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Humanity
The first character that is going to become a subject to my
X-ray analysis is Humanity. Vonnegut usually repeats himself over
and over again in defining and describing human beings. He uses
similar attributes of Humanity throughout his books and stories.
There is a number of positive qualities that Vonnegut often
highlights in his works, but these are mostly overruled by
negative qualities. On the reader, this leaves the impression
that Humanity is the villain. I will try to contradict this
impression by and by. Let me begin with physical appearance of
his characters and work my way slowly to more complex qualities
of Vonnegut's Humanity.
Physical appearance
Physical appearance of most Vonnegut's human characters is
surprisingly very similar. He makes all the people in his works
appear ridiculous. About Billy Pilgrim, the main character of his
Slaughterhouse Five, he says: "He was a funny-looking child who
became a funny-looking youth--tall and weak, and shaped like
a bottle of Coca-Cola." (SH5:23) James Wait, one of the main
characters in Galapagos, "was prematurely bald and he was pudgy,
and his color was bad, like the crust on a pie in a cheap
cafeteria, and he was bespectacled," (GAL:6) says Vonnegut. Many
people in his books are very fat, e.g. Mr. Rosewater (main
character of God Bless You Mr. Rosewater), Rudy Waltz (main
character of Deadeye Dick), Ruth Starbuck (the wife of the main
character in Jailbird) and so forth.
Most people in Vonnegut's books are not only charm-free,
cosmetically challenged, vertically challenged, horizontally
gifted etc. because they were not given from above, but their
bodies also look deteriorated by their own doing, or should
I say, lack of doing anything. Many of his characters are
described as unwashed, unshaved, having oily hair etc. The ghost
of Kilgore Trout (Vonnegut's favorite character), for example, is
described: "As in life, he needed a shave. As in life, he was
still pale and haggard. As in life, he was still smoking
a cigarete," (GAL:255)
Another aspect by which Vonnegut often rudicules his
characters is making them wear completely ludicrous or dirty and
ragged clothes. Of course, they are not constantly dressed
ridiculously -- mostly just in the most important situations. For
example, when the sci-fi writer Kilgore Trout arrives to Midland
City for the grand opening of an Arts Center he looks in the
mirror and sees "a red-eyed, filthy old creature who was
barefoot, who had his pants rolled up to his knees." (BOC:229)
Another good example can be the moment when Walter F. Starbuck in
Jailbird is being let out of prison and he dresses into civillian
clothes and looks in the mirror. Here is who he saw:
a scrawny old janitor of Slavic extraction. He was
unused to wearing a suit and a tie. His shirt collar was
much too large for him, and so was his suit, which fit
him like a circus tent. He looked unhappy--on his way to
a relative's funeral, perhaps. At no point was there any
harmony between himself and the suit. He may have found
his clothes in a rich man's ash can. (JAI:66)
The last example might be Otto Waltz applying to the Academy of
Fine Arts in Vienna. He
was told to come back to the Academy in two weeks,
at which time they would tell him whether they would
take him or not.
He was in rags at the time, with a piece of rope
for a belt, and with patched trousers and so on. (DED:4)
It would be wrong if you understood that all people in
Vonnegut's books are looking dirty, ragged and ridiculous. There
are a couple of exceptions when people look nice and tidy and
beautiful. They are, however, mostly minor characters. In case
you come across a main character that does not look ludicrous, it
is because he/she has not reached the point when Vonnegut decides
to make him/her look that way. Beautiful wives get fat and ugly
by and by (e.g. Walter Starbuck's wife Ruth in Jailbird),
succesful people go downhill and end up in rags (e.g. Malachi
Constant in The Sirens of Titan or, again, W. Starbuck).
Over all, to get back to the idea that all humanity forms
a literary character, I would say that Vonnegut's Humanity has
a negative (even repulsive) appearance. Even though there appears
a positive quality every now and then, these are overwhelmed by
the majority of the former ones. Moreover, Vonnegut both assigns
this ludicrousness and ugliness of Humanity to both the natural
causes and the Humanity's neglect of itself. However, it seems
that the former causes are more characteristic. It appears as
though Vonnegut intends to show Humanity in the worst light, as
miserable as possible.
