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The Real and the Fantastic Worlds in Vonnegut's MAIL MARQUES DE AZEVEDO. THE REAL AND THE FANTASTIC WORLDS IN VONNEGUT'S Dissertação para obtenção do grau de Mestre, Área de Concentração: Literatu- ras de Língua Inglesa, do Curso de Pós-Graduação em Letras, Setor de Ciên- cias Humanas, Letras e Artes da Uni- versidade Federal do Paraná. CURITIBA 19 8 4 A meu marido, meus filhos e meus pais. AGRADECIMENTOS À Fundação Faculdade Estadual de Filosofia, Cien- cias e Letras de Guarapuava. À Secretaria de Estado da Educação. À Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior (CAPES). À minha orientadora, Proff Drf SIGRID RENAUX, pela constante e inestimável assistência no pre- paro desta tese. CONTENTS ABSTRACT v RESUMO vi i i 1 INTRODUCTION 1 2 FANTASY AND THE FANTASTIC: THEORETICAL APPROACH 9 3 A GLIMPSE OF THE REAL AND THE FANTASTIC WORLDS OF SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE 23 4 MULTIPLICATION OF SELF 35 4.1 A CHARACTER FROM THE WORLD OF FACT 36 4.2 A STAGE-FRIGHTENED ACTOR 58 5 MANY MARVELOUS MOMENTS SEEN AT ONE TIME 88 6 FROM WOMB TO TOMB 113 7 THE SEARCH FOR IDENTITY AND FORM 141 7.1 THE VONNEGUT PLOT 142 7.2 THE BILLY PILGRIM PLOT 159 8 CONCLUSION 202 BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES 207 iv ABSTRACT This thesis analyzes Kurt Vonnegut1 s novel Slaughter- house-Five from the standpoint of the subversion of reality by the elements of the fantastic in the text. We propose to demonstrate how a consideration of those elements can provide information and analyses that lead to a better understanding of the author's worldview and of his narrative process, as well as to an encompassing perspective of his divergent critical categorization. In the introductory chapter, besides stating our objec- tives, we make a quick survey of the author's divergent tend- encies which have resulted in his categorization as a science fictionist, a black humorist, a satirist, and a novelist of the absurd. Chapter Two reviews the main points of the theory of the fantastic devised by Eric Rabkin, the primary embasement for our research, and makes references to other studies used to expand and complement our main guideline. Starting from the basic viewpoint that the fantastic creates alternative worlds by reversing the ground rules of normative reality, our analysis contraposes the real and the fantastic worlds of S I aught er house-F i ve -from-.Chap.ten._ Three on- wards. That chapter treats of the new ground rules, both of structural and aesthetic nature, established by Vonnegut1 s narrative process. Chapter Four examines the constitution of characters by means of the different roles they fulfill and their con- V sequent multiplication of personality. Chapter Five traces Billy Pilgrim's erratic swinging through time by means of a chart that registers his numerous shifts. From this chart we have deducted the novel's major temporal streams and different levels of time, which include its autobiographical frame. Chapter Six foregrounds the juxtaposition of the real sites of the author's experiences to fictional locations and to an imaginary planet, emphasizing the interpénétration of reality and fantasy. Chapter Seven, finally divides the action into two narrative lines. The Vonnegut plot examines the development of the author's process of composition, his search for new means of expression. The analysis of the , Billy Pilgrim plot follows the steps of the monomythical hero quest pattern. The Conclusion evidences how Vonnegut's divergent tend- encies can be subordinated to the fantastic by virtue of their dependence on structural reversals. The author's peculiar narrative manner and his worldview are also shown to be profit- ably illuminated by a consideration of the fantastic. vi RESUMO Esta tese analisa o romance Slaughterhouse-Five, de Kurt Vonnegut, através da optica da subversão da realidade pe- los elementos do fantástico contidos no texto. Propomo-nos a demonstrar como a ponderação desses elementos pode fornecer subsidios para uma compreensão mais nitida da cosmovisão do autor e do seu processo narrativo, bem como para uma perspec- tiva que abranja a diversidade de sua categorização crítica. No capitulo introdutorio, alem de estabelecer nossos objetivos, apresentamos uma rapida revisão das tendências di- vergentes do autor que levaram a classificação de sua obra como ficção cientifica, humor negro, sátira e novela do absur- do . 0 segundo capitulo, revisa os pontos principais da teo- ria do fantastico elaborada por Eric Rabkin, embasamento pri- mario de nossa pesquisa, e faz referência a outros estudos, utilizados para expandir e complementar nossa linha principal. Partindo do ponto de vista básico de que o fantastico cria mundos alternativos, através da reversão das regras fun- damentais da realidade normativa, nossa analise contrapõe, a partir do terceiro capitulo, o mundo real e o mundo fantastico de Slaughterhouse-Five. Este capitulo examina as novas- re- gras basicas, tanto de natureza estrutural como estetica, es- tabelecidas pela narraçao de Vonnegut. 