CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

SEARCH FOR A HERO: A STUDY OF THE PROTAGONISTS IN THE FIRST SIX NOVELS OF KURT VONNEGUT, JR.

A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in

English

by

Kathy Hada

May, 1984 The Thesis of Kathy Hada is approved:

Dr. Richard Abcarian

Dr. Richard Lid

Dr. rt Noreen. ommittee Chair

California State University, Northridge

ii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page ABSTRACT v INTRODUCTION 1 ChaEters 1 Pla,ler Piano 6 2 The Sirens of Titan 15 3 Mother Night 28

4 Gat's Cradle 39 5 God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater 52 6 Slaughterhouse-Five 68 NOTES 83 BIBLIOGRAPHY 87

iii 11 Art: to maintain self against the disruptive whole ... - Theodore Roethke

iv ABSTRACT

SEARCH FOR A HERO: A STUDY OF THE PROTAGONISTS IN THE FIRST SIX NOVELS OF KURT VONNEGUT, JR.

by

Kathy Hada Master of Arts in English

In the opening chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut says, 11 When I got home from the Second World War ••• , I thought it would be easy for me to write about the destruction of Dresden, since all I would have to do would be to report what I had seen 11 (p. 2). In fact, however, he could not write about his experiences in the war--the firebombing of Dresden in particular--for twenty­ three years, after writing five novels. As numerous critics have noted and Vonnegut himself has alluded, the destruction of Dresden was the destruction of Kurt Vonnegut. He went to war with a world view founded on order, stability, and justice, but encountered a world filled with insanity, absurdity, and irrationality. Before he could write about the war, he needed to rebuild himself emotionally and psychologically, a struggle that underlies his work up to and in Slaughterhouse-Five. What he learned during those twenty-three years is what he communicates in his first six novels,

v primarily through the protagonist of each. For what Vonnegut tries to do, above all, in these novels is to create a character who can live with dignity in an insane world. The character who can find dignity in the midst of an incomprehensible horror such as Dresden is a Vonnegut hero. This paper focuses on the protagonists in Vonnegut's first six novels to see how they advance his search for a hero. Trying to come to terms with his devastating experiences in the war, Vonnegut creates real and metaphoric Dresdens and then explores ways in which his protagonists can derive a sense of dignity and purpose from their deranged worlds. He varies his tactics from one novel to the next and often employs farfetched science fiction gimmicks like

Tr~lfamadore, ice-9, and time travel. Yet his overriding concern remains constant, until he is finally able to tell his "war story." With the writing of Slaughterhouse-Five, he exorcises the demon that Dresden had created and brings to a close a long, painful period in his life.

vi INTRODUCTION

Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s sixth novel, loosely recounts the author's experiences in World War II, the firebombing of Dresden in particular. The novel tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, a young American innocent fighting in the European arena of the war who is captured by the Germans and lives through the Dresden holocaust. Emerging from the war physically intact, Billy is emotionally ruined for the rest of his life. In a jumble of serio-comic events, we watch Billy live a life of seeming success and happiness that is neither very successful nor very happy. We watch him become 11 Unstuck 11 in time and space, travelling randomly back and forth between his stint in the war and his later life as a wealthy optometrist, and between Earth and the imaginary planet Tralfamadore. Whether we accept the science fiction gimmicks of time and space travel or see them instead as manifestations of Billy's severe schizophrenia, we come away from the novel with the stinging realization that the war devastated Billy Pilgrim. In the introduction to the novel, Vonnegut tells us that he, too, was devastated by the war: 11 I would hate to tell you what this lousy little book cost me in money and anxiety and time. When I got home from the second World War ••• , I thought it would be easy for me to write about the destruction of Dresden, since all I would have to

1 2 " .

do would be to report what I had seen."1 In fact, however, it took him twenty-three years and five novels before he could write about his experiences in the war. As John Somer explains in The Vonnegut Statement, the destruction of Dresden was the destruction of Kurt Vonnegut. He went to war with a world view founded on stability, order, and justice, but encountered a world filled with insanity, absurdity, and irrationality.2 Before he could write about the war, he needed to rebuild himself emotionally and psychologically, a struggle that underlies his work up to and in Slaughterhouse-Five. The plots in his first six novels are variations on a theme. He destroys persons, places, and things, creating metaphoric and real Dresdens for his protagonists to confront. His ploys are variously funny, frightening, and farfetched, like ice-nine, the chrono-synclastic infundibulum, and Tralfamadorians. Yet his protagonists are consistently similar. They belong to Thoreau's mass of men who live lives of quiet desperation and who try to survive in intolerable situations: "[Vonnegut] offers an unthreatening, instantly recognizable portrait of man ground under the heel of American expectations . . He knows what most men achieve is not satisfaction ••• but resignation and perseverance in a numbing and draining condition."3 Although his characters often attain the stereotyped American goals--Paul Proteus, Malachi Constant, Eliot Rosewater, and Billy Pilgrim all are ostensibly successful and affluent--they nonetheless feel trapped and used: Partly because there are no escapes within the bounds of normalcy in the real world of the present, Vonnegut's characters frequently talk and act as though they were prisoners. Their being subject 3

to incomprehensible forces in general, and to a social and economic structure which appears overbearing and unresponsible,also contributes to their sense of imprisonment • • • • And besides feeling himself a prisoner, this version of contemporary man tends to see himself as being used. He may simply believe that the economic system or a particular industry exploits him. Often the feeling is more general and vague: the inexorable Powers of which he asks 11 Why me? 11 shuffle him around like a piece in some cosmic game, as if he serves some larger patterns always incomprehensible to him.4

This study centers on Vonnegut's search for a h~o, but we must use the term lightly when discussing his works, or the works of any other modern writer. The traditional concept of herois largely an irrelevancy in today's fiction and certainly does not fit into Vonnegut's canon. Yet Vonnegut does develop his own kind of Sisyphus-like hero during the twenty-three years between the writing of Player Piano, his first novel, and Slaughterhouse-Five. Spawned by the Dresden holocaust that he witnessed in World War II, Vonnegut's hero grew out of his inability to cope in a world where such a horror can occur. In his novels he tries to come to terms with his war experiences and his conviction that the world is a giant insane asylum by putting his protagonists into a world-gone-mad and experimenting with their reactions to it. Some fare better than others, but all help Vonnegut to sharpen his focus on what makes for a hero: a person who can live with a modicum of dignity in our dismal world. This study of Vonnegut ends with Slaughterhouse-Five, not because he finds the epitome of a hero in Billy Pilgrim, but because the novel provided a catharsis for Vonnegut. After twenty-three years 4

and five novels, he finally could tell his Dresden story. Sanford Pinsker explains in Between Two Worlds: Slaughterhouse-Five is largely an attempt at synthesis. In a sense, the thematic strands and characters of [his] earlier novels constitute a warm-up for the ~eat stuff Vonnegut wants to get off his chest • • • • In coming to terms with his memories [of Dresden], Vonnegut explores the assets and liabilities of madness itself. Not merely as a Black Humorist out to outdo the headlines of a world gone absurd, but, rather, as a man driven to the very borders of insanity and beyond in a search for health. Cat•s Cradle ended in apocalyptic death; Slaughterhouse­ Five begins there.5 And Vonnegut ends there. He was at the height of his literary career when he wrote Slaughterhouse-Five, which he curiously calls a 11 short, jumbled, jangled 11 piece of writing. 6 After that, his writing changes. His themes and humor are muted, and in the beginning of his next book, Breakfast of Champions (1973), he bids farewell to all the 11 junk and characters of his previous works. 117 Although he continues writing novels with Slapstick (1976), Jailbird (1980), and Deadeye Dick (1982), he stated that after Slaughterhouse-Five he would no longer write novels--he would write plays instead. And so we get Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1971) and Between Time and Timbuktu (1972), two of his least memorable works.

Critics confirm this change in Vonnegut after Sl~ughterhouse-Five. Peter J. Reed, who studied the writer through 1969 in Kurt Vonnegut, describes the works published since Slaughterhouse-Five as 11 the later Vonnegut. 118 He claims that his division is not 11 arbitrary and personal, .. but is 11 Shared by those who see an organic development through [Vonnegut's] first six novels and detect a break between them and the mixed works which have appeared subsequently. 119 The later 5

Vonnegut, Reed contends, manifests the author's "decline of powers, or efforts, ••• revealing ambivalence and weariness."10 Vonnegut's search for a hero ends with Slaughterhouse-Five because his confrontation with his Dresden experience culminates with the novel. Afterward, his urge to probe man's existence in an insane world no longer obsesses him. Vonnegut himself admits, "I've finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun • People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore. "11 We are going to look back, however, at Vonnegut's first six novels, studying the protagonist of each as he sheds light on the author's search for a hero. Beginning with Paul Proteus in Player Piano and ending with Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five, we will see how Vonnegut deals with an absurd, alienated world, "always with some new depth of perception, some new slant."12 Specifically, we will see how he explores and develops his key concept of the heroic: the ability to find dignity in the midst of global absurdity. CHAPTER ONE: Player Piano 11 I quit, I quit, I quit! 11 - Paul Proteus

Player Piano, published in 1952, is a story about 11 people and machines, 1113 set in the fictional city of Ilium, New York, sometime after the 11 Second Industrial Revolution ... 14 The backdrop of the action is a machine-dominated society that, for all intents and purposes, should be a utopia. It is a place where efficient, expedient machines do most of the work, creating a highly productive, stable economy and providing the average American with a life free of poverty and hunger: 11 Machines were doing America•s work far better than Americans had ever done it. There were better goods for more people at less cost, and [no one] could deny that that was magnificent and gratifying .. {p. 56). The well-being of the common man was a primary concern of this society. He lived in a modern, prefabricated house made out of durable steel, with a radiant heating and cooling system and furniture 11 designed after an exhaustive national survey of furniture likes and dislikes 11 (p. 158). The houses came stocked with numerous time-saving appliances, including microwave ovens, ultrasonic washing machines, and 11 dust precipitators, .. so that the owner could spend less time cleaning and cooking, and more time living-- 11 getting a little fun out of life 11 (p. 159). Periodically the furnishings and appliances were 7

replaced automatically with newer models, so that all the people owned all the same things and the 11 country at large 11 was protected from the 11 0ld economic ups and downs by orderly, predictable consumer habits 11 (p. 161). All the niceties afforded the average citizen in this utopian society resulted from the widespread mechanization. Machines not only rel i·eved people of dreary busy-work and assembly-1 i ne chores, they also did much of the thinking that people used to do, often haphazardly. The master thinker was a giant computer named EPICAC, housed in the Carlsbad Caverns, with networks spreading all over the country: II . . • EPICAC could consider simultaneously hundreds or even thousands of sides of a question utterly fairly. [It] was wholly fr.ee of reason-muddying emotions, . . • and never forgot anthing • In short, EPICAC was dead right about everything ..

(p. 116). The mechanization of society, epitomized by EPICAC, put an end to 11 mass starvation, mass terror, and mass imprisonment •••• Objectively, know-how and world law were getting their long-awaited chance to turn earth into an altogether pleasant and convenient place in which to sweat out Judgment Dal' (p. 14). Yet, as we read about all these nice things, we discover that the society is hardly the utopia it is cracked up to be. Instead, it was a place where 11 machines frequently got the best of [things], as machines will. 1115 It was a place where people bowed to machines and extolled the virtues of efficiency and expediency. It was a place where the average person, though given lots of free time to 8

enjoy life and assured of food, clothing, and financial security, lived a useless, undignified life because machines could do things better and quicker. One character pinpoints the problem when he explains, 11 Everybody used to have some personal skill or willingness to work or something he could trade for what he wanted. Now that the machines have taken over, it's quite somebody who has anything to offer. All most people can do is hope to be given something .. (p. 177). Because of such widespread frustration and loss of self-respect, we watch people run amok, destroying homes, machines, themselves. We find that alcoholism runs rampant in Homestead, the section of Ilium where most of the people live. We learn that a revolutionary underground, the Ghost Shirt Society, plans to overturn the status quo, replacing perfect machines with imperfect humans. Into this milieu enters Dr. Paul Proteus, one of the society's highest ranking members who seemingly has it all--a terrific job, a beautiful wife, and a golden future. Ilium is Paul's Dresden. When we first meet Paul, he is sitting in his prestigious office at the Ilium Works, petting a cat. We are told at the outset that 11 he was the most important, brilliant person in Ilium, .. although 11 he didn't feel important or brilliant at the time, nor had he for sometime"(p. 9). We also learn that Paul, following in the footsteps of his father, the chief architect of Player Piano's society, is slated for a big promotion which would elevate him to national prominence. 9

Just what bothers Paul is not clear. He expresses vague feelings about the futility of life, bl•t these give us only inklings of his discontent. At one point he senses 11 that the human situation was a frightful botch, but it was such a logical, intelligently arrived-at botch that he couldn't see how history could possible have led anywhere else 11 (p. 114). Later he visualizes civilization as a 11 Vast and faulty dike, with thousands of men ••• stretching to the horizon, each man grimly stopping a leak with his finger 11 (p. 148). These feelings, we soon discover, stem from Paul's discontent with his society. He cannot tolerate the way society treats people, and he feels especially responsible because of his father and his own position within the system. He resents the way machines have technologized people and yearns for a return to the past, when people 11 humanized 11 machines. 16 Explaining to his wife Anita his feelings of frustration, Paul says that the machines have robbed people of the 11 most important thing on earth to them--the feeling of being needed and useful, the foundation of sel f-respect 11 (p. 169). As a result, the system 11 Wasn't getting anybody anywhere . . . . It was pointless .. (p. 271). In spite of his concern for society's mistreatment of people, Paul decides not to try to change things but to run away, to quit. He tells no one of his decision, not even Anita, and he so successfully masquerades his plans that no one believes him when he finally declares, "I quit" (p. 221). He buys an old farm in the country, away from the mechanization of Ilium, with the idea that he will live there independently, without any need for machines. 10

His plans end abruptly, however, when revolutionaries, who call themselves the Ghost Shirt Society, kidnap Paul and try to convince him to support their cause. He learns that the revolution would offer exactly what he knows is needed--a chance to enact change--yet he nevertheless clings to his desire to run away. He blandly applauds their efforts but says he wants no part of the action: "It•s pretty soft, all right ••• but not quite soft enough. J•m walking out. Sorry" (p. 280). Only when he is given the ultimatum, "You can•t walk out--they•ll kill you" (p. 280), does he begin to "take a real interest in what was going on 11 (p. 281). Paul eventually supports the efforts of the Ghost Shirt Society, but at too late a stage: things already had been set in motion and he could be no more than a figurehead. The revolution takes place but fails, since the Ghost Shirt Society could offer only 11 some excitement for change .. (p. 278), nothing more. The system was too strong. Ironically, Paul had seen the hopelessness of the revolution earlier. While attending his first meeting of the Ghost Shirt Society, he i ni ti ally thought the group 11 promi sed a change for the better" (p. 278), but he 11 amended his thought 11 (p. 278) after more fully understanding the circumstances and people in command. Yet Paul chose to overlook the frailties of the Society when he joined it. When he publicly announced his affiliation with the revolutionaries--when he awakened from the self-centered stupor he had been in for the duration of the book--he suddenly became myopic about the Ghost Shirt Society. He could only see the good it hoped to bring. The 11 good 11 turns out to be nothing more than a machine-smashing orgy that delights the masses. But when there are no more machines 11

to destroy, and the people have sufficientlyvented their pent-up anger and frustration, they want to "recreate the same old nightmare" (p. 320). In the quiet, "now-what?" aftermath of the riot, Paul finds a group of machine wreckers huddled around a partially functioning vending machine, fascinated by its automation and anxious to repair it. Paul realizes that the revolution was senseless; he turns himself in to the authorities; and the novel ends.

