A Study of the Protagonists in the First Six Novels of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr

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.

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