with almost
no lubrication, opened and closed glove compartment
doors a hundred times a minute for days, cooled
dashboard clocks to within a few degrees of
absolute zero, and so on.
Everything youre not supposed to do to a car,
they did to a car. (BOC165-166)
Vonnegut wonders if this is the reason what God put people
on earth for, whether it was to test them and find out how
much they can stand without breaking (BOC166). From the
novel it seems that he thinks that this is, obviously, the
reason.
In Galapagos, he says that people are natures
experiments (GAL8), which corresponds with the above
view, only with one difference that Vonnegut uses the word
nature instead of God. However, it can be assumed, that
he has one entity in mind, since both, nature and God can
take up the role of, or be seen as, the Creator of the
Universe, of the world, of the human beings.
After all, Vonnegut seems to imply, God is the creator
of the meat and the designer of the big brain, both of
which a human being cannot control, both of which a human
being is subject to. Another clue of God being the source
can be seen If God created the whole reality, then it is
the maker of the amber as well. What are people predestined
to do must have been predestined by God, the creator.
Whatever or whoever the puppet master might be, it
will hence be called Divinity, as a counterpart to Humanity.
Humanity versus Divinity
Humanity does not conquer Divinity physically. It
cannot do it. It is not capable of being set free from the
bonds that Divinity set on it. However, Vonneguts Humanity
does manage to outwit Divinity. Even though it is physically
impossible to be set free, Humanity manages to liberate
itself. One aspect did not really fit the definition of
a machine (as was shown in the section on Humanity) and it
is crucial in this moment human imagination. It is
something that is not under Divinitys control. It is
something people are free to use at any time, at times when
they are otherwise controlled by the enormous forces.
Bryant points out that Vonneguts Humanity is a complex
combination of nobility and meanness, knowledge and
ignorance, grandeur and ignomity (Bryant). It is
a complex of good and bad qualities. The bad qualities
(meanness, ignorance and ignomity) can be ascribed to
Divinity, because Humanity cannot be blamed for them. It is
not able to suppress them. If one scratches out the bad
qualities (which are mostly in majority), the good ones will
remain. Benjamin DeMott complains that Vonneguts Humanity
serves evil too openly and good too secretly (DeMott
1710). The outside of Humanity is controlled by Divinity,
the villain, therefore Humanity appears to be evil. What
happens inside Humanity is whats beyond the villains
power. Thats what makes Humanity a good character. It does
serve good above all things. Evil things are beyond its
control.
The novel Bluebeard emphasizes the difference between
meat and soul. My soul knows my meat is doing bad
things (BLU46). Soul is good. Meat is evil. The story
Unready to Wear, which was written as early as 151, also
points at this distinct parts of a human being The mind is
the only thing worth anything (WTM40). [The body] brings
out the worst in us, no matter how good our psyches are
(WTM4). The minute you get in [the body], chemicals take
over (WTM44). Kilgore Trout in Breakfast of Champions
also agrees with this Our awareness is all that is alive
and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is
dead machinery (BOC1). Vonnegut, indeed manages to make
the awareness a sacred component of a human being. If people
did not possess it, they would really be simple machines or
puppets.
On meaning and purpose of life
Most of Vonneguts novels deal with the meaning of
life, seeking its purpose. Ranly says that Vonnegut employs
only a scientific, mechanistic meaning for purpose and fails
to find a reasonable purpose in either the universe or in
man (Ranly11). Humans, therefore find a meaning in
themselves. If they seem to have been created for some
pathetic reason, they can surely invent a purpose inside
them. The main character of Sirens of Titan discovers this
kind of answer at the end of the novel It took us that
long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who
is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved
(TIT0). Samuels notices this as well life passes human
understanding but not our powers of enjoyment
(Samuels1). It is this alternative that can be found in
the heart of Humanity that is the means by which it outwits
Divinity. If Divinity wants to write about somebody who
suffers all the time (BOC41), Humanitys only way of
winning is not to suffer.
This chapter has shown that there are no real villains
or heroes in Vonneguts books. These characters can be found
only when Humanity and Divinity are considered to be
literary characters. Humanity was proved not to be the
villain, despite all the vile things it does. It is led into
doing them by Divinity and that is why Divinity is the
villain. Humanity, however, could not be considered to be
the hero if there was no additional aspect of its character
to being the puppet. This aspect has bee n found in
Humanitys awareness, its imagination, the capability of
discovering its own answers. This becomes a way for
outwitting Divinity, a way of winning over it. Therefore,
Humanity can be considered to be the hero.
Kilgore Trout - Vonnegut in the Mirror
Kilgore Trout is a character that appears in
Vonneguts books more frequently than any other. While
playing a minor part in, for example, God Bless You, Mr.
