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MASTER's THESIS So It Goes…

MASTER's THESIS So It Goes…

2010:008 MASTER'S THESIS

So It Goes… - Fate, Destiny and in Six Kurt Novels

Brittany Westerblom

Luleå University of Technology D Master thesis English Department of Language and Culture

2010:008 - ISSN: 1402-1552 - ISRN: LTU-DUPP--10/008--SE So It Goes… Fate, Destiny and Determinism in Six Novels

Brittany Westerblom Abstract Destiny, fate and determinism are constant themes in several of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels. His novels, while often prophetic and grim, encourage readers to examine their own lives and their own fatalistic tendencies. It is Vonnegut’s aim to influence his readers to take control of their lives and manipulate or change, not only their own destinies and , but that of the planet as well. This essay explores aspects of the concepts of fate, destiny and determinism in six of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels: Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, , Bluebeard, and . Part one examines the influence of fate, destiny and determinism on the individual with a focus on the extent to which characters’ lives are determined by these concepts. Part two explores the concept of the individual versus fate, destiny and determinism and to what extent the individual characters can affect their own destiny and challenge determinism, while exploring whether or not choice or free exist. The third part of the essay looks into Vonnegut’s message. Questions concerning why he wrote about these concepts and why these are important in modern society are broached in the final section. Contents

Introduction ...... 1 Terminology...... 3 Chapter 1: The Influence of Fate, Destiny and Determinism on the Individual...... 4 To what extent are characters’ lives determined by fate and/or destiny?...... 5 To what extent are characters’ lives determined by aspects of social/family determinism?...... 7 Fate/Destiny influencing the individual to a predetermined fate ...... 10 Cat’s Cradle ...... 10 The Sirens of Titan ...... 12 Chapter 2: The Individual Versus Fate, Destiny and Determinism ...... 15 To what extent can individual characters affect their own destiny?...... 15 Can the individual fight Determinism? ...... 19 Conclusion...... 22 Works Cited...... 25 Primary Sources ...... 25 Secondary Sources ...... 25 1

Introduction Is there purpose to human or in the life of each individual? Who or what, if anything, is in control of our fate and destinies? Why are we here? In the world of Vonnegut, these age old questions of whether a man’s will is free or constrained by underlying forces, are highlighted in many of his novels. He writes both about characters who accept their lot in life as well as on others who struggle to be freed from their pre-determined plight. Aspects of fate, determinism and destiny have always been of academic interest to critics interested in Vonnegut’s works. Some of them have interpreted the fatalistic tendencies of Vonnegut’s characters as his own resigned acceptance of the human condition. Other critics recognize Vonnegut for the postmodern writer he was and interpret his use of and determinism as being compatible with his position as a postmodern humanist. 1 For these critics, Vonnegut constructs a world in which human life seems predetermined and meaningless while free choice is basically illusionary. Perhaps we humans have no free will, perhaps our lives are meant to be viewed as a whole, a whole which has been played forward and backwards again and again. Could it be that our lives are predetermined, that, like Tralfamadorian books, “There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects”2? Perhaps our lives should be viewed as containing many wonderful moments at once, ignoring the terrible moments. Perhaps humanity has no beginning or end or causes or effects. Vonnegut’s theme may refer back to incidents throughout his life. Kurt Vonnegut was born in 1922 to prosperous German-American parents in Indianapolis, Indiana. His youth was influenced by the anti-German backlash following the First World War, which caused his family to reject their German heritage. Additionally, the challenges and burdens of the Great Depression ruined his family’s financial basis. He enlisted in the military in 1942, after dropping out of Cornell University. Vonnegut returned home from the army one final before being shipped to the European war front on Mother’s Day 1944. Upon his arrival home he found out that his mother had committed suicide the night prior to his arrival. That December he was captured by Germans at the Battle of the Bulge and brought to Dresden as a prisoner of war. He survived the traumatic firestorm holocaust of the Allied bombardment of Dresden in the subterranean meat locker nr. 5 of the city’s slaughter house. As an adult he

1 Bo Petterson, The World According to Kurt Vonnegut (Åbo, Finland: Åbo Akademi University Press, 1994) Jerome Klinkowitz, The Vonnegut Effect. (Columbia, SC: South Carolina Press, 2004) 2 Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five : A Duty-Dance with Death (New York: Laurel, 1991) 87. 2 suffered from mental illness and attempted suicide on numerous occasions.3 These experiences shaped Vonnegut’s views on the providence of man. Destiny, fate and determinism are constant themes in many of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels. From Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five and his fatalistic credo of “So it goes” when confronted with the actuality of his predetermined life, to and Dwayne Hoover and their puppet-mastered actions in Breakfast of Champions, readers of Vonnegut’s novels are exposed to a universe where free will seems to be lacking and one’s existence is orchestrated by a second party. These fatalistic tendencies are not only a comfort to Vonnegut’s characters but to his readers as well. His novels, while often prophetic and grim, encourage readers to examine their own lives and fatalistic tendencies. It is Vonnegut’s aim to influence his readers to take control of their lives and manipulate or change, not only their own destinies and fates, but that of the planet as well. This essay is comprised of three sections and will explore aspects of the concepts of fate, destiny and determinism in six of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels: Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle4, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater5, The Sirens of Titan6, Bluebeard7, and Breakfast of Champions8. Part one will examine the influence of fate, destiny and determinism on the individual with a focus on the extent to which characters’ lives are determined by these concepts. Part two will explore the concept of the individual versus fate, destiny and determinism and to what extent the individual characters can affect their own destiny and challenge determinism while exploring whether or not choice or free will exist. The third part of this essay will look into Vonnegut’s message. Questions concerning why he wrote about these concepts and why these are important in modern society will be broached in this final section.