In his first novel, Vonnegut begins his search for a hero with mixed results. Paul Proteus is a stock character in a predictable plot that elicits little more response than Vonnegut's characteristic "Urn." Yet as the lead-off protagonist in a line-up of six, Paul begins a pattern that Vonnegut will use over and over again. The most crucial element in the pattern is the protagonist's enduring a Dresden-like experience. Confronted with an overwhelming situation, he learns that he is no more than "a victim of circumstances, either social or cosmic, which effectively control his destiny."17 The Dresden that Paul faces is his absurd revolution that promises only "some excitement for change" (p. 278). His realization in the end that he is, indeed, a victim of circumstances leads to his surrender to the authorities. When he shares a final drink with his defeated comrades, he begins to say "'To a better world,' ••• but he cut the toast short, thinking of the people in Ilium, eager to recreate the same old nightmare. He shrugged. 'To the record,' he said, and smashed the empty bottle on a rock" (p. 320). Paul knows he has been deluding himself, thinking he can exert control when, in fact, he cannot. 12

The second element in the pattern that Vonnegut introduces through Paul is the evasion tactic, which Peter Reed summarizes in Kurt Vonnegut: "As if reality becomes too much to bear, each [protagonist] moves into some kind of unreality or seeming unreality."18 Throughout most of Player Piano, Paul tries to ignore the inevitable. Although he eventually commits himself to the causes of the Ghost Shirt Society, he spends most of his time refusing to become involved and looking for ways to make his own life more enjoyable. He longs nostalgically for the past, and even tries to reinvent the 11 good old days 11 with his purchase of the farm. The last element in the pattern is the character•s struggle to be moral, to evince an 11 enduring concern to give purpose and goodness to life."19 Paul •s struggle to be moral, however, is a questionable one, because of his overriding preoccupation with himself. He complains again and again about the plight of people in his machine-dominated society--an indication of his concern to give purpose and goodness to life--yet his complaints are empty. His only response is to escape, to withdraw. He sees the Ghost Shirt Society as a vehicle for change, yet he declines the opportunity to play a vital role in it. He only begins to take a real interest in the Society when his life is threatened--hardly the most altruistic of motives. Paul •s obsession with his own well-being casts doubt on his professed humanistic concerns, and we wonder whether his eventual participation in the revolution is not, as a psychiatrist in the novel suggests, merely an attempt to rebel against his father. 13

Whatever his motives, Paul comes away from his experiences convinced that his initial hunches were correct: people need something to believe in. Although, as John Somer points out, Paul "learns [little] about the conduct of man ••• and has nothing to offer in the end," 20 Paul brings to light a key tenet in Vonnegut's canon--man's need for sincere belief. And although his obsessive selfishness prohibits him from being a Vonnegut "hero," Paul articulates more clearly than any of his successors what Vonnegut proposes as a solution to the human dilemma: 11 For generations [the people] have been built up to worship competition and the market, productivity and economic usefulness, and the envy of their fellow men • • • • [Now] it's all yanked out from under them. They can't participate, can't be useful anymore. Their whole culture's been shot to hell These displaced people need something [to believe in]" (p. 92}. People must be able to live with dignity, something they gain only when they feel needed, useful. In an interview in 1970, Vonnegut pleaded that people "must have the feeling of participation, the feeling of being needed on earth--hell, dignity. "21 Vonnegut, then, connects a person's need for sincere belief with the need to feel useful. And only when these needs are satisfied can a person live with dignity. In Player Piano, Vonnegut implies that society might meet these needs, if people could break the habit of measuring a person's worth in terms of his value to the economy. The shortcoming of the novel, however, is that it offers no solutions--it only defines the problem. Neither Paul nor anyone else 14

in the story does anything to deal with man's need to believe in something. The empty rhetoric of the Ghost Shirt Society and Paul's constant complaints only serve to highlight the dilemma. Still Player Piano is noteworthy for its introductions. It sets the confrontation pattern for the protagonists in Vonnegut's subsequent novels--the 11 Dresden 11 experience, the evasion tactics, and the moral struggle--and it raises the crucial issue of man's need for something to believe in. In the subsequent chapters we shall see how Vonnegut consistently repeats this confrontation pattern and takes up where he leaves off in Player Piano--by not only posing the problem but also suggesting solutions. CHAPTER TWO: The Sirens of Titan 11 Live! 11 - Malachi Constant

If Paul Proteus mistakenly thought he controlled his own life, Malachi Constant, the protagonist of The Sirens of Titan, learned quickly that it is not so. All mankind is a 11 Victim of a series of accidents 1122--there is neither free will nor luck nor divine providence. We find these ideas in Player Piano as ancillary themes, but in The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut's second novel, the message is emphatic. To be hoodwinked by explanations about the meaning of life, as our 11 gimcrack religions .. (p. 7) try to do, is as foolish as Malachi's being lured by the Sirens of Titan. Neither is real. The backdrop of The Sirens of Titan is as unusual and significant as Player Piano's. Filled with science fiction, the novel tells 11 a true story from the Nightmare Ages, 11 which occur somewhere 11 between the Second World War and the Third Great Depression 11 (p. 8). Man has discovered the chrono-synclastic infundibulum, a space-age phenomenon that enables him to break through the barriers of time and space and view the universe from a god-like perspective, rather than from the fragmented, partial view we now have. The result of this awesome discovery is both wonderful and horrible: with this magnificent, new insight, man can progress forward as never before, no longer beleaguered by such trivial questions as 11 What is the meaning of life? 11

15 16

Yet the grim fact is that man exists for the benefit of another civilization in another galaxy, that uses Earthlings much like a

11 handy-dandy potato peeler .. {p. 285). That other civilization in another galaxy is Vonnegut•s favorite make-believe planet, Tralfamadore. Introduced in The Sirens of Titan and appearing again in later novels, Tralfamadore houses a colony of little machine-like creatures who eons ago decided to send greetings across the universe, 11 as far as the technology of Tralfamadore would enable them 11 (p. 269). To carry their message, they choose the Tralfamadorian 11 Salo, 11 who was sent forth some eleven million years ago to travel 11 from one rim of the universe to the other 11 (p. 269). In the year 203,117 B.C., however, Salo encountered mechanical difficulties and was forced down in Earth•s solar system. He landed on Titan, 11 an extremely pleasant moon of Saturn 11 (p. 138), sent word of his plight to Tralfamadore, and waited patiently for help: 11 He sent the message home with the speed of light, which meant that it would take one hundred and fifty thousand Earthling years to get to Tralfamadore 11 (p. 271). In the meantime he amused himself on Titan by watching the activities on Earth, which he could see on a special viewer in his space ship. It was through this viewer that he got his first reply from Tra 1famadore: 11 The reply was written on Earth in huge stones on a plain in what is now England. The ruins of the reply still stand, and are known as Stonehenge. The meaning of Stonehenge in Tralfamadorian when viewed from above is, 'Rep£aeement paJLt bun.g IUL6hed wU.h a££. po.6.6ibte .6peed' .. (p. 271). The Earth and Earthlings, it turns out, were the vehicles by which the Tralfamadorians communicated with Salo. Civilizations would 11 bloom on 17

Eartn and the participants would ••• build tremendous structures that were obviously to be messages in Tralfamadorian 11 (p. 273). The Great Wall of China, for example, means in Tralfamadorian, 11 Be patient.

We hav~n·t forgotten about you 11 {p. 272). The Palace of the League of Nat ons in Switzerland says, 11 Pack up your things and be ready to leave on short notice .. (p. 272). And so on. As if this incredible toying with mankind weren't bad enough, the Tralfamadorians also used Earthlings to get Salo his long-awaited replacem~~t part, so he could continue his journey across the universe with the ludicrous message, 11 Greetings 11 (p. 301). This little gadget, no bigger than "an Earthling beer-can opener 11 (p. 270), gets to Titan primarily t1rough the machinations of Winston Niles Rumfoord. Rumfoord, an East Coast Brahmin, discovered the chrono-synclastic infundibulumo While cruising out in space one day in his $58 million space ship, ~.e drove into an infundibulum and came out 11 existing in another wai' (p. 13). The infundibulated Rumfoord was no more than particles in c.1 immense, wavering band of light. He could temporarily materialize on planets--Earth, Mars, Titan, wherever he chose--and could see the ~est, present, and future simultaneously. Most significantly, ~is altered existence enabled him to understand Tralfamadore•s m.::ster plan for the human race and his key role in that plan. So, 11 While serving the irresistable wishes of Tralfamadore 11 (p. 291), Rumfoord decided to 11 try [his] best to do good for [his] native Earth 11 (p. :~91). What did he accomplish? He orchestrated a war between Mars and Earth that resulted in the widespread slaughter 18

of Martians--ex-Earthlings--and he established a new religion called the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent. He believed that in order to "change the world in a significant way, [he had to] have showmanship, a genial willingness to shed other people's blood, and a plausible new religion to introduce during the brief period of repentance and horror that usually follows bloodshed., (p. 174). His interplanetary war was certainly showy enough: the death toll alone makes the Dresden firebombing pale in comparison. And he was right about the "plausible new religion ... His Church of God the Utterly Indifferent took off like wildfire. Just as the Tralfamadorians used Winston Niles Rumfoord as their chief agent to get Salo his replacement part, Rumfoord uses Malachi Constant to achieve his goals. Malachi, also called Unk and Space Wanderer, gets bounced around the cosmos like a pinball, with the wizard Rumfoord in control. The entire universe is Malachi's Dresden.

Malachi comes into the story 11 the richest American and a

notorious rake-hell 11 (p. 11) and leaves a docile, benevolent old man--and one of Vonnegut's stellar heroes. Before becoming Rumfoord's pawn, he lives the ultimate Bohemian's life, playing all day, partying all night, spending money in obscene sums. Yet between the orgies and extravaganzas, he frequently despairs that his life is purposeless. Influenced by the meaning of his name, "messenger," he longs ironically for just one thing: "a single message that was sufficiently dignified and important to merit his carrying it humbly between two points 11 (p. 17). Of course, what this early version of our protagonist has in mind, "presumably, [is] a first-class message from God to someone equally di sti ngui shed 11 (p. 17). 19

The young playboy Malachi attributes his elite station in life to divine providence: "Somebody up there likes me" (p. 20). Very soon after the novel begins, however, things change dramatically for Malachi. Rumfoord kidnaps him, interns him on Mars as a soldier in the Martian army, erases his memory, and controls his every action through electrodes implanted in his head. One of the few "Martian 11 survivors of the Earth-Mars war, Malachi, renamed Unk, is sent to Mercury to while away a few years so that Rumfoord can establish his Church of God the Utterly Indifferent on Earth. Rumfoord's plan is to spread the word about a Space Wanderer who was once fabulously well-to-do and is now a physical and emotional wreck. Equating the fate of the Space Wanderer with the fate of a 11 blind grandmother [who] steps on a rollerskate at the head of a flight of cement stairs, a policeman's horse [that] steps on an organ-grinder's monkey, and a paroled bank robber [who] finds a postage stamp worth $900" (p. 181), he uses Malachi--the Space Wanderer--to prove to mankind that they are all 11 Victims of a series of accidents 11 (p. 229). After he circulates the story about the Space Wanderer and people everywhere anxiously wait for the prophecy to come true, Rumfoord snatches Malachi from Mercury, brings him to Earth, and showcases him as the fool who thinks luck or divine providence is on his side. Finished with Malachi, Rumfoord then banishes him to Titan for the remaining thirty years of his life. At the same time, Rumfoord's puppetry with Malachi accords with

Tralfamadore's "irresistable wishes 11 (p. 291). Early in the novel, 20

when Rumfoord transports the kidnapped Malachi to Mars, Malachi rapes Beatrice, a woman aboard his space ship, and together they beget a son, Chrono. A hostile misfit who spends most of his childhood on Mars, Chrono one day picks up a small, irregularly shaped piece of metal that he finds in a Martian junkyard, and keeps it as his 11 good luck 11 piece. Not incidentally, that piece of metal is what Salo needs for his disabled space craft. Years later, when Rumfoord exiles Malachi the Space Wanderer to Titan, his .. mate 11 Beatrice and son Chrono go with him. Thus, Salo•s replacement part gets to Titan.