0 quarto capítulo examina a constituição das persona- gens principais através dos diferentes papeis que desempenham e sua conseqüente multiplicação de personalidade. vii O capítulo quinto acompanha o movimento errático do herói, Billy Pilgrim, através do tempo, por meio de um gráfi- co que registra seus inúmeros deslocamentos. Deste gráfico deduzimos as correntes temporais do romance e os diferentes níveis de tempo, que incluem sua moldura autobiográfica. 0 capítulo sexto enfatiza a justaposição dos locais da experiência do autor a outros fictíciose a um planeta ima- ginário, pondo em relevo a interpenetração da realidade e da fantasia. Finalmente, o capítulo sétimo divide a ação em duas linhas narrativas. 0 enredo de Vonnegut examina o desenvol- vimento do processo narrativo do autor, em busca de novos meios de expressão. A análise das peregrinações de Billy Pil- grim segue o esquema das aventuras do herói monomítico. A conclusão evidencia que as diversas tendências de Vonnegut podem ser subordinadas ao fantástico, uma vez que todas se baseiam em reversões estruturais. Desse exame também se depreende que a maneira narrativa peculiar do autor e sua cosmovisão podem ser iluminadas pela análise através do fan- tástico . viii 1 INTRODUCTION Kurt Vonnegut has proved to be a controversial literary figure. A writer since 1949, his first books Player Piano (1952) and The Sirens of Titan (1959) were issued as paperbacks and cataloged as science-fiction titles. Though the first edition of the latter was quickly out of print, his popularity had several ups and downs through the publication of Mother Night (1961), Cat's Cradle (1963) and God Bless You, Mr Rosewater (1965). The science-fiction label was then found to be inadequate to classify an author whose subject matters included Nazi Germany, the destruction of the world and the reconstitution of society. In the year following Rosewater, 1966, all his works were reissued in paperback, his popularity grew steadily and Vonnegut became a hero of college youth. In spite of his then wide public acceptance, or prob- ably because of it, Vonnegut was largely ignored by the crit- 2 ics until the publication of S I aughterhouse-F i ve, in 1969. Like the publishers, the critics were also baffled by the divergent tendencies observed in Vonnegut's works, which resulted in his being variously categorized as a science- -fictionist, a black-humorist, a satirist, and a novelist of the absurd. Mark Hillegas includes him alongside H.G. Wells 3 in his study about the anti-utopians. Jerome Klinkowitz, on the other hand, contends that Vonnegut's science-orientated stories and his use of technology in some novels, depart from conventional science-fiction in that they consider the effect 4 of innovation on contemporary culture. Vonnegut himself has 2 protested vehemently against the science-fiction label: I have been a soneheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled'science-fiction' ever since, and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a tall white fixture in a comfort 5 station. However, the author's objections may sound as intentional fallacy when we consider his contribution to various science- -fiction periodics. Also guilty of the literary sin of having written countless stories for the slick magazines, Vonnegut holds that he was merely buying time for the writing of his g novels. Leslie Fiedler takes an in-between stand when he observes that "in God Bless You, Mr Rosewater and Slaughterhouse- -Five, Vonnegut moves uneasily away from his science-fiction beginnings, ironically playing with the form he once quite sim- 7 ply practised." Paradoxically, the appreciation of Vonnegut's work by science-fiction standards is also dubious, for Player Piano was considereg d an inferior imitation of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley and The Sirens of Titan, a plethora of "extravagances (....) and boyish vulgarity (....) as smooth 9 as gravel pudding." The label "black-humorist", on the other hand, was part of the incipient process of Vonnegut's critical recognition and resulted from his inclusion in Bruce Jay Friedman's anthology Black Humor.10 Benjamim DeMott's arti- cle "Vonnegut's Otherworldly Laughter", also a favorable assessment of his characteristics,emphasizes Vonnegut's qual- ities as a "potent satirist, with a fine eye for the self- -deceit built into mod vocabularies of altruism."11 Those views are contradicted by Robert Scholes for whom Vonnegut's work is not satire because "it has none of the scorn, resig- 12 nation or hope of reform that accompanies satire," and by 3 Charles Harris who points out its lack of "ridicule and invec- 13 tive." Harris classifies Vonnegut as "a novelist of the absurd" alongside with Heller, Barth and Pynchon, taking into consideration his treatment of absurdist themes with absurdist characteristics. To this day, however, some serious critics have been reluctant to recognize Vonnegut1 s position as an important mainstream writer, perhaps, as Robert Scholes sug- gests, because he is "both too funny and too inteligible1 4 for many, who confuse muddled earnestness with profundity." Personally, we were first attracted to Vonnegut's work by the humor and the terse colloquialism of his style.
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