3Branimir M. Rieger, Dionysus in Literature: essays on literary madness (New York: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1994) 203. 4 Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle (New York: The Dial Press, 2006) 5 Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (New York: The Dial Press, 2006) 6 Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan (London: Victor Gollancz Limited, 2004) 7 Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard (New York: The Dial Press, 2006) 8 Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions (New York: Laurel, 1991) 3

Terminology Fate, destiny and determinism are three terms which are often used interchangeably to describe one’s predetermined , as they all imply that one’s lot in life is dependent upon all events leading up to said moment. However these terms are not direct synonyms, each term has its own exact meaning depending on the academic context. For the purpose of this essay I will distinguish the terms using Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary9. According to their definition, fate is the will or principle or determining cause by which things in general are believed to come to be as they are, or cause events to happen as they do. This wordy definition is also used verbatim to describe destiny. However, the differing factor for the two terms is that fate denotes an inevitable and often adverse outcome, condition, or end while destiny implies a predetermined course of events which often indicate a great or noble course or end.10 Simplified, fate implies no personal choice or influence, and that one’s outcome in life is determined by an outside force and ends fatally with one’s one death. Destiny, on the other hand, implies that one’s participation in a predetermined outcome is deliberate and often ends in greatness. Finally, the term determinism defines a doctrine in which events are fixed in advance by natural laws and causes which human beings are powerless to change.11

9 Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Ed. 2003. 10 Ibid 456. 11 Ibid 456. 4

Chapter 1: The Influence of Fate, Destiny and Determinism on the Individual Characters in Vonnegut’s books often have an implied destiny. The author has a plan for each character, while at the same time most characters realize that as an individual they are fated for a pre-determined destiny outside of their own control. Some individuals’ lives are determined by their social position in life, some by their family connections or wealth, still others by their culture or national allegiance. For a select few, personal fate is determined by secondary influences such as God or another being. Frequently, the characters are aware of the predetermination not only of their personal existence and their inability to influence it but that of the world around them as well. Winston Niles Rumfoord illustrates this deterministic world view in The Sirens of Titan, “Everything that ever was always will be, and everything that ever will be always was.”12 The protagonist of Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim, also elucidates this fact of a deterministic and echoes Rumfoord’s statement, “All moments, past, , and future, always have existed, always will exist.”13 While each character may have what seems to be a predetermined fate, these fates are not arbitrarily assigned by Vonnegut. Instead they are often based on determining factors such as their social, cultural or family status. This determining status is problematic, for how is it actually determined? Who determines who is rich and happy or poor and miserable? Who determines that one lower middle class youth will be a German prisoner of war camp guard while another will be the American lower middle class youth he is guarding? People may work hard and struggle to attain their dreams and fight the constraints of their station, but much of what occurs in their lives is predetermined by their social, economic and family status. Some believe that the first law of life is that people get what they deserve. One’s destiny or fate is determined by how one lives, however customarily this is not the case. Good people can be assigned horrible fates while ghastly individuals are rewarded with positive destinies. For these reasons a popular question among not only characters within Vonnegut’s novels but also posed by modern individuals as well is “Why me?” when suffering the fate of outrageous fortune. Vonnegut attempts to answer this question quite clearly for his readers, commenting, “Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is [---]

12 The Sirens of Titan 201. 13 Slaughterhouse-Five 27. 5

There is no why.”14 This doctrine of pre-determined fate is rampant in Vonnegut’s novels. “Why me?” is answered on many occasions by Vonnegut. The author is seemingly of the that regardless of one’s fate or destiny “[E]very person has a clearly defined part to play-”15 in this world. For many of Vonnegut’s characters, striving against their fate is inconsequential to their ultimate providence. Some are fated to suffer, others are destined to succeed, as in Vonnegut’s universe “[T]here was only one way for the earth to be […] the way it was. Everything was necessary.”16 It is impossible for anyone to understand why their lives are designed the way they are, they simply are. The individual feels that they have no control over their destiny; they feel as if it is under the control of larger, far reaching, incomprehensible institutions and mechanisms. “We are where we have to be just now-“17, goes the Tralfamadorian saying. They compare the human condition to that of a bug trapped in amber. Physically, Man is truly stuck, reduced to a mere insect, unable to influence any portion of their existence or of any other beings’ existence. There is no rhyme or reason to the universe, no ultimate plan. It is what it is. For the Tralfamadorians there is no time, no free will. They are fatalists who see moments all at once, like points on a line. For them everything in the universe is as a bug stuck in amber.

To what extent are characters’ lives determined by fate and/or destiny? , protagonist of Bluebeard and supporting character in Breakfast of Champions, has a destiny which is seemingly arbitrarily designed. Rabo is an artist, who at the end of his career is rather well known and insanely rich. However, if it had not been for the twists of fate which affected his parents and the women in Rabo’s life, he probably would never have become an artist. Rabo’s Armenian parents narrowly escaped massacre by the Turks and succeeded in fleeing Armenia as a result of jewels Rabo’s mother discovered in a massacre victim’s mouth. This privileged and well educated couple were betrayed by a shyster in Egypt and consequently emigrated not to Paris which had a thriving Armenian community, but to a small town in California where they led a dismal life of lower-class

14 Slaughterhouse-Five 76. 15 Breakfast of Champions 142. 16 Breakfast of Champions 103. 17 Slaughterhouse-Five 85. 6 labor. Rabo grew up knowing of these horrible tricks of fate inflicted upon his parents and which subsequently partially determined Rabo’s life as well. His destiny in becoming a prosperous artist can be seen to be based upon not only his parents’ fate but Rabo experiences in life as well. Rabo’s mother and Marilee, the mistress of the illustrator Dan Gregory, encouraged Rabo to pursue his dream of being an artist. However, it is not until he proves his allegiance to America through war service and mutilation (loss of an eye), loses both his first and second wives and meets his uninvited house guest that Rabo develops his craft, becomes a creator, and finds a soul, not only in himself but his work as well.18 All such ironic twists are highlighted in Bluebeard by being repeatedly referred to as Fate. Rabo Karabekian notices many coincidences in his life and on occasion addresses the subject. “One would soon go mad if one took such coincidences too seriously. One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the Universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand.”19 In Breakfast of Champions, a narrative concerned with the ordinary people of Midland City, “the asshole of the Universe”20 and who seem trapped by the fate of their own lives, Vonnegut includes himself as a character in his fictional universe. Behind his mirrored sunglasses he not only observes the actions in the cocktail lounge around him but also controls the actions, events and characters. He assigns fates, destinies and deterministic roles to the characters in his novel. He is, in effect, God. Vonnegut asserts, “I was on par with the Creator of the Universe”.21 The characters in this universe are subject to his whim and will. The themes fate, free will and the predictability of the individual are even controlled by the author down to the biochemical level. Vonnegut describes in detail how all personal actions, fates and destinies are manipulated through biochemical, hormonal reactions which leave the individual with virtually no free will.22 Another character in Breakfast of Champions plays God over a “lesser” creature and determines its destiny. Kilgore Trout uses his position as a “big shot in the Universe”23 and offers to grant Bill, his parakeet three wishes, two of which he makes for Bill and all of which involve free-will and choice in the face of one’s fate. Firstly, he opens the bird’s cage and the