In The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut creates his first real hero. Malachi is able to live with dignity in his insane world. It understandly takes him a long time to wrest some peace and dignity out of his turbulent, nonsensical life, and like Paul Proteus he repeatedly tries to resist the forces that so effectively control his destiny. But Malachi overcomes the selfishness that obsesses Paul and learns to accept and find meaning in the subservient roles he is given. In the end Malachi is like a tamed horse that finally submits to, rather than fights, the reins which hold him in check. To understand more clearly how Malachi qualifies as a Vonnegut hero, let us see how he adheres to the pattern of characteristics introduced by Paul Proteus: The Dresden experience, the evasion tactics, and the moral struggle. We noted earlier that the entire universe is Malachi•s Dresden. He starts out in the novel young, confident, and narcissistic, but experience after experience knocks the vitality out of him until he is scarcely more than a robot, 21

bewildered and belitt'ied by the manipulations of Rumfoord and, less directly, the Tralfamadorians. The early, 11 pre-Dl·esden 11 Ma 1a chi appears briefly in the novel, just long enough to provide a counterpoint to the character he later becomes. He first meet~ Rumfoord during this stage of his life, when the two men visit at Rumfoord's mansion to discuss Malachi's forthcoming intergalactic adventures. The arrogant Malachi summarily dismisses Rumfoord as an eccentric and chides him for his preposterous predictions, even though he witnesses Rumfoord's mysterious ability to dematerialize. Malachi is somewhat wary of the old man's inexplicable feat, but he remains smug about his privileged lot in life. After all, he could claim the dual advantage

11 11 of divine predilection ( somebody up there likes me ) and an immense bank account. Not even the superhuman Rumfoord could touch him. When Malachi's Dresden experiences occur, however, he quickly and dramatically changes to a victim of circumstances beyond his control, the pawn in a complex, incomprehensible game. His kidnapping to Mars begins these experiences. Living as the mindless robot 11 Unk," he has no knowledge of who he is, where he came from, or what he is doing in the Martian army. He moves cautiously, acutely aware of only one certainty: that someone or something controls him through the electrodes in his head. He nevertheless is driven by the glimmer of a memory that compels him to find his mate, his son, and his best friend, Stony Stevenson. Malachi's next stop--Mercury--is the locus of his second Dresden experience. Moved from Mars to a cavern several miles beneath the surface of Mercury, Malachi stays there, dumbfounded, for three years. 22 ~ '

Though Rumfoord no longer controls him as rigidly as he had on Mars, Malachi remains a baffled victim of overwhelming circumstances, confined in terrifying surroundings with only periodic hints from Rumfoord that his strange incarceration would soon end. Frustrated and alone, he decides to fight "with the only weapons at hand--passive resistance and open displays of contempt" (p. 200). After his sojourn on Mercury, Malachi 1 s Dresden experiences continue on Earth. Weary from his travels, he "decides not to be afraid" (p. 225), but he is once again baffled by what happens. The 11 Central symbol of wrong-headedness" (p. 255) for the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent, Malachi is exposed as the long-awaited Space Wanderer and then is sent off to Titan for the rest of his life. Just before he enters his Titan-bound space ship, he capsulizes his feelings: 11 It--it's probably not worth saying, ••• but I'd still like to say I haven't understood a single thing that•s happened to me since I reached Earth 11 (p. 258). He hears the devastating news that, as Unk, he strangled his friend Stony Stevenson to death several years earlier. He is reunited with Bea and Chrono, although none of them by this time wants much to do with one another. And the three of them go to Titan, Malachi 1 s last intergalactic journey. No longer buoyed by the prospect of meeting Stony and horrified by the thought that he killed his best friend, Malachi vows never to be used again: "If anybody ever expects to use me again in some tremendous scheme of his, ••• he is in for one big disappointment • • • • I resign • • • • I withdraw • • • • I quit" (p. 290). 23

Malachi's Dresden ends on Titan, where he spends the remaining years of his life, mostly alone but mostly content. He and his strange little family never become close, yet they learn to love one another in a unique way. His anger gradually changes to muted happiness, even after he finds out about Rumfoord's and Tralfamadore's schemes and how both used him so wretchedly. Malachi thus endures not one but many Dresden-like ordeals. Except for when he is Unk, completely controlled by Rumfoord, he tries

to evade his experiences when they 11 become too much to bear ... 23 His evasions, the second characteristic of the confrontation pattern we noted earlier, begin when Rumfoord first predicts Malachi's future. Like Paul Proteus, he ignores the inevitable, fully aware that the superhuman, infundibulated Rumfoord is probably correct. He continues to throw lavish parties and spend money recklessly, in foolish defiance of Rumfoord's predictions. After his robot-like existence on Mars, his next evasion tactic occurs on Mercury, where he concocts his own explanations for the puzzling world he finds himself in. Trapped at the bottom of an intricate labyrinth of tunnels and caves, Malachi thinks that he is on Earth, that his space ship merely took a serious wrong turn, and that he needs only to find his way out. En route to his cavernous prison, he thinks he sees skyscrapers and searchlights and he weeps for joy that he is finally home. Three years later, however, 11 Unk's imagination had done a lot with the glimpses he'd had of the supposed buildings •• Unk's imagination was now certain that the masters of all creation lived in those buildings. They were 24

Unk's ••• and maybe Stony's jailers •••• They were experimenting with Unk ••• in the caves. They wrote messages [to him] in harmoniums, [plants growing on Mercury] Unk knew all those things for sure 11 (p. 207-208). His final evasion takes the form of defiance, reminiscent of his pre-Dresden days when he refused to accept Rumfoord's predictions. Aboard the space ship to Titan, he declares that he is finished being used, unrealistically figuring that his mere refusal to participate would put a halt to any future plans involving him: 11 No matter what happens, no matter what beautiful or sad or frightening thing happens, I'll be damned if I'll respond. The minute it looks like something or somebody wants me to act in some special way, I will freeze 11 (p. 289). Throughout his ordeals, Malachi struggles to be a moral person--illustrating the third characteristic of the confrontation pattern--and he succeeds. Although the young Malachi Constant behaves as amorally as the Tralfamadorians, the changed Malachi--Unk and Space Wanderer--is driven by noble, altruistic concerns. In spite of his faulty memory, which Rumfoord launders periodically, the simpleton Unk tries to remember the three special people in his life: Bea, Chrono, and Stony Stevenson. He senses that he is being used, that his mind is controlled by someone or something, so he writes himself notes to help him remember: 11 Unk, you know why you keep on going? You keep on going because you have a mate and a child •••• [They] have learned to get along alone. They don't miss you. They never think of you. But you have to prove to them that they need you 25

in the biggest way possible 11 (p. 131). He also writes about Stony who, like Unk, kept 11 catching on that somebody was using him 11 (p. 128) and so was eliminated by Rumfoord--through Unk. Unk•s determination to remember his family and best friend, rather than any other person or bit of information that could shed light on his Martian milieu, is testimony to his struggle to be a good, moral person. He is willing to march mindlessly to 11 rented-a-tent, rented-a-tent 11 (p. 97) as long as he has his dream to gather together 11 his wife, his son, and his best friend, to steal a space ship, and to fly away to some place where they could all live happily ever after .. (p. 140). On Mercury, Malachi continues his struggle to be a good, moral person. Though, in his cockeyed version of reality, he thinks he has lost Bea and Chrono, he still believes he has a chance of finding Stony Stevenson. In fact, what 11 keeps him going 11 on Mercury is the prospect of meeting Stony: 11 He dreamed that his good friend Stony Stevenson was waiting for him around the next bend. His mind became lively with the things he and Stony would say when they met. Unk•s mind still had no face to go with the name of Stony Stevenson, but that didn•t matter much 11 (p. 207). The true test of his struggle to be moral, however, comes when Malachi learns of Stony•s death and is unwillingly reunited with Bea and Chrono just before the three take off for Titan. Fed up with his life as mankind•s (and Tralfamadore•s) doormat, Malachi angrily declares that he has 11 taken part for the last time ••• in experiments and fights and festivals [he doesn•t] like or understand .. (p. 290).

He, Bea, and Chrono demonstrate only 11 politeness, glum compassion, and 26

suppressed indignation at having been forced to be a family at all 11 (p. 291). But out of his oppressed life he gradually finds meaning. His bitterness subsides, and he and Bea develop a philosophy that gives them a sense of purpose and dignity. Bea sums it up when she says to Mal a chi, 11 The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody ••• would be not to be used for anything by anybody • • • • Thank you for using me 11 (p. 310-11). Malachi enhances their philosophy when he later explains to Salo that he and Bea eventually realized "that a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved 11 (p. 313). He can advise his son, Chrono, to "live!," for he eventually discovers a meaning to attach to the word. Fittingly, touchingly, Chrono responds by going off to join the majestic blue birds of Titan. In what Donald Lawler calls an apotheosis, 24 Chrono shouts to his parents before he leaves,

"Thank you, r~other and Father, for the gift of life" (p. 312). Thus Malachi Constant, one of Vonnegut's most severely battered protagonists, finds dignity in a world that displays the author's most extreme absurdist visions. As Robert Scholes explains, "This novel suggests that the joke is on us every time we attribute purpose or meaning that suits us to things which are either accidental or possessed of purpose and meaning quite different from those we would supply."25 The joke certainly was on Malachi, until he adopted the premise of the joke as the basis for his philosophy and, in turn, learned to prize "the kind of durability that can be won from the clearest recognition of inadequacy."26 27

Malachi•s insights into love, purpose, and dignity are precisely what Paul Proteus failed to understand. They are the something that Paul--and the people in Player Piano•s society--needed to believe in, the something that could have remedied the devastating feelings of frustration and helplessness that occur when people 11 have no use ... In Player Piano and The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut experiments with science fiction and fantasy to create Dresden-like situations for his protagonists. In his next novel, Mother Night, the Dresden-like experience comes not from alien creatures or machines, but from the protagonist•s own decision to 11 Serve evil too openly and good too secretly. ~~ 27 CHAPTER THREE: Mother Night 11 0h, God--the lives people try to lead ... -Howard W. Campbell, Jr.

Compared to Player Piano and The Sirens of Titan, Mother Night is a very different kind of book. It has a first-person narrator, Howard Campbell, who tells his story in short, choppy chapters, some no longer than several paragraphs. It has an introduction by Vonnegut, an 11 editor's 11 note, and an explicit moral: "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." It contains no science fiction or fantasy; instead, it uses the realities of the here and now to present a compelling Dresden-like experience that overwhelms the protagonist. Mother Night is set in Germany during World War II, in New York after the war, and in Israel. When the story opens, Howard Campbell is in an Israeli prison, awaiting trial for the 11 Crimes against humanity" he committed during the war (p. 34). "An American by birth [and] a Nazi by reputation" (p. 17), Howard had inspired the Nazis to pursue their 11 final solution" through his work as chief 11 writer and broadcaster of Nazi propagand~' and 11 leading expert on American problems in the German Ministry of Popular Entertainment and Propaganda .. (p. 33). Not surprisingly, after the war he is "high on the list of war criminals, because [his] offenses were so obscenely public" (p. 33). Fifteen years elapse, however, between the end of

28 29 il '

the war and Howard's trial. He spends them living in a dingy New York apartment--his "purgatory" (p. 30). As the novel jumps from Germany to New York to Israel, Howard sporadically relays his background as an American transplanted in Germany. He moved to Germany with his parents at age 11, grew up to become a moderately successful playwright, and married a popular German actress, Helga Noth. When the war came, his parents returned to America, but Howard remained in Germany. He planned to continue his "peaceful trade" as playwright and ignore the war by living with Helga in their own "nation of two" (p. 44). Then came an offer he couldn't resist: to be an American spy. Under an arrangement with American intelligence, Howard would play the role of Nazi radio star, goading the Nazis to cleanse the world of non-Aryan races, especially the Jews. But at the same time he would transmit information over the air to his American superiors by means of pauses, coughs, hems and haws, and other seeming flaws in his broadcasts. Hence comes Vonnegut's indictment of his protagonist for serving evil too openly and good too secretly. Howard is so good at lambasting the Jews that the world comes to know him as a notorious anti-Semite and the personification of wickedness. Everyone wants him arrested and punished for his key role in the Nazi regime, and several times he almost is caught. But because he is an equally effective spy, his secret American contact, Frank Wirtanen, keeps him out of trouble. After the war he goes to New York with a new identity and lives in such anonymity that he eventually takes back his real name. As the war fades in peoples• memories, few remember or care about Howard Campbell. 30

His fifteen years in New York pass quietly and uneventfully, until through 11 dumb luck 11 he befriends a neighbor, George Kraft. A half-witted Russian spy, Kraft alerts the world--those who still cared, at least--to Campbell's whereabouts, and Howard suddenly becomes the center of attention for a variety of people and groups: the insane Dr. Lionel Jones, a quack dentist who judges people according to the quality of their teeth; the Iron Guard of the White Sons of the American Constitution, the neo-Nazi version of the YMCA; the crazy, aging Bernard O'Hare, the American soldier who once captured Howard during the war and swore vengeance after his curious escape. Most importantly, a woman claiming to be Helga, but who later confesses to be Helga's sister, Resi, comes into his life. Hungry for human companionship, Howard decides to accept Resi as a sustitute for her sister, and the two of them plan to create the 11 nation of two 11 which had once existed between Howard and Helga. No longer anonymous and now sorely wanted for his war crimes by the new republic of Israel, Howard agrees with Resi and his friend George Kraft that they should leave America. Hours before they board a plane for Mexico, however, Frank Wirtanen appears briefly. He tells Howard that Kraft and Resi are Russian spies, preparing to escort him to Russia where he would be exhibited "to the world as a prime example of the sort of Fascist war criminal this country shelters" (p. 144). Through the tactics of Wirtanen, Howard is saved once again, but this time he finds his freedom intolerable. He turns himself in to Zionist agents and goes to Israel for trial. His attorney there 31

assures Howard that he would be exonerated if only he could prove he was an American spy during the war. For the last time Frank Wirtanen comes to the rescue. But Howard still could not tolerate the prospect of freedom, so he opts out: he hangs himself.

Like Malachi Constant, Howard Campbell is a true Vonnegut hero. At first glance he does not seem to fit the heroic mold of his predecessors: he knowingly perpetrates evil and ends up killing himself for his crimes against humanity. But upon closer scrutiny, he is indeed a member of Vonnegut's family of protagonists who endure Dresden-like experiences, find themselves victims of experiences beyond their control, and nevertheless struggle to be moral. As if responding to his observation in The Sirens of Titan that "only inwardness remained to be explored," 28 Vonnegut creates an "inward" Dresden for Howard Campbell. More precisely, he has Howard create his own hell. When Howard accepts the espionage job and becomes two persons--an ardent Nazi on the outside with an "honest me" hidden deep inside--he sets the stage for a whopping dilemma. His Dresden starts during the war and grows gradually. In the beginning, before Helga dies, his wartime lot actually pleases him. His spying assignment gives the "ham" in him "an opportunity for some pretty grand acting" that enables him to "fool everyone with [his] brilliant interpretation of a Nazi" (p. 41}. He is very popular in the Nazi social circles because of his ability to "cheer [the Nazis] up and make them want to go on" (p. 43). Years later he would admit that, had the Nazis won the war, he would have "become a sort of Nazi 32