You may point out that appearance is not everything, that
what a person looks like is not important, that it is what is
inside that counts. You are right. Even Vonnegut admits this when
Walter Starbuck talks about body sizes. He says that it is an
issue that
I am very reluctant to discuss--because I don't
want to give them more importance than they deserve.
Body sizes can be remarkable for their variations from
accepted norms, but still explain almost nothing about
the lives led inside those bodies. I am small enough to
to have been a coxwain, as I have already confessed.
That explains nothing. And, by the time Leland Clewes
came to trial for perjury, my wife, although only five
feet tall, weighed one hundred and sixty pounds or so.
So be it. (JAI:70-71)
In contrast, however, Vonnegut seems not to be reluctant to
discuss these aspects of Humanity at all. His descriptions of
Humanity's appearance is a rather common and bold feature of his
books. I agree with W. Starbuck, however, that physical
appearance does not say anything about the person's character.
Environment
Before my X-ray beams will penetrate deeper into the nature
of Humanity, let me talk about the environment in which
Vonnegut's character Humanity lives. Indication of a literary
character by environment often helps the reader to form a more
complete picture of the character and I am sure that it will help
in this case as well.
Vonnegut in his books talks about people living both in big
cities and in small towns. It is hard to tell whether cities are
in majority or small towns, so this feature probably does not
carry much weight. What is interesting, however, is that the
environment mostly reflects the poor appearance of the
characters. They often live in houses or apartments that are in
similar condition as their appearance. Kilgore Trout, for
example, lived in a poor basement apartment in Cohoes, New York
(BOC:20). Walter F. Starbuck in Jailbird, after having left the
prison, lives in one of the dirtiest hotels in New York, in Hotel
Arapahoe. In Deadeye Dick Vonnegut even calls the house of Rudy
Waltz (and the houses of some other people) a "shitbox". Even
a multimillionnaire Eliot Rosewater (God Bless You, Mr.
Rosewater) moves to a small town of Rosewater, Indiana, to live
in a small cramped office.
Similarly as when I was talking about physical appearance,
when a person is not living in a decrepit or cramped house or
apartment, it mostly means only that he/she has not started to go
downhill yet. Rudy Walts has not always lived in a "shitbox".
Walter F. Starbuck, similarly, has not always lived in a dirty
hotel room. On the contrary: these people were mostly fabulously
well-to-do.
Humanity as a character also lives in a decrepit, cramped,
dirty old house -- the Earth. In perhaps all Vonnegut's books he
constantly alludes to the Earth's being heavily polluted and
nearly destroyed. We can see the analogy here: Humanity was
"fabulously well-to-do" in the beginning but it has taken the
course downhill. However, I will deal more with ecology and
pollution in one of the following sections of this paper in
connection with another aspect of Humanity.
Overall, Vonnegut again seems to intend to create the image
of Humanity's utter misery. Also, it appears that Vonnegut wants
to illustrate the direction in which Humanity proceeds in many
ways, which is -- downhill.
The Fruits of Humanity's Existence
Let me now proceed to perhaps most startling facts about
Humanity revealed by Kurt Vonnegut. I have already dealt with how
people in Vonnegut's works look like and where they live. Now,
I will talk about what people do. Vonnegut in his books
constantly attacks many vices thought up or created by men. There
are two vices about which Vonnegut gets most bitter: war
(Vonnegut served in one himself) and ecological disaster. "The
more you learn about people, the more disgusted you'll become,"
says the ghost of Kilgore Trout to the ghost of his son Leon
Trout, who served in the war of Vietnam.
"I would have thought that your being sent by the
wisest men in your country, supposedly, to fight
a nearly endless, thankless, horrifying, and, finally,
pointless war, would have given you sufficient insight
into the nature of humanity to last you throughout all
eternity."