Rosewater or Galapagos, being only mentioned in several
others, such as Jailbird or Hocus Pocus, he appears as the
major character in two other books Breakfast of Champions
and Timequake. He is a writer, like Kurt Vonnegut. Trouts
person, however, is rather obscure. There are many details
about his life mentioned throughout these books, but the
bits and pieces of information often contradict one another.
For example, Breakfast of Champions says that he died in
18. In Timequake, he is still alive in 001 and, as
Vonnegut says, dies that year. (TQKxiii). While in some
novels, he is an unknown writer, in others, he is
a distinguished writer and scientist who has even been
awarded the Nobel Prize (BOC16,5). However, a short
biography can be put together from the pieces of information
available, with the omission of the contradicti ng parts,
however.
He was born in a family of ornithologists and spent
his childhood in Bermuda. It was depressing (BOC1). He
started writing when he was fourteen years old, but no
distinguished publisher would publish his stories or books.
His prose was usually published in trash and pornographic
magazines only (e.g. The Black Garterbelt), fulfilling the
sole function of a filler between obscene pictures and
photos. The text had nothing to do with the pictures,
though. His paperback novels, when they managed to find
a publisher, were failures and usually served as
a shop-window dressing only. His readership was really
small; people who bought the pornographic magazines were not
interested in the text anyway and not many people bought the
paperbacks, either. He had only a few fans. One of the most
devoted ones was definitely Eliot Rosewater (SH5, ROS).
Another avid fan (SH5168) is Billy Pilgrim, who has read
dozens of books by Trout. (SH5166) Despite the low
popularity, he was very fruitful, having written 117 novels
and about 000 short stories (by the time of the action of
Breakfast of Champions).
His family life was sad. His numerous mariages did not
work out and his son, Leon, ran away from home when he was
sixteen. He lived alone in his rented apartment in Illium.
Another known place of residence was an aparment in Cohoes,
NY, where he lived with his parakeet, Cyclone Bill, only. In
order to get money (which he ususally did not get from his
writing career) he did various jobs. He worked as an
installer of aluminous combination storm windows and
screens. (BOC0), he was a stock clerk in a trading stamp
redemption center (ROS1). In Slaughterhouse-Five, his job
was a circulation man for the Illium Gazette where he
managed newspaper delivery boys, bullied and flattered and
cheated little kids (SH5166). Giving freedom to his
parakeet in 175 and having learned of his sons death, he
becomes a vagabond (TQK). However, at the end of his life,
the odds seem to work for him. He even receives the nobel
prize. (BOC5) and even his jokes start to be taken
seriously. (BOC1)
There are many reasons why a reader can draw
a conclusion that Vonnegut and Trout have a lot in common
and that, probably, when talking about Trout, Vonnegut talks
about himself. Various critics have come to this conclusion,
even before Vonnegut admitted himself that Trout has been
his alter ego (TQKxiii). Lundquist, for example, has used
this term, alter ego, for Kilgore Trout as early as 177
(Lundquist41).
The things that are similar between Trout and Vonnegut
are many. One thing is their writing. Their stories, or
novels, often have the same themes or the same characters.
To mention several examples, one story that is very similar
is Trouts novel BR0TB (ROS1-1) and Vonneguts short
story Welcome to the Monkey House. In both, the reader can
find the idea of Ethical Suicide Parlors, where people can
have themselves killed legally and humanely. The two places
are described almost identically. Another thing Trout and
Vonnegut have in common is the planet Tralfamadore and
aliens called Tralfamadorians. It is the planet where Billy
Pilgrim (SH5) is taken to when kidnapped by UFOs. This
planet appears also in Sirens of Titan. It appears in
several of Trouts stories, for example Protocols of the
Elders of Tralfamadore (HOC). Even though the accounts of
Tralfamadore and Tralfamadorians differ slightly both in
Trouts stories and in Vonneguts books, it is an element
the two writers have in common.
Many of the novels of Kilgore Trout have similar
themes as Vonneguts and attack the same things over and
over again, such as automation, free will, religion, human
stupidity, greed and obsession with money, sexual lust etc.
Many of Trouts stories appear throughout Vonneguts books,
usually stripped so that the readers can read the plot of
the story condensed into one paragraph. One, and definitely
not only, example can be the story about a money tree
Trout, incidentally, had written a book about
a money tree. It had twenty dollar bills for
leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its
fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who
killed each other around the roots and made very
good fertilizer. (SH5167)
Another parallel between Trout and Vonnegut can be
seen in the publishers of their stories and books. Vonnegut,
too, was first published in various magazines. Welcome to
the Monkey House, for example, appeared in Playboy. Others
include The Atlantic Monthly, Colliers Magazine,
Cosmopolitan, Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, Ladies
Home Journal, The New York Times, Saturday Evening Post,
Venture etc. His first books appeared in paperback only.