Edgar Guest, writing a daily column of optimistic doggerel [that he] might even have come to believe" (p. 139). As the war progresses, the insanity of the war, the Nazi effort, and his own role increasingly oppress Howard. After his wife dies, he realizes that "happiness has no place in war 11 (p. 80) and that he is not immune to the suffering going on all around him. The death of Helga strips away all meaning Howard had assigned to life. Left alone in a crazy world that "replied in kind to his gibberish 11 (p. 96), he looks elsewhere for meaning but finds little. Only the absurdist explanation offered by his German friend Heinz sounds appropriate: '"All people are insane • • • • They will do anything at any time, and God help anybody who looks for reasons"' (p. 90). Howard's Dresden changes when he goes to New York to 1 ive. Hi th the war behind him, he is tormented now by his bleak, empty life in what he calls 11 purgatory." He spends these postwar years "as an odd duck and recluse in Greenwich Village" (p. 46), living in "a depressing attic apartment with rats squeaking and scrabbling in the walls" (p. 30). Though his parents had left him a sizeable inheritance, he furnishes his apartment with war surplus--"a narrow steel cot, olive drab blankets , folding canvas chairs" (p. 47)--and eats leftover C-rations. Despondent, alone, he toys with the idea of taking drugs, thinking they would make him feel happy, but he concludes that he is "already drugged": "My narcotic was what had got me through the war ••• --my love for Helga" (p. 47). The postwar Howard thus becomes a death-worshipper who tries to keep alive his love for his dead wife and, hence, make his life bearable: "I drank 33

toasts to her • . . and didn•t give a damn for one thing else 11 (p. 47). Underlying his need to recreate Helga is the smarting reality of his postwar predicament. Because the world knew him as Howard Campbell the Nazi, he had to conceal--indeed deny--that crucial part of him. But since we are what we pretend to be, this denial is, in essence, complete self-abnegation. In meager attempts to cope with his self-denial, Howard discards the false identity given him after the war; he applies for a teaching position 11 Simply to demonstrate to myself that there really was such a person as me 11 (p. 54); he fantasizes that Helga is still alive and giving him her "uncritical love .. (p. 44); he carves a chess set from a broom handle and then feels 11 Compelled to show somebody, somebody still among the living, the marvelous thing [he] had made 11 (p. 48). Yet, through it all, he longs for his painful, anonymous existence to end. As children know their game of hi de-and-seek is over when someone calls 11 0lly-olly-ox­ in-free," Howard wishes that someone would 11 give that cry for me, [ending] my endless game of hide-and-seek 11 (p. 30). Part of Howard•s protracted Dresden experience, both during and after the war, is his sense of being used--a variation on Vonnegut•s theme of protagonist as victim. While Howard knowingly submits to teing used and creates his own Dresden, his foreknowledge could not a·l lay the pain he would suffer or make more bearable his eventual ret

who publishes them as his own works. Even the contents of his private diary describing his love for Helga are usurped and transformed into an international pornographic best-seller. By the time Resi comes

into his life, he feels 11 SO used up that [he couldn't] love anymore 11 (p. 166). All he could do was lament the ways he had been ruthlessly and unjustly exploited: "That part of me that wanted to tell the truth got turned into an expert liar! The lover in me got turned into a pornographer! The artist in me got turned into ugliness such as the world has rarely seen before. Even my most cherished memories have been converted into catfood, glue, and liverwurst.. (p. 150). Typical of Vonnegut's heroes, Howard tries to evade his Dresden. During the war his primary means of evasion is his 11 nation of two, 11 the metaphor he uses to describe his relationship with Helga. Claiming that his 11 WOrld rather than [himself] was diseased .. (p. 185), he escapes the sick world by living in a private 11 Sovereign territori' that he and Helga create: Das Reich der Zwei, the nation of two my Helga and I had--its territory, the territory we defended so jealously, didn't go much beyond the bounds of our great double bed. Flat, tufted, springy little country, with my Helga and me for mountains. And, with nothing in my life making sense but love, what a student of geography I was! (p. 44) As Vonnegut critic Stanley Schatt explains, "[Howard] escapes the 'Mother Night' forces in man by creating his own little world from which he can watch his actions as a Nazi with detachment and even smug amusement, secure in the knowledge that he is only acting."29 When Helga dies, however, that world collapses and Howard becomes 11 a nationless person" (p. 44). 35

Without Helga Howard lapses into a 15-year spell of schizophrenia,

11 that boon to modern mankind 11 (p. 133), to escape reality. Through schizophrenia, the psychological disorder characterized mainly by a split from reality, he is able to play his wartime roles successfully, pretend that Helga is still alive, and convince himself that he alone is sane in an increasingly insane world. Thus we read Howard's description of the crazy Dr. Lionel Jones, his explanation of the totalitarian mind (the cuckoo clock in hell with missing gears), and his insistence that all the gears of his own 11 thinking machine .. are intact (p. 162-63). He spends nearly all his time in New York evading his Dresden. He refuses to accept the person he had become years earlier in Germany and ignores the crimes committed by this 11 most vicious sonofabitch 11 (p. 138). He placates himself as best he can, drinking toasts to his imaginary Helga, listening to his war-surplus recordings of "White Christmas, .. and, later, playing chess with his neighbor Kraft. The machinations of Kraft and Resi, however, eventually jolt Howard out of his longterm dawdling, and his overdue confrontation begins. The botched kidnap attempt and Resi's subsequent suicide bring Howard to a crossroad that offers two options: return to purgatory or face himself. Not surprisingly, a sudden onslaught of catatonia stymies Howard's intent to contend with his past. Confronting his Dresden at last, the horror so overwhelms him that his mind freezes and he swoons with feelings of unreality. People around him begin to "glow 11 like "lightning bugs" (p. 169) and he feels unable to move until a 36 ~

policeman prods him. Beneath the cataleptic surface, however, lay determination to act. When he meets his old wartime nemesis, Bernard O'Hare, he immediately recognizes O'Hare as a reflection of himself, an embodiment of the same "Mother Night" forces that he himself had succumbed to years earlier. He chastises O'Hare with eloquence and clarity that bespeak this painful awareness of his own sins: "I'm not your destiny, or the Devil, either!" I said. "Look at you! Came to ki 11 evil with your bare hands, and now away you go with no more glory than a man side­ swiped by a Greyhound bus! And that's all the glory you deserve! ••• That's all that any man at war with pure evil deserves. "There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, ••• but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too. Where's evil? It's that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side. It's that part of every man that finds all kinds of ugliness so attractive" (p. 181). His catalepsis returns after confronting O'Hare, yet Howard continues to fight off the inclination toward mental inertia. Acknowledging that he is indeed what he had pretended to be, he determines to punish "the undiluted evil in [him], the evil that had had its effect on millions, the disgusting creature good people wanted dead and underground" (p. 184). He begs an acquaintance to "call up somebody who wants to give [him] a trial" (p. 184), and waits stoically for "three Zionist heroes" to take him away: "The instant they did that, [he] felt enormously relieved" (p. 187). The reappearance of Frank Wirtanen during Howard's trial in Israel puts a crimp in his plans to punish himself. With Wirtanen's avowal of Howard's espionage role in World War II, Howard would be exonerated of all wrongdoing and set free. But, while the world might be ready 37

to forgiv~ him, Howard knows he is nonetheless guilty and finds the prospect tf freedom 11 nauseating 11 (p. 192). Condemning himself for

11 crimes agl inst himself 11 (p. 192), he commits suicide in his jail cell. In tak·ing his life, Howard succeeds in his struggle to be moral. Once he conironts his Dresden and sees that the ''honest me [hidden] deep inside 11 is really the vile Nazi who 11 Strutted like Hitler's right-hand %.n 11 (p. 41), he wants to be punished. When the world refuses him, . e assumes the responsibility. In this sense, ki 11 ing himself is a htghly moral act. Howard Campbell, then, is a unique Vonnegut hero. He could not live with dignity, given the untenable circumstances of his peculiar 11 inward" Dresden. Yet his suicide is not an evasion. It is the culmination of his struggle to be a moral person. Through his death, he conquers the "Mother Night 11 forces in him. In Mother Nig1t, Vonnegut alters somewhat his definition of hero.

Whereas, in the pre~ious two novels, he bases his concept of hero on the premise that d i ~mi ty derives from fee 1 i ngs of useful ness or purpose, in this nov,,l he takes a slightly different tack. For Mother Night does not tell the story of Howard's discovering meaning or purpose in life, as The Siren·~· of Titan does. Rather it chronicles Howard's embracing and contending with the evil in him--evil that enabled him to pretend to be moral most of his life. Thus Vonnegut shifts his focus in Mother Night t1 the moral struggle, more closely aligning man's ability to live w-.th dignity--the key requirement of the heroic-­ with his success in the struggle to be a good, moral person. 38

In his next novel, Vonnegut shifts his focus again. Returning to the formula he used in Player Piano and The Sirens of Titan that dignity comes from a sense of meaning or purpose in life, he downplays the moral struggle to explore how the age-old panacea, religion, can fill man's need for sincere belief. CHAPTER FOUR: Cat's Cradle

11 My God--life! Who can understand even one little minute of it?" - Jonah

Vonnegut's fourth novel takes its name from a game that children play with string. The object of the game is to create a 11 cat's cradle 11 by manipulating a piece of string, yet the result is 11 nothing but a bunch of X's between sombody's hands. 113° Children 11 grow up crazy 11 trying to make some sense out of the inane game. They 11 look and look and look at all those X.'s, 11 but there is 11 no damn c.a.t, no damn c.ttadte. 11 (p. 114). The game is the dominant metaphor for the hyperbolic absurdity of life depicted in the novel. With the imaginary eat's cradle, a person fabricates meaning from a meaningless tangle of string. Likewise, with science, religion, and other ''truths, 11 man imposes meaning on his helter-skelter existence. He pretends to comprehend what Vonnegut sees as essentially incomprehensible by assigning scientific or religious explanations to the world around him and his behavior in it. While science and religion perform the same function, Vonnegut believes that science can be infinitely more harmful than religion. 31 To make his point, he fills eat's Cradle with highly intelligent but socially irresponsible scientists, one of whom concocts ice-9, a lethal form of ice that causes a world-wide disaster. The scientists brag

-- 39 40

brag about the importance of their work: "New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become" (p. 36). But Vonnegut questions this stance by creating a nightmare in which a new bit of truth plays global havoc. It all started innocently enough and with admirable intentions. Dr. Felix Hoenikker, the renowned scientist who had enriched mankind with his invention of the atomic bomb, developed ice-9 in response to a Marine Corps complaint that the soldiers had to trek through too

much mud and swampland. Ice-9 was a version of ordinary H2o that would freeze in temperatures below 114°F and would instantly alter the composition of normal water to assume its characteristics. A crystal of ice-9 would turn a muddy, mucky swamp into an instant hard-surfaced plane--the side of a huge ice cube. But the danger of ice-9 far outweighed its potential benefit, and when a chip accidentally dropped into the Caribbean Sea, life on earth came to an abrupt end as the oceans of the world crystallized into a sea of ice-9. "What hope can there be for mankind when there are men such as Felix Hoenikker to give such playthings as ice-9 to such short-sighted children as almost all men and women are? 11 rails Jonah, the novels' protagonist, as he confronts his Dresden experience (p. 164). A free-lance journalist sent on an assignment to the fictional Caribbean island of San Lorenzo, Jonah is a first-hand observer to the events that trigger the ice-9 disaster, and as a typical Vonnegut protagonist, he is powerless to do anything about it. Jonah tells his story in retrospect, six months after the ice-9 disaster. He has replaced his christened name, John, with Jonah and 41

has adopted the religion of San Lorenzo, Bokononism. It is as a Bokononist that Jonah writes about his incredible experiences, with the purpose of "examining all strong hints as to what on earth we, collectively, have been up to" (p. 13). The novel opens in Ilium, New York, Paul Proteus' old hometown. Ilium now houses the Research Laboratory of the General Forge and Foundry Company, a giant think tank where people like Felix Hoenikker work "to increase knowledge, to work toward no end but that" (p. 36). Ilium is also the town where the Hoenikker family lived and the three Hoenikker children--Angela, Frank, and Newt--grew up. Travelling on business, Jonah stops in Ilium to do some research for a book he wants to write. Entitled The Day the World Ended, the book was 11 to be an account of what important Americans had done on the day when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan .. (p. 11). Since Felix Hoenikker had been the chief architect of the atomic bomb, Jonah hoped to gather information about him during his stopover in Ilium. What he discovers is an amoral scientist and his oddball family. Before his accidental death caused by ice-9, Hoenikker had lived such a detached life that he rarely talked to his children, he once tipped his wife for cooking a nice breakfast, he abandoned his running car in the middle of traffic, and he puzzled over a colleague's comment about the word "sin": After the [atomic bomb] went off, after it was a sure thing that America could wipe out a city with just one bomb, a scientist turned to [Hoenikker] and said, 11 Science has now known sin. 11 And do you know what [Hoenikker] said? He said, "What is sin?.. (p. 21) 42 p '

When his wife died "for lack of love and understanding" (p. 53), Hoenikker turned to his daughter Angela to take over the functions of housekeeper and mother. A six-foot horsefaced dullard, Angela spent her young adulthood as a servant to her father and nanny to her brothers. She had no friends, no social life, no ambitions. Her eventual marriage to the handsome Harrison Conners surprises Angela as much as anyone. Angela's brother Frank was a secretive lad whom his schoolmates called Agent X-9. He spent most of his childhood torturing bugs trapped in Mason jars and building model airplanes in the basement of a neighborhood hobby shop. He walked out during his father's funeral and disappeared, surfacing several years later as the Major General of San Lorenzo. Little Newt, the youngest member of the Hoenikker family, was a pre-med dropout from Cornell University. A fraternity brother of Jonah, Newt became Jonah's primary source of information about Felix Hoenikker. At the time of their correspondence, Newt was preparing to marry Zinka, a 42-year-old Ukrainian midget who danced with the Borzoi Dance Company. After a brief premarital sojourn, however, Zinka called off the wedding and returned home to Russia. The strange circumstances surrounding the Hoenikker children stem from their father's invention of ice-9. When Felix died, the children found the concoction 11 in pots and pans on the kitchen countertop 11 (p. 166). They divided the ice-9 chips among themselves, storing them in little Thermos jugs that accompanied them everywhere. Later, each Hoenikker would barter his supply of ice-9 for something: 43

Angela for her handsome husband, Frank for his government position, and Newt for his aborted affair with Zinka (whom we learn was a Russian spy). After introducing the Hoenikker family and ice-9, Vonnegut takes us to San Lorenzo, where Major General Frank Hoenikker is about to be married. 11 Papa 11 Monzano, the island•s gravely ill president, has passed the gavel to Frank, and with the presidency goes marriage to his beautiful daughter Mona. To celebrate his impending marriage, Frank invites Angela and Newt to San Lorenzo--his first communication with his sister and brother since their father•s funeral years earlier. Delighted to hear from Frank and learn of his wedding plans, Angela and Newt hurry off to San Lorenzo. At the same time, Jonah is preparing to travel to San Lorenzo on an unrelated journalistic assignment. They all converge upon the island at the same time and receive a grand, ceremonious welcome. Major General Hoenikker and Papa Monzano greet them at the airport and crowds of islanders assemble to witness the arrival of their new First Family. But the pomp and circumstance end abruptly when Papa collapses on the dais. Jonah, at this point a mere bystander, goes to his hotel, reflecting about his first impressions of San Lorezno: the masses of deadened, poverty-ridden people; the dying president and his extraordinarily beautiful daughter; Major General Hoenikker, the awkward boy pretending to be a sophisticated, adept leader. Arriving at the new San Lorenzan Hilton Hotel--so new that he is the first and only guest--Jonah encounters a ringing telephone as he enters his 44

room. He is summoned to Frank Hoenikker•s house, where Angela and Newt are staying, to discuss "a very important thing in [Jonah •s] life" (p. 111)--the opportunity to become the next president of San Lorenzo. Frank explains to Jonah: "You're a worldly person, used to meeting the public; and I'm a technical person, used to working behind the scenes, making things go 11 (p. 133). Jonah, like Howard Campbell, at first rejects the offer. But after thinking about the benefits--wealth, status, marriage to Mona--he accepts. Eager to formalize their deal, Frank decides to introduce Jonah to the islanders the next day, amid ceremonies planned for the annual observation of 11 0ne Hundred Martyrs to Democracy, .. a memorial day for 100 San Lorenzans who fought and died in World War II. What happens the next day, however, is a horrendous comedy of errors. Papa, tormented to extremes by his illness, eats a sliver of ice-9 and dies instantly. Meanwhile, the activities of the day begin with an Air Force demonstration, but one of the planes malfunctions and crashes into the cliff on which the presidential palace sits. The collision causes a massive landslide, dumping the palace into the sea below. Of course, with the palace goes the frozen body of Papa and, in what Jonah calls 11 the grand ah-whoom" (p. 174), the ocean crystallizes instantly into a worldwide block of ice-9. With giant tornadoes brewing, Jonah and Mona escape to a secret hiding place beneath the ground, where they stay for seven days until the tornadoes dissipate. When they emerge they find total destruction: buildings have been destroyed, almost everyone has been killed, and 45

the island has been ravaged. Overwhelmed by what she encounters, Mona touches a crystal of ice-9, now everywhere, to her lips and dies. Jonah wanders aimlessly, until he runs into the only other survivors-­ Newt, Frank, and an elderly couple named the Crosbys. They band together for the next six months as a"Swiss Family Robinson 11 (p. 183), during which time Jonah writes his story. The novel ends with no glimmer of hope, no hint of change. The end of the world has come, and it is just a matter of time before the few remaining people perish.