18 Kathryn Hume, American Dream, American Nightmare: Fiction Since 1960 (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2002) 15. 19 Bluebeard 229. 20 Breakfast of Champions 127, 164, 196. 21 Breakfast of Champions 200. 22 Breakfast of Champions 288. 23 Breakfast of Champions 35. 7 window, two things he realizes, “Bill couldn’t have done in a thousand .”24 Then he grants Bill the freedom to do as he chooses. Bill’s choice is almost instantaneous; the bird hops back into the cage and Trout, shutting the birdcage door comments on the choice: “That’s the most intelligent use of three wishes I have ever heard of [...] You made sure you’d still have something worth wishing for- to get out of the cage.”25 This incident illustrates not only Trout’s belief in freewill but Vonnegut’s as well. Yet, paradoxically, this incident shows that the exercise of free will is futile as most people choose their lotted fate in life instead of free will and personal choice. Dwayne Hoover, the insane Pontiac dealer protagonist of Breakfast of Champions, takes this belief in free will to an extreme. His insanity is triggered by one of Kilgore Trout’s novels. From this novel Hoover acquires the idea that all people, with the exception of himself, are machines. He thus that he is the only being who has the ability to act freely. Despite this “freedom” his actions are dictated by his fate, his “God”- Vonnegut in his metaphysical form- who moulds his characters and events according to his fancy.26

To what extent are characters’ lives determined by aspects of social/family determinism? Social determinism is a reoccurring theme in many of Vonnegut’s works. The fates of his characters, like those of real humans, are often determined by their station in life. This determinism can be induced by social, cultural and monetary conditions during one’s formative years. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut highlights this point using the straightforward example of the Children’s Crusade in the Middle Ages and compares it to World War II. In both cases, those who were sent away were often poor, unwanted individuals whose lives were viewed, by those in power, as expendable. Kurt Vonnegut, like many of his protagonists, served in the military during the Second World War. These experiences more than likely affected his view of wars and those who fight them. Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five is a good example of someone, who because of his social status, was drafted into the Army, setting into motion social determinism. Billy was not assigned to be a regular infantry soldier due to his upbringing in which his mother, a

24 Breakfast of Champions 35. 25 Breakfast of Champions 35. 26 Esther Peze “Situational Nonsense in Postmodern American Fiction.” Explorations in the Field of Nonsense Ed. Wim Tigges. (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987) 221. 8 piano teacher, had taught him both the skill of playing a piano and the piety of . These skills fated Billy to be assigned as a chaplain’s assistant. This seemingly arbitrary assignment shapes Billy’s experiences in the war as he is useless as a soldier. He never goes into battle, he never receives proper attire, nor does he ever get to meet the chaplain he is to work for. His time in the war is spent wandering around Axis controlled forests as a prisoner of fate and war. “It was Fate, of course, which had costumed him- Fate and a feeble will to survive.”27 Monica Loeb suggests that Billy is one of those truly “listless playthings of enormous forces”28 as Vonnegut himself suggests that his characters are, as he is often placed in situations which he feels he cannot change.29 Personal capital is another determining factor for the individual in nearly all of the Vonnegut texts under discussion, as monetary wealth often equates one’s identity and destiny in life. Vonnegut writes in God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, “Your fortune is the most important single determinant of what you think of yourself and what others think of you.”30 Rich persons are viewed as destined to succeed, unable to fail, born to lead, and born to be rich. Their fates are prescribed by their family characteristics and wealth. Poor people, who are recipients of welfare and social help are viewed by the wealthy as cattle, mindless beasts that do not have pride or self respect and are totally unreliable. Their fate is that of continued unemployment and worthlessness. “[i]t ain’t no disgrace to be poor [---] but it might as well be.”31 For the poor of the world, money seems to be the ultimate solution. However, wealth and high social status do not always bring happiness or a better fate. The Rumfoord family and the Rosewater family were born into money. This wealth affords them luxuries and opportunities which would be unavailable to those born without wealth or social standing. Good education was provided, the ability to avoid military service in a time of war, and an ability to marry for or invest in, even greater wealth. However, qualities such as virtues and strengths often stand outside of these parameters. Rosewater sarcastically states in Slaughterhouse-Five that “Money can be a great comfort sometimes.”32 However, all the money that Rosewater had, brought him little or no comfort during his awkwardly fated life. In God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, ’s wealth and seeming fate as a rich white

27 Slaughterhouse-Five 151. 28 Slaughterhouse-Five 164. 29 Monica Loeb, Vonnegut’s Duty-Dance with Death- Theme and Structure in Slaughterhouse-Five (Umeå: Umeå Universitetsbibliotek, 1979) 31. 30 God Bless You Mr. Rosewater 170. 31 God Bless You Mr. Rosewater 232. 32 Slaughterhouse-Five 104. 9 male makes him miserable; he feels as if he has no identity, and is ashamed of who he is. “I don’t want to look like me […] I want to look like you. You’re the salt of the earth…”33 Despite his fate, Rosewater wishes to have the same situation as the poor, the working class. Vonnegut uses these examples to illustrate that the fate of the poor masses is very similar to that of the wealthy. Both are, seemingly, good for nothing in life. He is also of the belief that “[M]oney is shit”34 when contending with fate. “Life is hard enough, without people having to worry themselves sick about money, too.”35 The poor strive to reach the echelons of the rich, the American Dream. However it is not even possible for those fated to be poor to climb the social ladder and attain this fabled destiny of wealth and happiness, as “[T]he rich marry the rich.”36 Many Americans may think they have free will to act as they choose but in actuality these characters are destined to chase the elusive American Dream, a fortune which can never be fulfilled for most of them. Depressingly, part of the American Dream dictates that people must blame themselves for their own misfortune, a fact which Vonnegut highlights throughout God Bless Your Mr. Rosewater. The American is that of sink or swim. According to many, including the rich, it is the fate of the poor to sink quietly and dispose of themselves. It is the destiny of the rich, not only in America but around the world, to keep getting richer and the poor to keep getting poorer. Little can be done to avoid this fate. Only a few are slated to be rich and happy. “Anybody who thought that the United States of America was supposed to be a Utopia was a piggy, lazy, God-damned fool.”37 According to the rich it is not the poor’s lot in life to be happy, to live in a Utopia. They believe that fate is reserved for a few with wealth. Americans are made to feel that it is their fate to keep striving after something that is not there, and does not exist. Americans, in Vonnegut’s books, are special characters, they “….couldn’t imagine what it was like to be something else, to be something else and proud of it. [---] Americans […] are forever searching for love in forms it never takes, in places it can never be. It must have something to do with the vanished frontier.”38 While this may seem to