In God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, the reader can find
the description of Trouts favorite formula for writing
stories
Trouts favorite formula was to describe
a perfectly hideous society, not unlike his own,
and then, toward the end, to suggest ways in which
it could be improved. (ROS0)
This is the very formula that Vonnegut himself is using in
his fiction, as has already been described.
In the biography of these two people, there are also
several suprising coincidences. For example, Vonnegut, just
like Trout, probably started writing at an early age. In
16, Vonnegut, when at High School, was one of the
publishers of a school magazine, Shortridge Daily Echo
(Zelenka15). He was fourteen when he started attending the
school, just as Trout was fourteen when he started writing.
His first short story, Report on the Barnhouse Effect,
however, was published another fourteen years later, at the
age of twenty-eight. Some places are also common both for
Trout and Vonnegut especially Cape Cod.
Trout can really be seen as Vonneguts fictional
counterpart, a parody of Vonnegut or Vonneguts mirror
image. Beorgettz notes that Trout is also a representation
of what Vonnegut himself might become. (Beorgettzchapter
1) This is one of the reasons why the reader can consider
Vonneguts fiction to be more autobiography than fiction.
Billy Pilgrim and other autobiographical characters
Kilgore Trout is not the only literary character that
seems to carry Vonneguts image. In his writing, the reader
can find more characters that could be called
autobiographical characters.
Billy Pilgrim is probably the most obvious of the
characters that reflects Vonnegut himself. Billy Pilgrim
re-lives the hell of the fire-storming of Dresden in 145,
an event that probably had the greatest impact on Vonnegut
and his writing. Apart from the identical events that Billy
and Vonnegut experience (the war, being prisoners-of-war,
work in Dresden and the actual bombing), Vonnegut prompts
two other hints that leave no doubt that Vonnegut equals
Billy Pilgrim That was I. That was me. That was the author
of this book, (SH515, 148) Vonnegut writes.
Another of Vonneguts characters that could be
connected with the writer himself by the mark equals is
Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain in Slapstick. Without the fact that
Vonnegut said himself in the prologue that Slapstick is
rather an autobiography, the readers would hardly be able to
see the autobiographical elements themselves. Having read
this before the novel starts makes them constantly wonder at
the things depicted in the story. Vonnegut says this about
the novel It depicts myself and my beautiful sister as
monsters. (SLP4) His sister, Alice, was embarassingly
tall, and died of cancer (Nicol10) and even though the
setting is all fictional, it is about Alice and Kurt. The
book is about what life feels like to Vonnegut
(Nicol10). It is also an experiment with old age
(SLP5) which Vonnegut started to enter (he was fifty-four
when Slapstick was published.)
Kilgore Trout co-stars in Breakfast of Champions
with Dwayne Hoover. The latter is also much like Vonnegut.
Hoover has a dog, Sparky, and loves to get down on the floor
and roll around with him and speak to him (BOC17-18). In
the prologue to Slapstick, Vonnegut says that this is his
own love, too
I used to spend a lot of time rolling around on
rugs with uncritically affectionate dogs we had.
And I still do a lot of that. The dogs become
tired and confused and embarassed long before I do.
I could go on forever. (SLP1)
This is one connecting thing that connects Hoover with
Vonnegut. Another of the connecting things is Dwaynes job
a car salesman. Vonnegut himself was a Saab dealer in
154-56 (Zelenka160).
David Potter in Deer in the Works also reminds
a reader of Kurt Vonnegut. The story probably is about
Vonnegut. Potter comes to the Illium Works to apply for
a job as a writer in advertising and sales promotion
(WTM07). He also owns a weekly paper in Dorset. Vonnegut
himself was working as a publicist in General Electric
Company in Schenectady, N.Y. Feeling trapped, like Potter
and the deer, he left in 151 and became a full-time writer
(Zelenka160).
Rudy Watz is also a reflection of Vonnegut, as he says
in the preface of Deadeye Dick (DEDxiii)
The neutered pharmacist who tells the tale is my
declining sexuality. The crime he commited in
childhood is all the bad things I have done.