With Cat•s Cradle, Vonnegut once again presents a horrifying episode akin to his own Dresden experience. With the same didactic spirit we found in Player Piano, he assumes the role of social critic in Cat•s Cradle, warning his readers not to accept naively "the myth of scientific progress. 1132 His fear that unchecked scientific study could produce another Hiroshima--or worse--is at the heart of the novel. And his grim belief that something catastrophic will happen if scientists do not become more socially responsible prompts him not only to describe the frightening possibilities but also to examine how people would exist in its aftermath. These concerns, coupled with his ongoing search for a hero, combine to yield one of Vonnegut•s best literary efforts. Jonah•s Dresden experience is, of course. the ice-9 apocalypse. The irony, a twist Vonnegut adds to intensify the horror, is that Jonah becomes embroiled in the mess because of his noble intention to write about the bombing of Hiroshima. In the hope that he could focus people•s attention on the atrocity that a presumably wonderful 46

scientific discovery can cause, he winds up a victim of the very kind of atrocity he hoped to prevent. With the ice-9 disaster, his plans to write about "the day the world ended" materialize into a book that recounts the literal story. Like his predecessors--especially Malachi Constant--Jonah is clearly a victim of circumstances beyond his control. By the time he discovers that ice-9 exists, a fear that haunts him since his early days of research at the General Forge and Foundry Company, the disaster is imminent. The "grand ah-whoom" takes place swiftly and quietly as he watches helplessly: "[It] made me feel as though my own free will were as irrelevant as the free will of a piggy-wig arriving at the Chicago stockyards" (p. 128). Later, recalling his impression of a painting by Newt that looked like "a sort of spider's web," Jonah realizes he was right in seeing the "scratches ••• as the sticky net of human frailty hung up on a moonless night to dry"

(p. 113). Jonah's escape from his Dresden experience differs from his predecessors. His is an actual, physical escape rather than a psychological evasion ora refusal to accept reality. When the ice-9 disaster strikes and the sky fills with violent tornadoes, Jonah and Mona flee to a dungeon that Papa Manzano had converted into "a cozy bomb shelter" (p. 175). Safe in this "rock womb" (p. 176), Jonah and Mona nevertheless know their sanctuary is temporary. The "creature comforts of the dungeon did nothing to mitigate" their painful awareness of what was happening above them: "Tornadoes, strewing the poisonous blue-white frost of ice-9 everywhere, tore everyone and 47

everything above ground to pieces. Anything that still lived would die soon enough of thirst--or hunger--or rage--or apathy 11 (p. 177).

Jonah's one attempt at a psychological evasion was his 11 SOrdid sex episode .. (p. 178) with Mona. Fantasizing that his 11 heavenly

Mona 11 would provide him 11 profound, comforting secrets 11 and imagining that 11 behind her marvelous eyes lurked mysteries as old as Eve, 11 Jonah foolishly looked to the vapid Mona much like Howard Campbell had looked to Helga. But, while the 11 nation of two 11 had worked for Howard and Helga, it is a dismal failure for Jonah and Mona, one which Jonah dismisses abruptly: 11 Suffice it to say that I was both repulsive and repulsed 11 (p. 178). Emerging from his short-lived sanctuary with Mona, Jonah prepares to confront his Dresden but cannot anticipate the shock and horror he encounters. The widespread destruction and death sends him reeling, and Mona•s abrupt suicide causes him to collapse. In a final, weak attempt to escape reality, he simply closes his eyes and lets his 11 mind go blank 11 (p. 183). Discovered soon after by the other survivors, he feels 11 deep, idiotic relief 11 to embrace another human being, even if it were a 11 fleshy, humid barnyard fool 11 (p. 183). We are not privy to what happens during the six-month interval between the i ce-9 disaster and Jonah • s 11 Writi ng .. this book. Other than describing his post-ice-9 life as a 11 Swiss Family Robinson .. existence and noting his conversion to Bokononism, Jonah gives no hint of a moral struggle. All we really know is that, in the aftermath of ice-9, Christianity could not provide him a suitable moral code. 48

He needed a moral framework that embraced the global absurdity of his post-ice-9 world, and Bokononism better fit that bill. Vonnegut downplays any moral struggle in Cat•s Cradle, in order to highlight Bokononism as a workable solution to Jonah•s Dresden-like predicament. What we read, then, is not an account of Jonah•s attempts to be a moral person but an interpretation of the ice-9 catastrophe from his perspective as a Bokononist. With any moral struggle behind him, he shows us how Bokononism has enabled him to live with a modicum of dignity in the deranged post-ice-9 world. Through Bokononism Jonah emerges as one of Vonnegut•s most heroic protagonists. To understand this, we need to understand Bokononism, an ingenious Vonnegut invention. A 50-year-old San Lorenzan religion, Bokononism derives its name from its founder, Bokonon. Bokonon and his partner McCabe came to San Lorenzo to establish a utopia but created a religion instead. They abandoned their utopian plans when they found that good is always counterbalanced by evil. No matter how much "good" they could create in their utopia, at least an equal portion of "bad" would ensue. Rather than put forth the Sisyphean effort of eradicating evil, they decided to exploit "the priceless equilibrium between good and evil": "It was a belief of Bokonon that good societies could be built only by pitting good against evil, and by keeping the tension between the two high at all times" (p. 74). They used themselves to enact their theory of dynamic tension: McCabe became the "good guy" and Bokonon became the outlaw. And, as the strife between Bokonon and McCabe grew, "so did the happiness of the people grow" (p. 118). 49 ,, '

Using his growing reputation to market his religion, Bokonon candidly admitted that it consisted of a 11 pack of foma (harmless untruths)": "Truth was the enemy of the people because the truth was so terrible, so Bokonon made it his business to provide the people with better and better lies" (p. 118). In one of the many 11 Calypsos" that comprise the "Books of Bokonon," he explains: I wanted all things To seem to make some sense, So we all could be happy, yes, Instead of tense. And I made up lies So that they all fit nice, And I made this sad world A par-a-dise. (p. 90) With Bokononism Vonnegut uses two provocative ideas from his earlier works. The first comes from Mother Night, in which the "editor" notes that "lies can be the most beguiling forms of truth."33

As we saw in the previous chapter, Howard Campbell ~ the person he had pretended to be. His lies became his truths, and the novel chronicles his insight into the "real" Howard Campbell. The second idea is the usefulness of religion. Noted briefly in Player Piano through the character of Paul Lasher, an ex-Presbyterian minister, and developed further in The Sirens of Titan through Winston Niles Rumfoord's Church of God the Utterly Indifferent, the idea is fleshed out in Cat's Cradle. While Vonnegut does explain the general premise of Rumfoord's religion and describes people happily handicapping themselves to ensure parity, he does not highlight the clever interplay between religion and lies, nor does he give us such wonderfully bizarre yet apropos dogma until Bokononism. With his concepts of 11 karass," "vin-dit, 11 11 wrang wrang," "boko maru, 11 and others, he lays 50

out systematic explanations and behavioral formulas, all based on

11 foma, 11 that make life bearable. A- mirror to life, Bokononism is riddled with inconsistencies, contradictions, and trivia. The first 11 book, 11 for example, is prefaced by the warning, 11 Don•t be a fool! Close this book at once! It is nothing but foma! 11 (p. 177). The other 11 books 11 are filled with nonsensical sayings and trivial doggerel: 111 Busy, busy, busy• is what we Bokononists say whenever we think of how complicated and unpredictable the machinery of life really is 11 (p. 51) and 11 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 11 (p. 178). The beauty of Bokononism is that, through its doggerel and deception, it 11 actually contributes to the mutual love and enjoyment of life by the natives of San Lorenzo}4 And it transforms John from a heavy drinking, chain smoking, twice married wanderer who once contemplated nihilism out of his frustration with his inability to understand life into Jonah, the simple, sardonic, but basically content soul who has been gulped in and spewed out by a terrifying whale.

His embracing Bokononi sm changes him from a man who cries out, 11 My

God--life! Who can understand even one little minute of it? 11 to one who quietly acknowledges that life is, after all, a eat's cradle that was 11 meant to happen. 11 As a Bokononi st Jonah can 1 ive with peace and dignity, fully aware that his world is deranged and his own life absurd. He is, indeed,aVonnegut hero. 51

In Cat•s Cradle, Vonnegut broaches an interesting solution to the human dilemma of finding meaning in a meaningless world: lies. In spite -of the silliness and humor of Bokononism, the fictive religion readily demonstrates the palliative effect that 11 harmless untruths 11 can have in situations--like that described in the novel--which defy logic and reason. In a world where a Dresden holocaust, nuclear obliteration, or ice-9 catastrophe can occur, 11 foma 11 clearly can be more helpful than potentially harmful truths which science may unfold. Systematically presented as they are in Bokononism--or any religion-­ they help structure peoples• lives and, more importantly, they give people something to believe in. Once again, then, Vonnegut addresses man•s need for sincere belief, the issue he raised three novels earlier in Player Piano. In Cat•s Cradle he repeats his twofold contention that, to be heroic, the protagonist must be able to live with dignity and that, to live with dignity, he must satisfy his need for sincere belief. We saw Paul Proteus and Howard Campbell try, but fail, to live with dignity, and we saw Malachi Constant and then Jonah succeed. Next we will see how Vonnegut•s last two protagonists, Eliot Rosewater and Billy Pilgrim, fare in this same struggle. CHAPTER FIVE: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater 11 Be generous. Be kind ... - Eliot Rosewater

With his fifth novel, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965), Vonnegut moves closer to telling his Dresden story. While we still encounter metaphoric Dresdens in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, World War II is a major cause of Eliot Rosewater•s problems, and a climactic scene in the novel depicts the city of Indianapolis engulfed a Dresden-like firestorm. Like Vonnegut, Eliot Rosewater was a bright, educated young man whose neatly ordered world view was turned upside down after he experienced war•s pain, inhumanity, and pointlessness. Yet the crux of Eliot•s dilemma in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is not World War II. Although the war looms large in Eliot•s background, most of Eliot•s problems arise from the society in which he lives: a society that fosters the existence of two classes of people--the 11 haves 11 and the 11 have nots 11 --a society that makes for a

11 savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate .. distribution of wealth. 35 As the narrator tells us in the opening lines of the novel, Eliot•s Dresden is 11 a sum of money 11 (p. 7). Eliot Rosewater, like Paul Proteus and Malachi Constant, is one of society•s 11 haves. 11 Born into America•s wealthiest family, Eliot inherits a whopping amount of money, invested and protected by the Rosewater Foundation. So tremendous is the Rosewater fortune that

52 53

Eliot draws a yearly income of $1 million from the interest and dividends alone. The provisions of the Foundation were such that the money would pass to each new Rosewater generation and, while the corporate charter forbade any tampering with the capital, the recipients were free to spend the earnings as they pleased. When the novel opens, Eliot is the Foundation•s president. A Ph.D in international law who once 11 dreamed of helping the United Nations in some way 11 (p. 16), Eliot has an impressive background and credentials. He was 11 raised, educated, and entertained on the Eastern seaboard and in Europe 11 (p. 16). He had an illustrious career in World War II, rising to the rank of captain and earning numerous medals for his courage and accomplishments. He married a well-bred Eastern socialite, Sylvia duVrais Zetterling, and became president of the Rosewater Foundation by the time he was forty-six.

At first, Eliot 11 chose to take the Foundation seriously, 11 using it as a mechanism for achieving 11 beautiful, compassionate, and scientific

11 11 things : Rosewater dollars fought cancer and mental illness and race prejudice and police brutality and countless other miseries, encouraged college professors to look for truth, bought beauty at any pri ce 11 (p. 17). But Eliot•s picture is not entirely golden. The longer he serves as president of the Foundation, the more intense he feels about the unfair distribution of wealth in America; the more tormented and self-deprecatory he becomes because of his graced position. In a letter to his heir-- 11 whoever you may be 11 (p. 10)--he articulates his sentiments about 11 the wild ways money is passed around on earth 11 54

(p. 21) and places bl arne on 11 those sadly recent ancestors [who] had not made it the law of the Utopia that the wealth of each citizen should be limited'' (p. 12). He redefines the so-called American dream in a new dictum: 11 Grab much too much, or you'll get nothing at a11 11 (p. 13). And he criticizes himself as the 11 drunkard, Utopian dreamer, tinhorn saint, and aimless foo1 11 who thought he might change things (p. 14). Part of Eliot's problems, we learn, stems from two colossal tragedies that occurred during his young adulthood. The first was a sailing accident when Eliot was nineteen. Through his negligence, his mother fell overboard from the Rosewater yacht and drowned. The second, even more traumatic for Eliot, was a wartime accident in which Eliot opened fire on a group of supposed enemies, only to find that he had murdered innocent civilians. When he had discovered his terrible mistake, he 11 Seemed reasonably well for about ten minutes • • • • And then he calmly lay down in front of a moving truck 11 (p. 64). Not surprisingly, Eliot subsequently suffered a severe nervous breakdown from which he never completely recovers. The memory of these incidents, especially the latter, haunt Eliot for years afterward. Knowing that people had suffered and died at his hands, he feels compelled to atone for his sins in some significant way. His early post-war desire to help the United Nations and his later largesse as president of the Rosewater Foundation bespeak Eliot's need to make amends for his past. Soon after he becomes president, however, he sees that his position in the Foundation is a sham. His money was not buying him 55

the freedom he needed--freedom from his deep-set guilt--and the projects he was funding served little purpose. To Eliot, the pursuit

of knowledge, truth, and beauty~~the function of the arts and science-­ is largely an irrelevancy in a world where suffering and death are the common denominators of humanity. These concerns, coupled with his growing frustration with the senseless 11 Way money is passed around," lead him to abandon his posh New York life in search of a more satisfying, redemptive way to live. His quest takes him on a whimsical journey to such remote, unrelated places as Elsinore, California; Vashti, Texas; Clover Lick, West Virginia; and Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. He hobnobs with local volunteer firemen, the "salt of the earth 11 (p. 23), and becomes an avid admirer of science fiction writers, "the only ones with guts enough to really care about the future 11 (p. 18). In letters to his wife from these various towns, he castigates the "shallow and preposterous posing that was [their] life in New York" (p. 31) and expresses his hope of discovering "something" that will tell him "where to go, what to do there, and why to do it" (p. 31). His search ends in Rosewater, Indiana, the "drab little American town" (p. 33) where his family had made its fortune years earlier. Echoing the Homesteaders from Player Piano, the people of Rosewater are simple, "discarded" Americans whose usefulness or purpose in society had ceased long ago. They live in ramshackle houses, work desultorily in deadend jobs, and suffer the full range of maladies that typically beleaguer "have-nots." Vonnegut is merciless in his description of Rosewater: "All was shithouses, shacks, alcoholism, 56

ignorance, idiocy, and perversion, for all that was healthy and busy and intelligent in Rosewater County shunned the county seat11 (p. 39). Here, in this pathetic town with its cretinous inhabitants, Eliot finds his niche. He explains to Sylvia, 11 I look at these people, these Americans, • and I realize that they can't even care about themselves any more--because they have no use • • • • I'm going to love these discarded Americans, even though they're useless and unattractive .. (p. 36). He settles into a decaying one-room office, installs a telephone, and opens business as the Rosewater Foundation.