Kilgore Trout continues,
"Need I tell you that these same wonderful animals,
of which you apparently still want to learn more and
more, are at this very moment proud as Punch to have
weapons in place, all set to go at a moment's notice,
guarranteed to kill everything?" (GAL:254)
These are not the only bitter words Vonnegut expresses about the
issue of wars. However, in my opinion, they are sufficient for
demonstration. I will use the same speech of a ghost to a ghost
for demonstrating Vonnegut's bitternes about the latter vice as
well.
"Need I tell you that this once beautiful and
nourishing planet when viewed from the air now resembles
the diseased organs of poor Roy Hepburn when exposed at
his autopsy, and that the apparent cancers, growing for
the sake of growth alone, and consuming all and
poisoning all, are the cities of your beloved human
beings?
"Need I tell you that these animals have made such
a botch of things that they can no longer imagine decent
lives for their own grandchildren, even, and will
consider it a miracle if there is anything left to eat
or enjoy by the year two thousand, now only fourteen
years away?" (GAL:254)
Vonnegut, however does not attack only these things in modern
society. There are many more targets of his bitterness and
anguish, e.g. racism, jingoism, commercial greed, slavery etc.
etc.
This indicates that Vonnegut presents this literary character
of his, Humanity, as the villain. Humanity is the cause of all
these things I have mentioned. Humanity is to blame, Vonnegut's
books seem to suggest.
Fatal Lusts
Now that I described how Humanity behaves, what it is the
source of, I will deal with the question "What drives Humanity to
behave in such a way? What makes Humanity 'tick' so abominably?"
Vonnegut presents two main drives of Humanity's misbehavior. He
calls these incentives 'monsters' and rightly so. "Lions?
Tigers?" he asks. The answer is "no." He says that lions and
tigers are asleep most of the time and that the monsters he has
in mind never sleep. He says that they inhabit our heads and our
minds. They are "the arbitrary lusts for gold" and "girl's
underpants". (BOC:25). Vonnegut often writes about one more
monster that proves to be as dangerously destructive as the
already mentioned two. This monster is ambition. However,
ambition seems to stand hand in hand with greed for wealth.
I will now deal with the two lusts separately.
Money
Gold seems to be the most often expressed lust of Humanity.
Humanity's greed for money appears almost in all Vonnegut's
novels. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater opens with this statement:
A sum of money is a leading character in this tale
about people, just as a sum of honey might properly be
a leading character in a tale about bees. (ROS:7)
A similar example may be found in The Sirens of Titan, where the
main character looks at his solar watch: "He held his watch to
sunlight, letting it drink in the wherewithal that was to solar
watches what money was to Earth men." (TIT:14)
These two excerpts certainly illustrate the importance people
assign to money. They assign more value to money and gold than to
fellow human beings. Compared to money, human beings lose their
value as Vonnegut points out for example in Galapagos, when
Ecuador undergoes an economical crisis:
Ecuador, after all, like the Galapagos Islands, was
mostly lava and ash, and so could not begin to feed its
nine million people. It was bankrupt, and so could no
longer buy food from countries with plenty of topsoil,
so the seaport of Guayaquil was idle, and the people
were beginning to starve to death. Business was
business. (GAL:23)
In Deadeye Dick, Midland City's population is entirely wiped out
by an explosion of a neutron bomb. This weapon causes only the
death of all living beings and leaves all the property untouched.
Ironically, Vonnegut asks whether it matters that all those
people died so suddenly. "Since all the property is undamaged,
has the world lost anything it loved?" (DED:34) If you consider
what I have written about Humanity so far, you will find the
answer yourself.
I can almost hear the ringing of this outcry in my and
Vonnegut's ears: "Wake up, you idiots! Whatever made you think
paper was so valuable?" (GAL:24) Whatever made Humanity think
that things (of any sort) were so valuable, for that matter?
This part of the essay, similarly as the previous ones, has
shown that Vonnegut tends to present humanity in the worst way
possible. However, there are exceptions. The most outstanding
exception is the novel God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater which
suggests that there still are good people in the world, that even
in a world spoiled by greed and money, there is the possibility
of doing good by means of money. A man who managed to do this was
Eliot Rosewater who took the inherited wealth and started helping
people.