33 God Bless You Mr. Rosewater 26. 34 God Bless you Mr. Rosewater 92. 35 God Bless you Mr. Rosewater 121. 36 Bluebeard 29. 37 God Bless Your Mr. Rosewater 10. 38 Cat’s Cradle 89. 10 be limited to those of lower economic standard it can be seen to transcend socio-economic boundaries. Americans’ fates are dictated by this ideology. A further determining factor within the sphere of social and economic determinants is race. “Color was everything.”39 The color of one’s skin determines social and economic status and thus one’s fate in life, often a fate which is not linked to happiness. Poor white people may be viewed as worthless, but within the of Vonnegut’s novels, the fate of black people was even worse, they were “useless big black animals”.40

Fate/Destiny influencing the individual to a predetermined fate

Cat’s Cradle Some examples of fate in Vonnegut’s books have very little to do with determining factors such as family, social class or culture. Some characters have a fate which leads them to a destiny, a goal of sorts. They often find their lives organized in such a way that coincidences keep happening, coincidences which seem predetermined. This being pushed towards an “ultimate goal”, an that is supposed to happen, is a reoccurring theme in the Vonnegut universe. For many there is nothing to believe in, nothing to hope for, nothing but random fate and meaninglessness.41 The loaded sentence from Cat’s Cradle, “[a]s it happened, as it was meant to happen”42 illustrates this example of an “ultimate” fate while at the same time removing any chance that anything that happens to a character could possibly be anything other than divine intervention. The narrative of Vonnegut’s cold war novel, Cat’s Cradle, imparts an irrefutable sense of destiny upon the reader. The protagonist “Jonah” describes the approach of doomsday brought about by the substance ice-nine, created by scientist Felix Hoenikker, known as the Father of the Atom Bomb. When accidentally dropped into the ocean through a series of absurd occurrences, ice-nine triggers a chain reaction that freezes the earth’s oceans and waterways, leading to the eventual extermination of all life. Even in the beginning of the

39 Breakfast of Champions 11. 40 Breakfast of Champions 164. 41 Kath Filmer, Scepticism and Hope in Twentieth Century Fantasy Literature. (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992) 99. 42 Cat’s Cradle 22. 11 novel, the narrator suggests that everything people do has been predestined by God to happen according to His divine will. “Jonah” in Cat’s Cradle continually finds himself in situations which seem to be leading him to a specific point in his future history. He discovers, through his introduction to the Hoenikker children and later into the religion of Bokononism, that one’s fate or destiny is constructed and relative. The characters’ lives are predetermined and mainly molded by their environment. Felix Hoenikker, the father, is seen as a highly neurotic introverted workaholic with severe tunnel vision, unable to think or care about the ramifications of his inventions, the atom bomb and ice-nine. The children are all mutants of some kind. Newt is, as his name suggests, a little person, Angela, Newt’s sister, is a giantess, while Frank is emotionally disturbed. The Hoenikker children have dreams of happiness and success. All three “buy” this bliss by selling pieces of the ice-nine.43 They, as individuals, are only being used by those claiming to care for them, to obtain the precious ice-nine. Their fates are sealed, and any dreams they may have had for the love they so dearly needed, are swallowed up by a vast, frozen, apocalyptic landscape. 44 Is it coincidence or fate that “Jonah” is assigned to write a story in San Lorenzo the same weekend that Papa Monzano dies and the world ends? Is it coincidence that he meets Newt on the flight to the island or that he meets the American ambassadors as well? This apocalyptic book and the journey of its main character “Jonah”, is an obvious play on the fated character from Moby Dick. He comments that “somebody or something has compelled me to be certain places at certain , without fail. Conveyances and motives, both conventional and bizarre, have been provided. And, according to plan, at each appointed second, at each appointed place this Jonah was there.”45 of a future fate occurs as well. Bokonon prophesizes in Cat’s Cradle that the beautiful Mona will marry the next President of San Lorenzo and that his, Bokonon’s, golden boat will sail again at the end of the world. These raise the question of whether it is a true prophecy or if characters, knowing well the prophecy, change their action to better fit in with this “destiny”. One must question if this prophecy affects the free-will of the characters. It seems as if Vonnegut’s characters have little or no control over not only their history but that of the world. As a result, the characters show little regard for personal

43 Filmer 99. 44 Todd F Davis, Kurt Vonnegut’s Crusade: Or, How a Postmodern Harlequin Preached a New Kind of Humanism. (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2006) 67. 45 Cat’s Cradle 1. 12 responsibility as they are aware of their eventual fate. Some critics view Vonnegut’s depiction of this inevitable destruction of society from an absurdist viewpoint.46

The Sirens of Titan The Sirens of Titan deals with the ultimate destiny of the human race and the series of meaningless human relationships and activities that occur during the course of this destiny. In this novel, a succession of “accidents” and fates are assigned to Malachi Constant, Beatrice Rumfoord, Chrono, Winston Niles Rumfoord, and even Salo. The essential cause of these occurrences is visitors from who have manipulated all human history and achievements such as Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, the Kremlin, etc, for their own ends. The fates of all individuals in the novel take the characters on travels throughout the solar system in order to deliver a needed spare part to Salo the stranded Tralfamadorian messenger. While their ascribed, meaningless, fate is depressing for the characters, Salo the Tralfamadorian reveals that he is not even an alien being but rather a machine. Even worse, the message which Salo is to deliver from one side of the universe to another, is in fact content-less. His fate as a machine was a fool’s errand.47 The book's basic focus, however, is the fate of Malachi Constant, described by Rumfoord as both "a victim of outrageous fortune, and one of outrageous fortune's cruelest agents as well."48 Malachi Constant and Beatrice Rumfoord are enlightened as to their destiny by Winston Rumfoord, who acts as some sort of “God” arranging their future fate. Although Rumfoord avoids being compared to God- “He never gave in to the temptation to declare himself God or something a whole lot like God”- his actions as a puppet-master in the fates of Beatrice, Constant and point in a different direction. He uses his power of time-space travel to institute a seemingly self-appointed mission to reorder the priorities of humankind and give meaning to their lives. Stanley Schatt has argued that “the millionaire [Winston Niles Rumfoord] is motivated by a selfish reason, basically a psychological need to change his society,” and even his church is selfishly designed “because he cannot tolerate the thought that he does not control his own destiny.49 Mustazza believes that Vonnegut deliberately chose a man like Rumfoord for this role as he is a wealthy, well-bred, snobbish man. That he is a person of old wealth- as directly opposed to the nouveau-riche Malachi Constant- is