His motto: 11 How can we help you? 11 (p. 49). Disbursing paltry sums of money with abundantadvice to whoever needs 11 help, 11 Eliot becomes the spiritual volunteer fireman of Rosewater. 36 His telephone number spreads rapidly to every house and phone booth in town, and people begin calling him at all hours of the day, whenever their problems become too much to bear. In an average day, Eliot would give a man $500 not to commit suicide, tell another to take aspirin with a glass of wine, soothe a paranoid woman who, 11 by almost anybody's standards was too dumb to live,.

(p. 156), buy parole for an unfairly imprisoned wrongdoer ( 11 most of Eliot's clients weren't brave enough or clever enough for lives of crime 11 (p. 56)), and dole out unlimited amounts of love and understanding. The people of Rosewater, in turn, revere Eliot as a godsend and saint. They take literally the Foundation's motto, relying on him for their every need. Most find that what he has to offer surpasses what any religion can offer, so they look upon him as a spiritual leader as well. Thus, at one point in the novel, we 57

see Eliot preparing to baptize two newborn babies, whom he greets unceremoniously with 11 Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth, .. and instructs, 11 There• s only one rule that I know of, babies: • ••• you •ve got to be kind 111 (p. 93). The 11 new 11 Eliot nevertheless remains pained and guilt-ridden. Though his humanistic concerns are sincere and, in his own way, he succeeds in countering the country•s inequitable distribution of wealth, Eliot seems defeated, jaded, alone. His wife had joined him briefly in Rosewater but had returned to New York, unable to adjust to her changed husband and his new squalid life style. His father, a prominent, hard-nosed U.S. Senator, had practically disowned him, forcefully dena unci ng Eli at •s 11 compassion for the maggots in the slime on the bottom of the human garbage pail 11 (p. 46). Eliot himself had taken to drinking heavily, torn between his wife and family on one hand and the people of Rosewater on the other.

Back in New York, 11 it was common gossip 11 that Eliot was a 11 flamboyantly sick man 11 (p. 23). In addition to the fact that he had 11 killed his mother, had a terrifying tyrantfor a father, 11 and had endured a horrifying experience in world War II, he was now playing a lunatic Good Samaritan in the depraved town of Rosewater. Wilfully forfeiting luxuries for squa 1or, he was 11 Variously spoke of as

•The Nut, • 1 The Saint, • 1 The Holy Roller, • •John the Baptist, • and so on 11 (p. 10). In a society where money was the yardstick for measuring success, people naturally wondered about Eliot•s sanity.

Here, ostensibly, was a 11 have 11 who chose to be a 11 have not. 11 58

The plot of the novel hinges on the question of Eliot's sanity. Since the bylaws of the Rosewater Foundation declared that "all officers were officers for life unless proved legally insane" (p. 8), Eliot stood to lose the presidency if the speculation about him proved true--that he was insane. With no heir to succeed him, the Rosewater· fortune would then revert to the closest living relative, a distant cousin named Fred who "didn't even know ••• that he was related to the Indiana Rosewaters" (p. 95). A weasley young lawyer, Norman Mushari, sees the situation as a prime opportunity. He masterminds a plan whereby Fred will bring Eliot to court, have him declared insane, and inherit Eliot's money. Norman, of course, will represent Fred and pick up a handsome fee for his services. The lawsuit is the last straw for Eliot. Beleaguered by his father's constant harassments, crushed by the break-up of his marriage, worn by three years of ministering to the people of Rosewate~ he cannot tolerate the added stress of a sanity hearing. En route to a "last chance" meeting with Sylvia, he lapses into a schizophrenic stupor and, hallucinating, sees the city of Indianapolis engulfed in a huge firestorm. He blacks out--and awakens a full year later in a mental institution, surrounded by his father, doctors, and lawyers. The picture of mental and physical health, he seems to have undergone a dramatic transformation back to his pre-Rosewater days, before the absurdity of his grandiose life had bothered him. As Eliot regains consciousness, his father is asking him to explain some solution. Puzzled by the request, Eliot asks a few 59

cautious questions, protecting his facade of sanity, and discovers the startling news that a year has elapsed, that his sanity hearing is scheduled the very next day, and that fifty-seven Rosewater women have filed paternity lawsuits against him. Suddenly, as he tries to fit these pieces of information into an understandable whole, 11 the memory of all that had happened in the blackness came crashing back And with that mighty inward crash of memories came the idea for settling everything instantly, beautifully, and fairly" (p. 188). It was the solution his father was asking about. Realizing that the existence of an heir would put an end to Norman Mushari's greedy plans, Eliot announces his intention to "legally acknowledge that every child in Rosewater County said to be mine is mine, regardless of blood type" and to issue them 11 full rights of inheritance as my sons and daughters" (p. 190). His concluding remark, "And tell them ••• to be fruitful and multiply" (p. 190) ends the novel.

This upbeat conclusion initially catches us off guard. From what we have seen in the previous novels, we expect a "typical" Vonnegut ending: one of despair (Gat's Cradle), resignation (Player Piano and The Sirens of Titan), or death (Mother Night). But what we find in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater seems just the opposite. After all, in one masterstroke, Eliot stymies the wicked Mushari's get-rich­ quick scheme, breaks the tyrannical hold his father had over him, and creates a practical, effective way to counter society's pervasive 11 I've-got-mine-to-hell-with-you" modM v.<..vencU. Does he not resemble 60

the classical literary hero who emerges victorious in a struggle against a villain? Yet when we remember who our protagonist is--a questionably sane, guilt-ridden, tormented soul who blacks out for a full year--we begin to doubt his triumph and wonder whether, as Peter Reed contends, the conclusion to the novel is not "something of a throwaway ending, with comic undercutting on the one hand and darkly tragic implications on the other."37 Looking at it in this light, we cannot help but think that Eliot's final proclamation is just crazy enough to prove his insanity. And, while Eliot may win the temporary battle with Mushari on the technicality of an heir, we fear that he will likely wind up the loser in the long run. This ambiguity in the conclusion and in the character of Eliot suggests that we should assess the nature of Eliot's Dresden experience more closely than we did in the previous novels. For Eliot's Dresden is less clear, less specific than the others. Rather, it consists of a number of unrelated circumstances that converge upon him. The first of these has to do with money: the way money dominates people and the way it is used as the primary measure of a person's success, happiness, and moral stature. As in our own society, the society in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater elevates people who have money above the rest of humanity and dismisses those with little or none as useless, ignorant, and even sinful. It is no wonder, then, that both groups--the "haves" and "have nots"--suffer from a variety of neuroses, all stemming from their possession of or desire for 61

money. For the 11 haves," there is the terrible realization that their wealth does not ensure happiness and their suspicion that society has conned them cruelly into expecting otherwise. For the 11 have nots, 11 there is the constant striving to get money, to 11 Slurp from the Money

River 11 as Eliot describes it, and their vehement envy of others more fortunate. Closely aligned with money is society's rampant materialism.

When our 11 Sadly recent ancestors had not made it the law ••• that the wealth of each citizen should be limited" (p. 12), people's greed quickly turned into an obsession to "grab much too much • II

(p. 13). As a result, today 11 0ne baby [will] be born owning a big piece of the country ••• and [another will] be born without owning anything" (p. 87). Society's mad scrambling for money and material things form a major part of Eliot's Dresden. While most of the wealthy people in the novel are "samaritrophic"--"barely able to hear their consciences" (p. 42-43)--Eliot is painfully aware of the wildfire avarice around him, and his conscience rails at him to do something about it. Thus we hear him exhort science fiction writers to 11 think about the silly ways money gets passed around, and then think up better ways" (p. 22). We read in his letter to the next president of the Rosewater Foundation his advice to "be generous. Be kind. You can safely ignore the arts and science. They never helped anybody. Be a sincere, attentive friend of the poor" (p. 15). And we find him trying to raise his father's consciousness, to 11 cure" his father's samaritrophia: 11 1 think it's terrible the way people don't share 62 ' ' things in this country • • • • The least a government could do . . . is to divide things up fairly among the [people]. Life is hard enough, without people having to worry themselves sick about money, too. There's plenty for everyone in this country, if only we'll share more" ( p. 88 ) • Eliot's discontent with his society could pose a sufficiently overwhelming dilemma. Yet there is more to Eliot's Dresden than his social milieu. The deaths he caused in his youth, especially during World War II, also contribute to his Dresden. Although Eliot neither talks nor thinks about these tragedies, Vonnegut gives us enough background information to make it clear that they continue to bother him. His attempted suicide, his passionate post-war hatred of the arts, and his refusal to talk about the accidents with anyone, including his psychiatrists, all point to the intense anguish and guilt that Eliot suffers as a result of them. In light of his two-pronged Dresden, Eliot is understandably a very disturbed person, if not "flamboyantly sick." He estranges himself from his family and friends, and wilfully abandons his comfortable, glamorous New York life. Before discovering Rosewater and formulating plans for his "work of art" there, he wanders around the country, desperately trying to find a salve for his pain. He equates himself with Hamlet, caught in a similar excruciating dilemma, and wonders more than once whether "the sleep of death" is not the most appealing prospect for him. Even after he finds his "answer" in Rosewater, he does not derive the peace and fulfillment he anticipated. After his initial excitement and enthusiasm wane, he 63

settles into a monotonous routine that reflects his capitulation, his resignation to accept the pain. Yet, while he cannot find a solution to his own problems, he nevertheless does what he can to help others resolve theirs. His move to Rosewater, thus, stems from mixed motives. On one hand, it was the most practical, selfless, and beneficial activity he could undertake, given his anti-capitalistic, humanitarian views. He could muster the zeal of a religious convert when explaining his work there. Responding to the widespread speculation about his sanity, he would ask, 11 What if the nut ••• gave sensible explanations? 11 {p. 154), and then launch into an eloquent diatribe on America's greed, using the 11 Money River 11 metaphor: 11 The Money River [is] where the wealth of the nation flows. We [the Rosewaters] were born on the banks of it • • • • We can slurp from that mighty river to our hearts' content. And we even take slurping lessons so we can slurp more efficiently. 11 Eliot was fleetingly heartless, for he was thinking angrily in the abstract. 11 Born slurpers never are [aware] that they slurped. And they can't imagine what the poor people are talking about when they say they hear somebody slurping. They don't even know what it means when somebody mentions the Money River. When one of us claims that there is no such thing as the Money River I think to myself, 'My gosh, but that's a dishonest and tasteless thing to say. 111 11 I admit [my office in Rosewater] is no Taj Mahal. But should it be, with other Americans having such a rotten time? 11 {p. 88-89) Rosewater also provided Eliot a fairly safe, effective way to avoid his Dresden. It enabled him to distance himself from the rest of society and its materialistic preoccupations. His Foundation office became his protective womb where he could spend much of his time sleeping, and his ever-present bottle of Southern Comfort kept 64

him sufficiently inebriated to numb any pain when he was awake. Consuming his time by "snoozing and scratching himself and occasionally answering the telephone" (p. 89), Eliot found his days passed quickly, quietly, and painlessly. While Eliot could ignore his Dresden in Rosewater, Norman Mushari's lawsuit brought that life to an abrupt end and pushed Eliot into a confrontation. At this point, his evasion tactics intensify. Moving into 11 a kind of unreality,n38 similar to Howard Campbell's onslaught of catatonia, Eliot hears "the click 11 and suddenly becomes samaritrophic. As Noyes Finnerty, a Rosewater ex-convict explains, "You get to know a man, and deep down there's something bothering him bad, and maybe you never find out what it is, but it's what makes him do like he does All of a sudden [one day] you hear the click from him. You turn and look at him. He's stopped working. He's all calmed down. He looks real dumb • • • • That thing that bothered him so will never click on again 11 (p. 168). With his conscience "clicked 11 off, Eliot had "no surface memory" of the pain and torment that had driven him to Rosewater. Dressing for a meeting with Sylvia in Indianapolis, he thinks, "I never felt better in my life. I feel as though ••• some marvelous new phase of my life were about to begin 11 (p. 166). This euphoric evasion is short-lived, however, and soon gives way to a full-blown breakdown. In a frightening hallucination, Eliot sees the city of Indianapolis engulfed in a firestorm, emblematic of how life has consumed him--terribly and totally. He blacks out, "departing from sanity as his burdened mind sinks into the serenity of 65

a breakdown." 39 When he regains consciousness a full year later, his first thoughts reflect his continuing desire to escape: "Eliot wished he were a dickey bird, so that he could go up into the tree top and never come down again. He wanted to fly up so high because there was something going on at ground-zero that did not make him feel good" (p. 178). Then, however, he remembers his unique solution to his problems, and his need to escape ends. Eliot's coup de grace--adopting the Rosewater children and making them his heirs--culminates a long struggle to be moral and live with dignity. His struggle begins when he becomes disenchanted with his life in New York and his position as Rosewater Foundation president. Expressing the contempt he feels in the trivial but satiric couplet, "Many, many good things I have bought I Many, many bad things I have fought" (p. 17), he rejects that life style because it did not yield "good things." His subsequent move to Rosewater was his experiment to achieve good by loving people "who have no use 11 (p. 183). For, as Kilgore Trout would explain, "Poverty is a relatively mild disease for even a very flimsy American soul, but uselessness will kill strong and weak alike, and kill every time 11 (p. 184). And, for the most part, Eliot succeeds with his experiment. Yet, as we have already noted, Rosewater did not satisfy Eliot completely. Though his work there-- 11 treasuring people as people" (p. 184)--sustained him morally, his life still lacked dignity. The pain from having ostracized himself from Sylvia, his family, and friends and the guilt from having killed peopled tormented him so, that he could love others but not himself. He was too selfless. The 66

pathetic state of his office-cum-home in Rosewater bespeaks this tragic self-neglect. And his perpetual alcoholic stupor marks his ongoing attempt to dull his anguish. His struggle to be moral--to practice what he preached--continues to the very end of the novel. When he announces his solution to the lawsuit and consequently lays the foundation for a permanent endowment to the people of Rosewater, he succeeds in this struggle. And, suspicious though we may be of his sanity and the ultimate consequences of his action, we feel that for the first time in the novel Eliot finds dignity as well. Knowing he has contrived a unique solution to a seemingly intractable problem, he appears more self­ assured and proud than he has at any other point in the novel. His triumphant last words, 11 Tell them to go forth and multiply, .. reflect the pleasure he feels at the prospect of seeing his work legitimated and the knowledge that he has not failed the people of Rosewater. For once he can set aside his guilt and love himself. The novel thus ends with an air of generosity that 11 lifts [us] out of the topsy­ turvy world of enslaving power into the world of instinctive love .. 40-­ a transcendance that applies equally to Eliot, enabling him to derive a sense of self-worth and emerge as a wonderfully endearing Vonnegut hero. In his search for a hero, Vonnegut keeps returning to the basic question of man's ability to live with dignity in the face of such overwhelming,terrifying realities as the Dresden firebombing. We have seen repeatedly how he connects the needs to invent 11 WOnderful new lies 11 and to feel useful with the overarching need for sincere belief. 67