(DEDxiii)
Not only from these, but from other characters of
Vonneguts can the reader conclude that Vonnegut often
writes about himself. It is also the usual first person
narrative Vonnegut mostly uses. Slapstick, for example, is
an autobiography of Wilbur Swain, therefore written in first
person. In Hocus Pocus, Eugene Debs Hartke writes about his
life on bits of paper, and again, there is the first person
narrative. Bluebeard is another autobiography, this time of
Rabo Karabekian. Jailbird is another. Palm Sunday and Fates
Worse than Death have the subtitle An Autobiographical
Collage, yet the style and the narrative does not differ
much from Vonneguts other novels that could be named
fiction, Timequake, for example. The narrative helps to
persuade the reader that Vonnegut, by talking about other
people, talks about himself. That is why it appears to be so
attractive and natural for Vonnegut to choose the first
person narrative in majority of his books, especially the
later ones.
Further, the personal prefaces and prologues to his
books usually contain the same devices as the actual novel.
For example, in the prologue to Slapstick, Vonnegut uses the
same senile hiccup hi ho just as throughout the whole
book (SLP1,16,17,1,5). Chapter oneof
Slaughterhouse-Five, being an introduction, uses for example
the recurrent phrase So it goes (SH51). The frequency of
and-so-ons and et-ceteras and other similar phrases
Vonnegut uses in his fiction is also something th at
connects the actual story with the personal note in the
beginning.
Autobiographical Places
Vonnegut writes about many places, but many of them
are actual places, where Vonnegut lived or worked.
Indianapolis can be one of them. Many events of Vonneguts
writing are set in Indiana, or the capital itself. Cape Cod
appears in many books, too (CAT, ROS, SH5 etc.) and it is
actually where Vonnegut has lived as well (TQKxi). To name
a few more, Schenectady and New York appear in his books
frequently, too, and these two places are also where he has
lived.
Bergoettz, Glenn; Autobiography and Philosophy in the
Personal Novels of Kurt Vonnegut 168-17 in Kurt
Vonnegut Corner Online, 18
URLhttp//www.geocities.com/Hollywood/45/kv_autobio.html
(Apr , 001)
Bryant, Jerry H., The Open Decision; The Free Press, 170
Contemporary Authors, 4, Gale Reserach, Detroit, MI
DeMott, Benjamin; Vonneguts Otherworld by Laughter,
Saturday Review; May 1, 171
DeMott, Benjamin; A Riot of Randomness, The New York Times
Book Review, The New York Times Company October 17, 18
Goldsmith, David H.; Kurt Vonnegut Fantasist of Fire and
Ice; Bowling Green University Popular Press, 17
Howard, Maureen; book review, Partisan Review, No. 1, 170
Huber, Chris; The Vonnegut Web online, Durham, NC 18 URL
http//www.duke.edu/~crh4/vonnegut/ ( Apr 001)
Jarab, Josef; Vehlasny prozaik z popartoveho plakatu, in
Czech edition of Breakfast of Champions; Praha
Kakutani, Michiko; book review, The New York Times Book
Review; The New York Times Company Lake City Final Edition,
Section C; September 5, 185
Leonard, John, book review, The New York Times, The New York
Times Company September 7, 17
Lessing, Doris; Vonneguts Responsibility, The New York
Times Book Review; The New York Times Company February 4,
17
Lewis, C.S.; God in the Dock, in God in the Dock; London
Harper Collins Religions
Lifton, Robert Jay; Survivor as Creator, American Poetry
Review; January-February, 17
Lundquist, James; Kurt Vonnegut; New York Frederick Ungar
Publishing Co., 177
May, John R.; Vonneguts Humor and the Limits of Hope,
Twentieth Century Literature, January 17
Nelson, Joyce, Vonnegut and Bugs in Amber, Journal of
Popular Culture, Winter, 17
Novotny, Adolf; Biblicky Slovnik (Bible Dictionary), Praha
Kalich - Ceska biblicka spolecnost, 1
Nicol, Charles; Kiss Me, Im senile, National Review; New
York, National Review Inc., November 6, 176
Olderman, Raymond M.; Out of the Waste Land and into the
Fire Catalysm or the Cosmic Cool, Beyond the Waste Land
A Study of the American Novel in the Nineteen-Sixties; Yale
University Press, 17
Ranly, Ernest W.; What Are People For?, Commonwealth;
Commonwealth Publishing Co., May 7, 171
Reed, Peter J.; Kurt Vonnegut Jr.; Warner Paperback Library,
17
Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith; Narrative Fiction Contemporary
Poetics; London New Accents, 18
Sale, Roger, book review, The New York Times Book Review;
The New York Times Company October , 176
Samuels, Charles Thomas; Age of Vonnegut, The New
Republic; June 1, 171
Scholes, Robert, book review, The New York Times Book
Review; The New York Times Company Apr 6, 16
Todd, Richard; book review, The Atlantic Monthly; Boston,
Mass.May 17
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