46 Daniel Wojcik, End of the World As We Know It: Faith, and Apocalype in America. (New York: NYU Press, 1997) 107. 47 Donald E. Morse The Novels of Kurt Vonnegut: Imagining Being an American. (Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2003) 50 48 The Sirens of Titan 142. 49 Stanley Schatt. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Boston: Twayne, 1976) 39. 13 significant in terms of the attitudes toward life, toward his own worth, and towards other people.50 Vonnegut’s protagonist, Malachi Constant, is in a position that is both similar to, and vastly different from, Rumfoord’s. He, too, is a fabulously wealthy and powerful American. His wealth and power have been due to and that fact seems to disturb the patrician, old- moneyed Rumfoord a great deal though he fails to acknowledge that his own wealth, however time honored, was acquired in much the same way, that is, through an accident of birth. For his part Malachi, despite his enviable position, is not much different from other people. Like them he is seeking the , and Rumfoord promises to deliver it to him. He makes his wondrous predictions that Malachi will mate with Rumfoord’s wife Beatrice on Mars, that she will have a son named Chrono and that they will eventually all be united on Titan. 51 Upon hearing of their destiny in life, Constant and Beatrice Rumfoord both attempt to take steps which would help them avoid their destined outcome but as their lot is predetermined it was impossible for them to avoid. All attempts by characters to change their fates are often unsuccessful or have no effect in the The Sirens of Titan for, “…everything that ever has been always will be, and everything that ever will be always has been.”52 Fates are sealed, they are pre-ordained, there is nothing one can do as nothing can change them. Constant begins to engage in behavior the aim of which “had been to make himself unworthy of any destiny- incapable of any mission-“53 but these steps in themselves lead to their destiny being fulfilled. Even Mrs. Rumfoord thought that she was mistress of her own fate and could “say no whenever she pleased-and make it stick.”54 but she was as helpless to exert any influence over her fate as Constant or any other Vonnegut character. Mrs. Rumfoord and Constant, like all humans, want to have control over their own lives, to use their free will, but cannot and do not. Mrs. Rumfoord is upset with her time/phase travelling husband because he does not inform her about the stock market crash which leaves her a rather destitute woman. He says that it is part of the natural order. He compares life to a rollercoaster ride. He could tell her exactly what will happen and when, but it wouldn’t help because she would still have to ride

50 Mustazza 48. 51 Mustazza 52. 52 The Sirens of Titan 19-20. 53 The Sirens of Titan 43-44. 54 The Sirens of Titan 66. 14 the rollercoaster and experience it “I didn’t design the rollercoaster, I don’t own it, and I don’t say who rides and who doesn’t. I just know what it’s shaped like.”55 Winston does not entirely control the fate of Mrs. Rumfoord and Constant, he seems a god like figure but even his fate is pre-determined by those from Tralfamadore. Rumfoord is jaded by his experiences of dictating the fate of others and having his dictated by the Tralfamadorians. After Salo’s s mission is accomplished as Chrono delivers his good-luck piece to Titan, Rumfoord speculates on the possibility of man’s free will: “Perhaps Earthlings will now be free to develop and follow their own inclinations, as they have not been free to do so for thousands of years.”56 At the end of The Sirens of Titan, Malachi Constant having spent most of his life roaming the solar system concludes that “a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved”. Vonnegut attempts, with this novel, to show that feelings of meaninglessness, despite one’s fate or destiny, can occur on a universal scale. Not only are human beings meaningless but other beings and their actions are as well. David Goldsmith has argued that The Sirens of Titan is by authorial design, only ostensibly about the conflict between Rumfoord and Constant. Rather he feels that the “opponent here is none other than God himself.” He wonders if “Does anybody up there like us?” “Is there anybody up there at all? Are those who manipulate us here on earth in turn being manipulated by higher powers? Vonnegut’s answer to all these questions is a firm, but not nihilistic no.”57 The education of Malachi Constant is arguably Vonnegut’s attempt to educate humanity. Such an education works against humanity’s fixation with meaning and order in a universe that Vonnegut conceives of as random and purposeless58.

55 The Sirens of Titan 41. 56 The Sirens of Titan 208. 57 David H. Goldsmith, Kurt Vonnegut: Fantasist of Fire and Ice. (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1972) 14. 58 Davis 49. 15

Chapter 2: The Individual Versus Fate, Destiny and Determinism

To what extent can individual characters affect their own destiny? Billy Pilgrim, the time travelling main character in Slaughterhouse-Five has relatively no control over his own destiny or where he finds himself in the timeline of his life. He is unrestrained in time and has no control of where he goes next or what will happen while he is there. “Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present and the future.”59 However, does this imply that Billy has no free will? Because of his ability to travel through time to different points in his life, Billy was aware of much that would happen during his life. Billy knew that the plane he would be travelling on with his father-in-law and friends would crash and that he would survive the crash. He also knew that his wife Valencia would die because of this crash, yet he did nothing to prevent it. He did not warn the occupants of the plane or tell his wife in advance about the crash and that she would be involved in a subsequent car accident which would take her life. “He knew he was going to crash but did not want to make a fool of himself by saying so.”60 On another occasion Billy knows that he is about to be kidnapped by a flying saucer from Tralfamadore. He knew what his fate was but did nothing to change the timeline of his life. “Billy was guided by dread and the lack of dread. Dread told him when to stop. Lack of it told him when to move again.”61 Could this be Vonnegut’s commentary on the human condition; the, seeming lack of free will and inability of the individual to fight destiny and fate while accepting whatever atrocities, such as war or destruction, threaten them? From the Tralfamadorians, Billy Pilgrim learns of his ultimate fate and of the apocalyptic fate of the universe, which ends because of a test pilot from the planet Tralfamadore who accidently ignites the universe while testing a new fuel for his flying saucer. The Tralfamadorians teach Billy that life in the universe follows a predestined course and are intrigued by the human concept of free will, as “only on earth is there any talk of free will”; they have not encountered this idea on any of the more than hundred inhabited planets they have visited. For this reason, Billy knew when and how he would die and even recorded a taped message saying, ““I, Billy Pilgrim, the tape begins, will die, have died, and always will die on February thirteenth, 1976.”62 Why would he choose not to exhort his own free-will and warn his loved ones or attempt to change the timeline to something more favorable? For

59 Slaughterhouse-Five 60. 60 Slaughterhouse-Five 154. 61 Slaughterhouse-Five 73. 62 Slaughterhouse-Five 141. 16 those who ascribe to the Tralfamadorian fatalist view, what good is knowledge if destruction is unavoidable? Bo Pettersson believes that the author-narrator Billy find solace in the fatalistic acceptance of his death, as he (Billy) makes use of the Tralfamadorian phrase, “so it goes” about a hundred times during the course of the novel.63 This denial is entirely appropriate as 'so it goes' encapsulates the philosophy and the Tralfamadorians persuade Billy to accept: everything is predetermined, and individuals are unable to make any difference to the course of events. While this belief allows Billy to continue with his life, it also reinforces the denial of any intentions to change over time: things just are; each moment is already before we reach it.64 From this knowledge, Billy develops a deterministic existence in which nothing needs to be explained or rectified since free will can do nothing to change conditions.65 This knowledge, that the future is foreseeable leads, then, to an abolition of contingency and to a consequent negation of moral responsibility.66