Eliot Rosewater appreciated these needs for himself as well as for others. The purpose of his work in Rosewater, after all, was not merely for his own benefit but also for the people there. He showed them--and us--that money does not solve problems, but that love can. Love in Eliot's view--taking a sincere interest in others, 11 treasuring people as people 11 --can infuse peoples' lives with a sense of purpose and meaning, and thus give their lives dignity. This concept of love is not new to Vonnegut's canon. Malachi Constant first introduces the idea when he and Bea decide that man's primary purpose should be to 11 love whoever [is] around to be loved ... But for Malachi it is a discovery that comes late in his life. For Eliot it is an enduring motivation that drives him from the very first page of the novel. In his next novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, when Dresden itself poses the dilemma which the protagonist must face, Vonnegut's simplistic philosophy about love cannot suffice. For Billy Pilgrim, one of Vonnegut's kindest protagonists, gives and receives love easily, but does not find the redemptive quality in love that Eliot and Malachi find. Billy, as we shall see, is so emotionally wracked by his experiences in World War II that he must resort to schizophrenic explanations to exist with a modicum of peace and dignity. CHAPTER SIX: Slaughterhouse-Five 11 So it goes." - Billy Pilgrim

In Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Vonnegut finally confronts his Dresden experience. No longer a metaphor for the horror and insanity that modern man must face, Dresden is the literal catastrophe in Slaughterhouse-Five, and Vonnegut, as the implied author, not only narrates the story but also insinuates himself in the action. Writing his Dresden book at last, Vonnegut wants his readers to know that "he was there," that the incredible war experiences that Billy Pilgrim endured he also endured. At the very outset of the novel, he tells us, "All this happened, more or less ... 41 Even though Vonnegut criticizes his book as a "failure" and a "short, jumbled, jangled" piece of writing (p. 14), it represents a triumph for him, the end of a struggle which had taken him twenty­ three years and five novels to resolve. After exploring protagonists• reactions to Dresden-like experiences in his previous five works and experimenting with ways in which they could live with dignity in the face of such horrors, Vonnegut was ready to 11 get the real stuff [that was bothering him] off his chest1142 --he was ready to write about his own devastating experiences in World War II. To tell his story, he creates the kind, innocent Billy Pilgrim who, scarcely out of high school, enters World War II just in time

68 69 Q '

to fight in the Battle of the Bulge. Still in civilian clothes, Billy finds himself in the company of a few American survivors who wander aimlessly for days around the wintery German countryside. Billy practically freezes to death before he and his comrades are captured and sent marching off with other POWs (including Vonnegut) to prison. Throughout an incomprehensible itinerary that eventually sets him in Dresden, Billy yearns to be left alone, attracted in his near-death state to the peace and painlessness that only death could bring him. "I'll be all right. You guys go on without me," he pleads (p. 24). But his German captors prod him on, giving him the bare essentials in food and clothing to keep him alive. By the time Billy gets to Dresden, his "dance with death" (p. 1) has ended and his spirits pick up considerably. When he encounters Dresden, the "Florence of the Elbe," he is awestruck by its beauty: The Americans arrived in Dresden at five in the afternoon. The boxcar doors opened, and the door­ ways framed the loveliest city that most Americans had ever seen. The skyline was intricate and voluptuous and enchanted • It looked like a Sunday school picture of Heaven to Billy Pilgrim. (p. 98-99) Assigned to work in a factory producing a vitamin syrup for pregnant women, Billy goes about his work in Dresden with the unquestioning obedience and naivete of a child. As long as conditions were somewhat tolerable, "everything was pretty much all right with Billy Pilgrim" (p. 104). Then comes the Dresden firebombing, the horrifying massacre that leaves 135,000 dead and transmorgrifies beautiful, thriving Dresden into the lifeless "surface of the moon" (p. 118). Protected from the 70

firestorms by the shelter of the slaughterhouse where he lives, Billy emerges to find destruction unparalleled in human history--an apocalypse that would make Hiroshima and Nagasaki pale in comparison. The horror intensifies when the 11 corpse mining .. begins. With the vitamin factory destroyed (and all the pregnant women gone), Billy and his fellow prisoners are charged with the sickening task of digging up and disposing of bodies, a daily chore that lasts until the war ends several months later: 11 There were hundreds of corpse mines operating by and by. They didn't smell bad at first, were max museums. But then the bodies rotted and liquified, and the stink was like roses and mustard gas 11 (p. 141). With the war over, Billy returns home, supposedly forgetting all that has happened to him. He goes to optometry school, gets married, becomes rich. He turns a one-office optometry practice into a five­ office chain; he fathers two children; he drives Cadillacs. He becomes active in community affairs and even serves as president of the local Lion's Club. To all the people who know him, Billy Pilgrim is a loving family man, a successful businessman, and a model citizen. His experiences in the war are, presumably, unimportant memories. Our narrator, however, tells us otherwise. So stressful are Billy's war experiences that, shortly before his capture by the

Germans in 1944, he becomes 11 Unstuck in time, 11 and he remains a victim of spastic time travel for the rest of his life. Whenever things become too unbearable for Billy, his mind would leap in time to an unpredictable moment, in both his past and future, all the way from his pre-birth to his death. As a result, Billy lived in a 11 constant 71

state of stage fright, ••• because he never knew what part of his 1ife he was going to have to act in next 11 (p. 17). We also read about Billy•s conviction that he had been kidnapped by creatures from the alien planet Tralfamadore and displayed in a zoo there for several years. On the night of his daughter•s wedding, years after the war, Billy claims he was scooped up by a flying saucer and taken to Tralfamadore, where he lived with the beautiful Montana Wildhack, the fictive counterpart of a Marilyn Monroe. Because this entire episode existed in a time warp, Billy says, he was not gone from Earth for more than a microsecond. Vonnegut cautions us that Tralfamadore might be a figment of Billy•s imagination. The third short paragraph into Billy•s story states silllJly, 11 He says 11 (p. 17), showing the narrator•s doubts about Billy•s claims and suggesting that we too should be wary. Later in the novel, we learn that Billy had once read a Kilgore Trout novel about aliens kidnapping humans and housing them in a zoo on their home planet--a further indication that Tralfamadore is a product of Billy•s schizophrenia. Whether real or imaginary, Tralfamadore plays a significant role in Billy•s story.43 For what Billy supposedly learns there becomes his credo, embodying Tralfamadorian explanations about the 11 true 11 nature of reality (which our faulty human perceptions prevent us from seeing) and the Tralfamadorian philosophy for living in a deterministic universe. He redefines the nature of time and death, and shrugs off wars as inevitable occurrences. So taken is Billy by these ideas that he determines to spread the

Tralfamadorian gospel to as many people as possible: 11 So many souls 72

were lost and wretched, Billy believed, because they could not see as well as his little green friends on Tralfamadore •••• He was going to comfort [these] people with the truth ••• 11 (p. 20). He writes letters to newspapers. He goes on late-night radio talk shows. He tries to convert his family, friends, and patients to his unique outlook. Not surprisingly, the people around him think that Billy has gone crazy. But they attribute his insanity to a serious head wound he suffered in a plane crash, along with the shock of his wife's death shortly thereafter. No one suspects that the war might be the culprit. So, by the time Billy is only forty-six, everybody generally assumes he is a 11 senile widower .. {p. 16). That, essentially, is the story of Billy Pilgrim. There is no beginning, middle, or end. His story starts -i.n me.d~ JLU-- 11 Listen. Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. He has gone to sleep a senile widower and awakened on his wedding day 11 {p. 16)--and ends with the questioning chirp of a bird in Dresden-- 11 Poo-tee-weet? 11 (p. 142). The sequencing of action is as erratic as Billy's time travelling. In the novel's scant 142 pages, the time and place change over fifty times. Chapters vary in length from two to fifteen pages. Paragraphs are frequently as brief as one sentence, as Vonnegut moves from one thought to another, often without a transition or segue. We read poems, song lyrics, excerpts from historical documents, inscriptions on jewelry, epitaphs, and military signs. Clearly, the novel is written in the 11 telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamadore 11 (p. 1), a style in which symbols and messages 73

are clumped together· and read all at once: "There isn't any particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep" (p. 59). Vonnegut thus experiments with a new mode of writing in Slaughterhouse-Five, a style that not only differs from that in his previous novels but, more importantly, fills his need to describe an indescribable horror. By manipulating time, space, and event so that they seem to coexist in the novel, Vonnegut cleverly draws us into Billy's schizophrenia. As a result, we experience--and not merely observe--Billy's insanity and feel with Vonnegut the full horror of Dresden. Vonnegut realized that we "lack the imaginative ability to comprehend the full actuality" of Dresden, 44 so he employs a new strategy in Slaughterhouse-Five that lets him "conceptualize and define the night terrors of an era so unreal, so unbelievable, that the very term 'fiction' seems no longer to have any currency."45 While we obviously cannot read all the symbols and messages in Slaughterhouse-Five simultaneously, we do come away from the novel with an appreciation for its innovative structure that transcends time and space: "The way in which the short scenes from severa 1 points in time are spliced together helps sustain the impression of concurrent action and intensifies the sense of an interrelationship 46 of even t s •• ~ • u An d we are move d by th e "beau t y, surpr i se, an d depth" that the novel evinces, even though it has· "no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects" (p. 59). At the heart of the novel's beauty, surprise, and depth is the 74

character of Billy Pi 1grim. The protagonist who ends Vonnegut •s search for a hero, Billy follows the pattern of his predecessors-- confronting the real Dresden, trying to evade the unbearable reality of it--and shows us that, even under the most trying situations, man can live with dignity. For Billy, schizophrenia is not only his escape mechanism but also his salvation. It provides him with an interpretation of life, based on "harmless untruths" like the Bokononists• foma, that enables him to live with peace and dignity. To begin our discussion of Billy's experiences in the war and how they affected him so severely, let us recall a passage from the introduction to Mother Night in which Vonnegut summarizes the Dresden holocaust. The "I" in the excerpt, referring to Vonnegut, could equally refer to Billy, since Vonnegut•s and Billy's experiences were the same: There were about a hundred of us in our particular work group, and we were put out as contract labor to a factory that was making a vitamin-enriched malt syrup for pregnant women. It tasted like thin honey laced with hickory smoke. It was good. I wish I had some right now. And the city was lovely, highly ornamented, like Paris, and untouched by war. It was supposedly an "open" city, not to be attacked since there were no troop concentrations or war industries there. But high explosives were dropped on Dresden by American and British planes on the night of February 13, 1945 • • • • There were no particular targets for the bombs. The hope was that they would create a lot of kindling and drive firemen under­ ground. And then hundreds of thousands of tiny incendiaries were scattered over the kindling, like seeds on freshly turned loam. More bombs were dropped to keep the firemen in their holes, and all the little fires grew, joined one another, became one apocalyptic flame. Hey presto: fire storm. It was the largest massacre in European history, by the way. And so what? 75

We didn't get to see the fire storm. We were in a cold meat locker under a slaughterhouse with our six guards and ranks and ranks of dressed cadavers of cattle, pigs, horses, and sheep. We heard the bombs walking around up there. Now and then there would be a gentle shower of calcimine. If we had gone above to take a look, we would have been turned into artifacts characteristic of fire storms: seeming pieces of charred firewood two or three feet long--ridiculously small human beings, or jumbo fried grasshoppers, if you will. The malt syrup factory was gone. Everything was gone but the cellars where 135,000 Hansels and Gretels had been baked like gingerbread men. So we were put to work as corpse miners, breaking into shelters, bringing bodies out. And I got to see many German types of all ages as death found them, usually with valuables in their laps. Sometimes relatives would come to watch us dig. There were interesting, too. (p. vi-vii) These five brief paragraphs poignantly describe the nightmare that Billy endures. In the backdrop is the war, irrational and monstrous. At the core of the nightmare is Dresden itself, a catastrophe so awesome and horrifying that it throws Billy into a psychological tailspin for the rest of his life. Like Eliot Rosewater, Billy becomes "flamboyantly sick" because of the war and Dresden. The novel is filled with illustrations of how the war devastates Billy. In addition to time travel and his Tralfamadorian hallucinations, we see the effects of Dresden in such maladies as narcolepsy, amnesia, and shell shock: Billy had fallen asleep while exam1n1ng a female patient •••• He had fallen asleep at work before. It had been funny at first. Now Billy was starting to get worried about it • • • • He tried to remember how old he was, couldn't. He tried to remember what year it was. He couldn't remember that either •••• Billy turned his attention to his desk. There was an open copy of The Review of Optometry there. It was opened to an editorial, which Billy now read. A siren went off, scared the hell out of him. He 76 0 '

was expecting World War III at any time. The siren was simply announcing high noon. (p. 38-39)

We also learn that Billy would find himself 11 Weeping every so often, .. for no apparent reason: 11 Nobody had ever caught Billy doing it. Only [his] doctor knew. It was an extremely quiet thing Billy did, and not very moist 11 (p. 42). Finally, we read of Billy's post-war hospitalization, his self-commital to a mental hospital when he found himself 11 alarmed by the outside world 11 (p. 67). Although