Does choice or free will exist? The topic of free will is tricky. Do characters in Vonnegut’s novels have free will? The obvious answer is no as the writer is writing their fates for them, but if one was to remove the author from the equation and examine the question from the standpoint of examining the life of a person, fictional or real: do they have free will? Tralfamadorians, the universe exploring aliens in Vonnegut novels have a view of free will that does not negate the existence of it but brings its existence into question, “You sound to me as though you don’t believe in free will,” said Billy Pilgrim. “If I hadn’t spent so much time studying Earthlings,” said the Tralfamadorian, “I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by ‘free will.’ I’ve visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.”67 Characters are often prevented from exerting free will by the conditioning of their own habits. Many of them have spent so much of their lives oblivious to their ability to influence their own destiny/fate that they do not possess either the psychological or the physical

63 Petterson 96. 64 Daniel Cordle, “Changing of the Old Guard: and Literary Technique in the World of Kurt Vonnegut”. The Yearbook of English Studies, Vol. 30, Time and Narrative, 2000. 175 65 Mustazza 114. 66 Alasdair Gray, The Fiction of Communion. (New York, NY: Rodopi, 2005). 124. 67 Slaughterhouse-Five 86. 17 mechanism needed to influence their future. They have effectively resigned themselves to the doctrine of, “Each one of us has to be what he or she is.”68 Billy Pilgrim is who he is as a result of the Tralfamadorian configuration of time/space. For the Tralfamadorians time is linear, the past, present and future have already transpired. The order of events is essentially preordained and no individual has control over their actions as one is merely experiencing what has already been established will happen. The only hint that Billy gives pertaining to his ability to control his movement through time and space, hence free will, and affect his life is that he, at times, can choose to travel to less painful moments/memories from his life by becoming “unstuck in time.”69 By utilizing his free will to become unstuck he also surrenders any notion of free will and drifts where time takes him. However, Vonnegut does assure the reader that free will does exist; he is just of the opinion that it is rarely used in many of his novels. Many of his characters have suffered at the hands of fate for so long that they often give up on exerting their free will and surrender to their fate. Billy in Slaughterhouse-Five is a good example. Because of his experiences from the war together with his sense of helplessness and hopelessness, Billy surrenders control of his free will and embraces his fate. Schroeder believes that Vonnegut views fatalism as a coping mechanism that allows a person to slip blissfully and thoughtlessly into the mindless routine of daily existence thus dismissing free will.70 Certain characters in Vonnegut’s works have attempted to change their fate or exert free will to change their future circumstances. In Cat’s Cradle Bokonon requested that McCabe have him and his religion outlawed “in order to give the religious life of the people more zest, more tang.”71 This action not only changed Bokonon’s fate, making him an exile in his own nation but changed the fate of the people of his nation as well, serving for their own collective good. However, viewing the success of Bokonon in exerting free will may be as naïve as actually seeing a cat in the children’s string game, cat’s cradle. As Newt relates in Cat’s Cradle there is, “No damn cat, and no damn cradle.”72 Vonnegut suggests that the meaning of the cat’s cradle is in the eye of the beholder. There is no cat, there is no message, and perhaps there is no free will. Each man sees what he wants to see just as he invents a purpose for his life.

68 Cat’s Cradle 267. 69 Slaughterhouse-Five 23. 70 Beth Schroder. On the Other Side of Madness: How to Become a Character in Kurt Vonnegut’s World. American@ Vol I. Issue 2. . 82 71 Cat’s Cradle 173. 72 Cat’s Cradle 166. 18

Often the exertion of free will is for the immediate best of the individual but leads often to a detrimental end for both the individual and society as a whole. Humans are greedy, we want what is best for us now, never mind the future or the consequences that our actions may pose down the line. The children of Dr. Hoenikker each expressed their free will in a manner which they thought was advantageous to themselves but which, in the end, leads to the end of the world. Frank bought himself a job with ice-nine, Angela bought herself a tomcat husband and Newt bought himself a weekend of love on Cape Cod. These three children exercised their free will by selling not only ice-nine to contacts, but also by selling their soul. Vonnegut can be seen as being critical towards the future of mankind and the exploitation of free will in his commentary on Dr. Hoenikker’s actions and those of his children, who the author maintained acted irresponsibly with toys of death for their own benefit. “What hope can there be for mankind […] when there are such men as Felix Hoenikker to give such playthings as ice-nine to such short-sighted children as almost all men and women are?”73 One must also question if humans actually wish to have free will and exert it. Many forfeit their free will to others, some to God, some to institutions such as the military, some to drugs and alcohol and others to other humans in the form of prostitutes working for pimps, as in Breakfast of Champions. “The prostitutes worked for a pimp now. He was splendid and cruel. He was a god to them. He took their free will away from them, which was perfectly all right. They didn’t want it anyway.”74 That the pimp-god and the prostitutes themselves possess free will is made clear in this passage, but therein lies the problem. What good is free will, Vonnegut suggests, if it leads only to death?75 Elsewhere in the novel Vonnegut makes a similar point about women and survival in Midland City: “The women all had big minds because they were big animals, but they did not use them much for this reason: unusual ideas could make enemies. . . . So, in the interest of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines.”76 Mustazza points out that the reader can again see the relinquishing of free will for the sake of survival.77 While giving up one’s free will may result in misery, there is a comfort in knowing that one’s mistakes and lot in life cannot be seen as one’s personal responsibility. Often those who forfeit their free will come from a socio-economic

73 Cat’s Cradle 245. 74 Breakfast of Champions 73. 75 Leonard Mustazza, Forever Pursuing Genesis: They Myth of Eden in the Novels of Kurt Vonnegut. (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1990) 122. 76 Breakfast of Champions 136. 77Mustazza 208. 19 background in which they see no happy ending, a fate which will result in misery and hard work.