11 nobody else suspected that he was going crazy ••• now he was in the mental hospital [and] the doctors agreed: He was going crazy 11 (p. 67). While they 11 didn't think it had anything to do with the war, .. Vonnegut tells us that Billy had 11 found life meaningless .. because of what 11 he had seen in the war 11 (p. 67). Probably the most moving illustration of the war's continuing effect on Billy occurs at his eighteenth wedding anniversary party, a full twenty years after Dresden. When a barbershop quartet begins singing to honor Billy and his wife, 11 Unexpectedly, Billy Pilgrim found himself upset by the song and the occasion 11 (p. 113). He is so .. pulled apart inside .. by the episode that he 11 thought hard about the effect the quartet had had on him, and then found an association with an experience he had had long ago. He did not have to travel in time to the experience. He remembered it shimmeringly 11 (p. 117). It was the Dresden holocaust. The singing group reminded him of the four guards in Dresden when they emerged from the slaughterhouse to discover the devastation: 11 The guards drew together instinctively, rolled their eyes. They experimented with one expression and then another, said nothing, though their mouths were often open. They 77 looked like a silentfilmof a barbersoop quartet .. (p. 117). So horrifying is Dresden and the war that insanity is Billy•s only escape. Through his schizophrenia, that 11 boon to modern mankind, .. Billy can evade the unbearable present by escaping into his past or future. Though he has no control over his time travelling, it happens mostly when the pain or stress of a particular moment intensifies beyond endurance. Like a regulator opening a valve to keep an engine from overheating, Billy•s subconscious trips a mechanism in his memory that sends him to other times, other places: The naked Americans took their places under many showerheads along a white-tiled wall •••• An unseen hand turned a master valve. Out of the showerheads gushed a scalding rain. The rain was a blowtorch that did not warm. It jazzed and jangled Billy•s skin without thawing the ice in the marrow of his long bones • • • • Billy zoomed back in time to his infancy. He was a baby who had just been bathed by his mother. Now his mother wrapped him in a towel, carried him into a rosy room that was filled with sunshine • Billy gurgled and cooed. ( p. 57) Billy•s schizophrenia also enables him to fabricate the wonderful, bizarre tale about Tralfamadore, where he supposedly lived with Montana Wildhack in an 11 erotic dream come true ... 47 Though, as we already noted, the Tralfamadorian episode probably occurs only in Billy•s mind, it nevertheless offers Billy a sanctuary to which he can time-travel, a shelter reminiscent of Jonah•s and Mona•s rock womb. In Billy•s fevered mind, Tralfamadore was as real as the war, and his 11 life 11 there was a comforting and peaceful as the war was disruptive and frightening. Billy does not struggle to be moral in the same sense that the other protagonists do. His is a struggle more for meaning rather 78

than morality. For Billy, goodness comes easily, especially during the war when he is portrayed largely as innocent, childlike, and incapable of evil. From the moment he is captured in Germany, he is the "naive little boy" in the company of rough-tough men. On his march through Germany with the other POWs, he continually irritates the other soldiers, bumping and crashing into them because one of his shoes had lost a heel. "Pardon me; excuse me," he would politely say, while they would rail at him with expressions and expletives he had never heard before. Nevertheless, as more Americans would join his marching group, he would always try "to be friendly, to help,

~~he could, [even though] his resources were meager" (p. 101). The portrait of Billy as innocent child is enhanced by his inability to comprehend what is happening to him. Festooned in remnants of clothing that make him look variously like Cinderella, a clown, and a "dirty flamingo, .. Billy is unaware of how 11 Screamingly funny .. he appears. When a British prisoner sees how absurd Billy looks, he is "filled with pity" and talks to him like a father to his son: "Are you really an Ameri can? 11 said the Englishman. "Yes," said Billy. "And your rank? 11 "Private." "What became of your boots, 1 ad?" "I don't remember." "Is that coat a joke? 11 "Sir?" "Where did you get such a thing?" Billy had to think hard about that. "They gave it to me, 11 he said at last. "Jerry gave it to you?" "Who?" "The Germans gave it to you?" "Yes." 79

Billy didn't like the questions. They were fatiguing.· "Ohhhh--Yank, Yank, Yank--" said the Englishman, "That coat was an insult." "Sir?" "It was a deliberate attempt to humiliate you. You mustn't let Jerry do things like that." After the war, when Billy grows up to discover that "he really didn't like life at all" (p. 68), his quest to find meaning begins. While it is easy for him to be good and moral, to lead a happy, decent life ostensibly, inside Billy is an emotional wreck, desperately searching for an answer to the bird 's existential question, "Poo-tee- weet?" At first he seeks medical help, checking himself into the veterans' hospital and finding a kindred spirit in his roommate, Eliot Rosewater: "They both had found life meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in the war • • • • So they were trying to reinvent themselves and their universe (p. 67). Articulating Billy's sentiments, Rosewater explains that, in a world where a Dresden holocaust can occur, people need "a lot of wonderful new lies, or [they] just aren•t going to want to go on living" (p. 68). When medicine fails him, Billy takes his cue from Rosewater and develops his own set of lies--putting an end to his search for meaning. His response to Dresden, the war, and man's inhumanity to man is contained in his "lessons from Tralfamadore" (p. 131). The most significant Tralfamadorian concept concerns the nature of time, which, according to Billy, humans do not understand correctly. Time consists not of a sequence of discrete moments, "like beads on a string," but of a simultaneous combination of the past, present, and future: "It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows 80 another one, . . . that once a moment is gone it is gone forever •• All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist" (p. 19). As a result of this new definition of time, Billy and his Tralfamadorian friends view death from a different perspective: "When a person dies, he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past" (p. 19). And since the past is one with the present and future, "it is very silly for people to cry at funerals" (p. 19): "When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is 'So it goes.'" (p. 19) Along with their concepts of time and death, the Tralfamadorians "teach" Billy about the deterministic nature of the universe, countering the fatuous human notion of free will. Moments are "s true tured" to happen: they a 1ways have happened, and they a 1ways will happen. There is nothing that can be done to alter a moment, whether it be a moment of happiness and joy or an instance of senseless slaughter and cruelty. Thus, Billy concludes that "the idea of preventing war on Earth is stupid" (p. 78). And he is able to accept the fact that the Dresden massacre happened because "the moment was structured that way" (p. 102). Talking about Dresden at one point with a history professor, Billy explains, "It was all right • • • • Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does. I learned that on Tralfamadore" (p. 131). / Embracing the Tralfamadorian philosophy, Billy can safely dismiss the questioning bird's "Poo-tee-weet?" as irrelevant. "There is no why," the Tralfamadorians tell him, "because the moment simply is" 81

(p. 51). He also can find peace and pleasure by taking the

Tralfamadorian's advice to 11 ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the- good ones 11 (p. 78). Billy Pilgrim, then, is able to forge a sense of dignity and purpose from his exotic Tralfamadorian views. Insane though he is, his schizophrenia gives him a formula for living with dignity. It changes him from the tormented soul who 11 quits, surrenders, apologizes, and asks to be 1eft a 1one 11 (p. 121) to the contented man who can compose his own epitaph, 11 Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt 11 (p. 81). He is a true Vonnegut hero.

As the introduction to this paper stated, Vonnegut's search for a hero ends with Slaughterhouse-Five not because he finds the epitome of a hero in Billy Pilgrim, but because the novel brings a long, personal struggle for Vonnegut to an end. By writing his 11 war book, .. the story he had been contemplating since Player Piano, Vonnegut was finally able to exorcise the demon that Dresden had created. Looking back at Vonnegut's novels, we can see how each contributes essential themes, concepts, and ploys that appear in Slaughterhouse-Five. Player Piano, though the least memorable novel, introduces the key concept of the heroic--the ability to live with dignity in our deranged twentieth century society--that we find repeated in each of his subsequent works. The Sirens of Titan first shows how a severely battered protagonist can live with dignity, and introduces Tralfamadore, Vonnegut's favorite make-believe planet that figures so prominently in Slaughterhouse-Five. Mother Night 82 broaches the idea of "1 ies as the most beguiling forms of truth" and introduces schizophrenia as the "boon to modern mankind." eat's Cradle develops the idea of "hannless untruths" through the ingenious religion of Bokononism. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater highlights the necessity for wonderful new lies and depicts a character who, like Billy Pilgrim, suffers as a result of his experiences in World War II. Pulling together these various thematic strands and developing his innovative "schizophrenic" style of writing, Vonnegut finally tells his Dresden story powerfully and startlingly. He draws us into Billy's insanity so convincingly that we cannot know whether his time travel and Tralfamadorian episode are real or imaginary. He forces us to witness war's pointlessness and mutilation and confront with him the horror of Dresden. Most importantly, he leaves us applauding Billy for his wildly crazy explanations, for we see how they enable him to live with dignity. In his search for a hero, Vonnegut steadily and consistently wrestles with the irrationality and absurdityt symbolized by Dresden, that modern man must face. What we repeatedly find as a result of this search is Vonnegut's affirmation of the human spirit--his conviction that, in the midst of the most extreme adversity, man can derive a sense of dignity and purpose. We thus can thank Kurt Vonnegut for providing us with a significant contribution to our own quests for wonderful new lies. @ .

NOTES

INTRODUCTION 1Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five, in Seven Contemporary Short Novels, ed. Charles Clerc and Louis Leiter (Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Co., 1975), p. 3.

2John Somer, 11 Geodesic Vonnegut; Or, If Buckminster Fuller Wrote Novels, .. in The Vonnegut Statement, ed. Jerome Klinkowitz and John Somer (New York: Delta, 1973), p. 223.

3Josephine Hendin, Vulnerable Peo le: A View of American Fiction Since 1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978 , p. 10.

4Peter J. Reed, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (New York: Warner, 1972), p. 208-209.

5sanford Pinsker, Between Two Worlds (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1977)' p. 95-96.

6slaughterhouse-Five, p. 14.

7Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Breakfast of Champions (New York: Dell, 1980), p. 5.

8Peter J. Reed, 11 The Later Vonnegut, 11 in Vonnegut in America, ed. Jerome Klinkowitz and Donald L. Lawler (New York: Delacorte Press, 1977), p. 150.

9Reed, 11 The Later Vonnegut," p. 150.

10Reed, 11 The Later Vonnegut, 11 p. 150.

11 slaughterhouse-Five, p. 16.

12 Karen and Charles Wood, 11 The Vonnegut Effect: Science Fiction and Beyond, .. in The Vonnegut Statement, p. 146.

83 84

CHAPTER ONE

13wood, p. 139.

14Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Player Piano (New York: Dell, 1980), p. 21. (All further quotes from Player Piano are taken from this edition. Page numbers are given parenthetically in the text following each quote.)

15wood, p. 144.

16From the transcript (p. 6) of 11 At the Edge of History: A Conversation With William Irwin Thompson, .. aired on Bill Moyers Journal, March 26, 1979, c. Educational Broadcasting Corporation.

17Reed, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., p. 193.

18Reed, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., p. 193.

19Reed, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., p. 193.

20 Somer, p. 224.

21 "Can Merlin Save the Whales?" Boston Sunday Herald, March 29, 1970, p. 9.

CHAPTER TWO

22 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., The Sirens of Titan (New York: Dell, 1980), p. 229. (All further quotes from The Sirens of Titan are taken from this edition. Page numbers are given parenthetically in the text following each quote.)

23Reed, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., p. 193.

24oonald L. Lawler, 11 The Sirens of Titan: Vonnegut•s Metaphysical Shaggy-Dog Story, 11 in Vonnegut in America, p. 68-69.

25Robert Scholes, The Fabulators (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 45.

26Hendin, p. 10. 85

27 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Mother Night (New York: Dell, 1980), p. xii. (All further quotes from Mother Night are taken from this edition~ Page numbers are given parenthetically in the text following each quote. )

CHAPTER THREE

28The Sirens of Titan, p. 8.

29stanley Schatt, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976)' p. 47.

CHAPTER FOUR

3°Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Cat's Cradle (New York: Dell, 1980), p. 114. (All further quotes from eat's Cradle are taken from this edition. Page numbers are given parenthetically in the text following each quote.)

31 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., "Address to Graduating Class at Bennington College, 1970," Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons (New York: Dell, 1965) p. 159-168.

32 Schatt, P. 61.

33Mother Night, p. ix.

34schatt, p. 63.

CHAPTER FIVE

35 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (New York: Dell, 1980), p. 12. (All further quotes from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater are taken from this edition. Page numbers are given parenthetically in the text following each quote.)

36Richard Giannone, Vonnegut: A Preface to His Novels (New York: Kennikat Press, 1977), p. 74.

37 Reed, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., p. 170.

38Reed, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., p. 193. 86

39Giannone, p. 78.

40Giannone, p. 79.

CHAPTER SIX

41 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Slaughterhouse-Five, in Seven Contemporary Short Novels, ed. Charles Clerc and Louis Leiter (Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Co., 1975), p. 2. (All further quotes from Slaughterhouse-Five are taken from this edition. Page numbers are given parenthetically in the text following each quote.)

42 Pinsker, p. 98.

43Tralfamadore plays such a significant role in Slaughterhouse­ Five that Glenn Meeter contends in 11 Vonnegut's Formal and Moral Otherworldliness: Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five .. : ''Slaughterhouse-Five makes of the Dresden fire-bombing a kind of appendix to a discussion of Tralfamadorian notions of time and civilization .. (in The Vonnegut Statement, p. 206).

44James Lundquist, Kurt Vonnegut (New York: Frederick Ungar, 1977), p. 69.

45 Lundquist, p. 69.

46 Reed, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., p. 180.

47Reed, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., p. 196. BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRIMARY SOURCES

Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. Cat•s Cradle. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1963. Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston, 1965. Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. Mother Night. New York: Fawcett, 1961. Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. The Sirens of Titan. New York: Dell, 1959. Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. Slaughterhouse-Five. New York: De1acorte Press, 1969.

SECONDARY SOURCES BOOKS: Giannone, Richard. Vonnegut: A Preface to His Novels. New York: Kennikat Press, 1977 Harris, Charles. Contemporary American Novelists of the Absurd. New Haven: College & University Press, 1971. Hauck, Richard Boyd. A Cheerful Nihilism. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1971. Hendin, Josephine. Vulnerable People: A View of American Fiction Since 1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Klinkowitz, Jerome and Donald Lawler, eds. Vonnegut in America. New York: Delacorte Press, 1977. Klinkowitz, Jerome and John Somer, eds. The Vonnegut Statement. New York: Delacorte Press, 1973. Lundquist, James. Kurt Vonnegut. New York: Frederick Ungar Press, 1977.

87 88

Olderman, Raymond M. Beyond the Wasteland. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972. Pinsker, Sanford. Between Two Worlds. New York: Frederick Ungar Press, 1977. Reed, Peter J. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. New York: Warner, 1972. Schatt, Stanley. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976. Scholes, Robert. The Fabulators. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967. Walsh, Chad. From Utopia to Nightmare. New York: Harper & Row, 1962.

ARTICLES: Bodtke, Richard. 11 Great Sorrows, Small Joys: The World of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 11 Cross Currents, 20 (1970), 120-125. Carson, Ronald. 11 Kurt Vonnegut: Matter-of-Fact Moralist. 11 Listening, 6 (1971), 182-195. DeMott, Benjamin. "Vonnegut's Otherworldly Laughter... Saturday Review, 54 (1971), 29-32, 38. Goss, Gary. 11 The Selfless Billy Pilgrim ... Buffalo Spree, 5 (1971), 34-61. Hayman, David. 11 The Jolly Mix: Notes on Techniques, Style, and Decorum in Slaughterhouse-Five ... Summary, 1 (1971), 44-50. Kazin, Alfred. 11 The War Novel: From Mailer to Vonnegut ... Saturday Review, 54 (1971), 76-78. Leff, Leonard. 11 Science and Destruction in Vonnegut•s Cat's Cradle ... Rectangle, 46 (1971), 28-32. May, John R. 11 Vonnegut's Humor and the Limits of Hope. 11 Twentieth Century Literature, 18 (1972), 25-36.

Palmer, Raymond C. 11 Vonnegut's Major Concerns... Iowa English Yearbook, 14 (1969), 3-10. Samuels, Charles Thomas. 11 Age of Vonnegut. 11 New Republic, 164 (1971), 30-32.