Can the individual fight Determinism? The United States was founded on the ideal of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” this doctrine, while idealistic, sets a standard where those without wealth or success are viewed adversely. In America, "Your fortune is the most important single determinant of what you think of yourself and of what others think of you."78 God Bless You Mr. Rosewater is concerned, on the surface, with the relationship between money and the American Dream as well as the deterministic fates and destinies of the rich and poor. Time and time again Vonnegut returns to the Midwest of his youth. He denounces the town of Rosewater Indiana as a medley of “shithouses, shacks, alcoholism, ignorance, idiocy and perversion”79 The setting of much of the novel, Rosewater, Indiana is no utopia; instead it is a modern dystopia which has been ruined by greed, a seeming microcosm of America where the notion of “Grab too much, or you’ll get nothing at all”80 rings true.81 The novel follows the shell-shocked Eliot Rosewater as he becomes an American saint of lost causes.82 Rosewater, a millionaire from birth, seems to break free of his determined fate in life of being a self-sufficient millionaire and becomes instead a humanitarian Samaritan. In his attempt to change the fate of the poor in Rosewater County, Indiana by attempting to share his wealth and ascribed dignity with them, he also fights the socio-economic determinism that is ascribed not only to the poor but to himself as well. He feels that he has been fated to break free of determinism and achieve this goal, “I have an important mission […] I am operating without instructions. But from somewhere something is trying to tell me where to go, what to do there, and why to do it […] But there is a feeling that I have a destiny far away from the shallow and preposterous posing that is our life in New York. And I roam.”83 While this is his fate, he is in fact also asserting some sort of free will to assist in affecting the fate of the poor.

78 God Bless you Mr. Rosewater 179. 79 God Bless You Mr. Rosewater 48. 80 God Bless You Mr. Rosewater 10. 81 Davis 68. 82Philip K. Jason and Mark A. Graves, eds. Encyclopedia of American War Literature. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001) 354. 83 God Bless You Mr. Rosewater 36. 20

Rosewater, unlike most individuals in his position enjoys poor, normal people. He finds them wonderful, unlike the “sparrowfarts and the dancing masters”84 he knew from the wealthy circles in the East. However, upon closer inspection, Rosewater finds himself trapped in the double-bind of American history, he wishes to help the disadvantaged achieve dignity but realizes that dignity in America is contingent upon personal wealth. 85 While as the Declaration of Independence states that “all men are created equal”, some men, those with wealth, are more equal than others. Additionally, Eliot seems to suffer from mental illness which may have some bearing on his philanthropic ways. He seems unable to control his giving and may in fact, upon closer investigation, have no say in his destiny. Vonnegut viewed the cause of Eliot’s insanity as psychological but sociological.86 The same can be said for his wife Sylvia. Sylvia and her destiny are products of her culture and class status. She cannot endure being a part of Eliot’s mission in life, his mission to help those in need regardless of social status or monetary wealth. “She had never seen Rosewater County, had no idea what a night-crawler was, did not know that land anywhere could be do deathly flat, that people anywhere could be so deathly dull.”87 Eliot dreams of a world where all can be treated equally while Sylvia resigns herself to her destiny in avoidance of the destitute and lower classes. The irony of her station, and others like her, is that most of the wealthy do not even know why they are rich. They think they are rich not because of luck or talent, but because it is their destiny; in other words, they deserve to be rich. Critics maintain that the dualities in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater are simple. The difference between rich and poor is the main theme while happiness and unhappiness is the presumable corollary, however Vonnegut’s message reaches even further. The novel dangerously and successfully skirts sentimentality while focusing on the phenomenon of American philanthropy and its inability, ultimately, to stem the tide of evil.88 His scathing portraits of life in the Midwest are part of his general criticism of US politics and economics, together with his unmasking of the failure of the American Dream and his partisanship for the poor. 89

84 God Bless You Mr. Rosewater 37. 85 Robert W. Uphaus, “Review: Expected Meaning in Vonnegut’s Dead-End Fiction” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 8. 2 (Winter, 1975): 169. 86 Pettersson 115. 87 God Bless you Mr. Rosewater 43. 88 Morse 38. 89 Philip K. Jason and Mark A. Graves 354. 21

Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America […] Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. [---] the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun.90 Through his character Eliot Rosewater, Vonnegut is, “accomplishing far more than individual Band-Aid solutions: by novel’s end Rosewater will have stood America’s entire social ethic on its head so that there might be some basic worth for humankind.”91 These opinions paint Vonnegut as an idealist who believes in the human spirit at heart and hopes for the best for all mankind; he stresses that we should treat each other with common decency and loving kindness. Vonnegut wishes not so much to defeat the wealthy as, rather, to defeat the wrongful practices of the wealthy. Indeed, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, in some respects, may be seen as an instruction manual for the rich. Eliot is a virtuous model of philanthropy; he recognizes what we need most as humans and attempts to use his monetary resources to help alleviate the pain and suffering of others. 92

90 God Bless you Mr. Rosewater 9. 91 Jerome Klinkowitz, The Vonnegut Effect. (Columbia, SC: South Carolina Press, 2004) 68. 92 Davis 70. 22

Conclusion Vonnegut reiterates the message of the uselessness of human beings over and over again in his works under discussion in this essay. The fate of the average person is decided by their economic status. Vonnegut portrays a world in both God Bless Your Mr. Rosewater and Breakfast of Champions where there are too many poor people and not enough tasks to employ them in to make them feel useful. Companies are engaged in human relations, attempting to make everybody happy despite their uselessness. The poorest are the easiest to find a fate for as they are “poor enough and scared enough and ignorant enough to have some common sense!”93 In other words they have the common sense to accept their fate in life; that they are poor workers with no rights and that any attempt to exert free will over their situation will result in adverse results. However, Vonnegut does not entirely discard the possibility of free will. Perhaps Vonnegut, with his works, was attempting to provide humankind with a lesson on life. That life is hard, that is it unpredictable, but that we must continue on, accepting our fate to the best of our abilities and continue to strive after the manipulation of one’s free will over one’s life. Many individuals see their lives as meaningless, because of things they have experienced in their past, much like Billy Pilgrim and Eliot Rosewater in Slaughterhouse-Five view their lives due to their experience of war. Some destitute individuals see their lives as being meaningless because of their fate. They believe that it is their destiny in life to be poor and they have nothing to live for since they cannot change their fate as they have little or no free will to exhort. Vonnegut shows that for these reasons people try to reinvent themselves and their universe. “I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren’t going to want to go on living.”94 Perhaps Vonnegut is trying to say that the myth of the American Dream following the Second World War was an example of this new lie which encouraged people to accept their fates, to stimulate the economy as is their socially determined fate to do. However this new lie creates no new meaning. Having money, in American culture, does not create meaning in life nor is wealth even obtainable for the poor. One cannot create meaning or change trajectory no matter how hard one tries or what one’s goals are.95 Social determinism figures not only in human but those of Vonnegut’s characters. Money is everything in American culture. Money can not only influence your fate, it can buy

93 Cat’s Cradle 89. 94 Slaughterhouse-Five 101. 95 Davis 68. 23 your destiny. Poor people are sent off to war, while the rich have a choice to stay home or be assigned better positions. However wealth is not a station many achieve easily, as only a select few are slated to be rich and happy. People can strive to attain their goals of wealth, but there is no guarantee of happiness associated with wealth. The rich are often as unhappy as the poor. The Rosewaters and Rumfoords are no happier than young Rabo Karabekian or Kilgore Trout. The sun will burn out, all life on earth will die, the galaxy will eventually die out and the Universe eventually will end as well. In Slaughterhouse-Five Billy is told that the universe is ended by a Tralfamadorian pilot pressing a button which irrevocably results in the end of the universe. When Billy inquires as to why they don’t attempt to stop him from killing all life they reply, “He has always pressed it, and he always will. We always let him and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way.”96 Thus the moment cannot be changed, destiny cannot be changed, and it has always been this way. Perhaps we as humans are destined for war with one another and to ruin our planet. While this may be a dark view of humanity, perhaps it is the correct one. Nature is cruel, humanity more cruel. People are bitter, unhappy and often enough are pleased to go through life just following habits, not attempting to assert free will, just happy to accept their fate in life. In Cat’s Cradle Vonnegut sketches a portrait of what his character “Jonah” sees as an appropriate representative of almost mankind, “A winded, defeated-looking fat woman in filthy coveralls [---] She hated people who thought too much.”97 Perhaps we are not meant to too think too much and to accept our given lot in life whether it is based on the grand designs of a higher power or on our socio-economic background. Vonnegut scholar Mustazza believes that Cat’s Cradle is one of Vonnegut’s most important cautionary tales insofar as it is concerned with nothing less than the fate of the earth itself.98 Davis maintains that although Cat’s Cradle ends tragically, to claim that Vonnegut subscribes to a fatalistic view of the human condition, or that he believes existence is meaningless, is to ignore the plethora of evidence to the contrary. 99 Cordle thinks that Vonnegut seems to be playing with the notion that human life is both determined and meaningless: events are fixed in advance, but there is no meaning or direction to the changes

96 Slaughterhouse- Five 117. 97 Cat’s Cradle 33. 98 Mustazza 88. 99 Davis 11. 24 that take place over time.100 Scholars such as Mustazza, Cordle and Davis view Vonnegut’s use of the serenity prayer GOD GRANT ME THE SERENITY TO ACCEPT THE THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE, COURAGE TO CHANGE THE THINGS I CAN, AND WISDOM ALWAYS TO TELL THE DIFFERENCE101 as a mantra for both fictional and non-fictional humans, as it is commonly viewed as a method for keeping going in life when the thought of continuing to live is less than enthusiastic. This need for man to have free will is, according to certain critics, invaluable to Vonnegut. They assert that for Vonnegut, a meaningless life is not worth living. Characters whose lives seem to be both uncontrollable and meaningless must find personal meaning in order to create self- control and understanding. Vonnegut in his infinite hopefulness always provides opportunity for his characters to find meaning in life, just as he hopes man will find meaning in his. Vonnegut’s works demonstrate that each individual has indeed a purpose to his/her life. While these lives often are dictated by forces of fate, destiny and determination, individuals do on have the ability of utilizing free will on occasion. Certain characters are fated to take part in an ultimate goal. Rabo Karabekian has a successful destiny which it seems has been arbitrarily assigned to him by fate. However, other individual are not as lucky. Dwayne Hoover, Kilgore Trout and countless others from Breakfast of Champions have unhappy fates ascribed to them by author/narrator/God-figure. All the characters in Cat’s Cradle play a part in the unavoidable apocalypse. Characters continually find themselves in situations which advance their fate. The same can be said of characters in The Sirens of Titan. All of human society and history has been manipulated by the Tralfamadorians in order to deliver spare parts to their stranded messenger. Perhaps this is our fate as well.

100 Cordle 176. 101 Slaughterhouse- Five 60. 25

Works Cited

Primary Sources Vonnegut, Kurt. Bluebeard. New York: The Dial Press, 2006. ---. Breakfast of Champions. New York: Laurel, 1991. ---. Cat’s Cradle. New York: The Dial Press, 2006. ---. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. New York: The Dial Press, 2006. ---. The Sirens of Titan London: Victor Gollancz Limited, 2004. ---. Slaughterhouse-Five. New York: Laurel, 1991.

Secondary Sources Cordle Daniel. “Changing of the Old Guard: Time Travel and Literary Technique in the World of Kurt Vonnegut.” The Yearbook of English Studies. Vol. 30, Time and Narrative, 2000.

Davis, Todd F. Kurt Vonnegut’s Crusade: Or, How a Postmodern Harlequin Preached a New Kind of Humanism. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2006.

Filmer, Kath. Scepticism and Hope in Twentieth Century Fantasy Literature. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992.

Goldsmith, David H. Kurt Vonnegut: Fantasist of Fire and Ice. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1972.

Gray, Alasdair. The Fiction of Communion. New York, NY: Rodopi, 2005.

Hume, Kathryn. American Dream, American Nightmare: Fiction Since 1960. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2002.

Jason, Philip K. and Mark A. Graves, eds. Encyclopedia of American War Literature. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001.

Klinkowitz, Jerome. The Vonnegut Effect. Columbia, SC: South Carolina Press, 2004.

Loeb, Monica. Vonnegut’s Duty-Dance with Death- Theme and Structure in Slaughterhouse- Five. Umeå: Umeå Universitetsbibliotek, 1979.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Ed. 2003.

Morse, Donald E. The Novels of Kurt Vonnegut: Imagining Being an American. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2003. 26

Mustazza, Leonard. Forever Pursuing Genesis: They Myth of Eden in the Novels of Kurt Vonnegut. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1990.

Petterson, Bo. The World According to Kurt Vonnegut. Åbo, Finland: Åbo Akademi University Press, 1994.

Peze, Esther. “Situational Nonsense in Postmodern American Fiction.” Explorations in the Field of Nonsense. Ed. Wim Tigges. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1987.

Rieger, Branimir M. Dionysus in Literature: Essays on Literary Madness. New York: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1994.

Schatt, Stanley. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Boston: Twayne, 1976.

Schroder, Beth. “On the Other Side of Madness: How to Become a Character in Kurt Vonnegut’s World.” American@ Vol I. Issue 2. 82 .

Uphaus, Robert W. “Review: Expected Meaning in Vonnegut’s Dead-End Fiction” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction, 8.2 , Winter 1975.

Wojcik, Daniel. End of the World As We Know It: Faith, Fatalism and Apocalypse in America. New York: NYU Press, 1997.