Underpants
Another thing that drives human beings is sexual lust,
Vonnegut says. He suggests that people's inability to control
their animal drives leads the planet into doom, mostly by means
of overpopulation.
Mary Hepburn, one of the main characters in Galapagos,
describes, for example, "how easily a teenage virgin could be
made pregnant by the seed of a male who was seeking sexual
release and nothing else, who did not even like her." (GAL:124)
In Breakfast of Champions Vonnegut points out that most countries
are in such a miserable condition that there is no more space for
people and that the people have nothing to eat. And still they go
on having sexual intercourse which is, as Vonnegut reminds us,
how babies are made. "More babies were arriving all the
time--kicking and screaming, yelling for milk." (BOC:12-13)
With tongue in his cheek, Vonnegut shows that 'babies' is
a wonderful way of overcoming wars, that even after long lasting
wars there still always seems to be plenty of people around
(GAL:33). This, however, encourages many people to think of
murdering, wiping out cities etc. "as show business, as highly
theatrical forms of self-expression, and little more." (GAL:33)
Humanity, evidently, as Kurt Vonnegut describes it, is
producing more than it can sustain, yet it is ignorant of this
fact. "Just because something can reproduce, that does not mean
that it should reproduce," (HOC:49) is what Vonnegut probably
tries to say over and over again. Otherwise, Humanity could
suffocate. The word "locusts" also comes into mind; or "Planet
Gobblers" for that matter. "Planet Gobblers" is a short story
written by Kilgore Trout. The story was
about us, and we were the terrors of the universe.
We were sort of interplanetary termites. We would arrive
on a planet, gobble it up, and die. But before we died,
we sent out spaceships to start tiny colonies
elsewhere... (PS:209)
Humanity, however, does not realize that there is only Earth and
after it gobbles up this planet, there will be no more food, no
more planets to gobble up.
To sum up, Humanity is shown to be driven by two fatal
forces: money and sex. Both these forces are given about the same
weight as the greatest impediments to nice and decent life on
Earth.
Big brains
Vonnegut does not only describe the drives of Humanity, he
even uncovers the source of these lusts and of all the bad things
Humanity does. In GAL, the source is Humanity's imagination,
destructive ideas, their oversized brains. "If catastrophe comes
more easily to man than courtesy and decency," Contemporary
Authors suggests, "man's large brain is to blame." (Contemporary
Authors,49) "Can it be doubted that three kilogram brains were
once nearly fatal defects in the evolution of the human race?"
(GAL:8) Vonnegut asks. He asserts that the planet is basically
innocent, "except for those big brains." (GAL:9) These brains are
"irresposible, unreliable, hideously dangerous, wholly
unrealistic" and they are "simply no damn good." (GAL:25)
These brains make people lie, for example (GAL:67). They are
the "irresponsible generators of suggestions as to what might be
done with life" (GAL:78). They generate crazy ideas in the heads
of human beings who cannot help but realize them. Vonnegut calls
this aspect of human brains "diabolical" (GAL:266).
They would tell their owners, in effect "Here is
a crazy thing we could actually do, probably, but we
would never do it, of course. It's just fun to think
about."
And then, as though in trances, the people would
really do it--have slaves fight each other to the Death
in the Colloseum, or burn people alive in the public
square for holding opinions which were locally
unpopular, or build factories whose only purpose was to
kill people in industrial quantities, or to blow up
whole cities, and on and on." (GAL:266)
Even Kilgore Trout realizes in Breakfast of Champions that
evil is put into the world in the form of bad ideas. (BOC:15)
Furthermore, Vonnegut illustrates the danger of wild ideas on the
saying "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride." He shows that
since people discovered tools (and weapons, consequently) "the
homicidal beggars could ride" (BOC:28). In simpler words,
Humanity managed to make its wishes (crazy ideas etc.) come true
and thus doomed itself.
Machines
Another quality of Humanity is seen when Vonnegut describes
people as machines. The impulses by which the reader forms the
image of Humanity as a machine are both direct and indirect. In
Sirens of Titan Vonnegut explains the term machine. In his
opinion, to be a machine is to be vulgar, to lack sensitivity and
imagination, and to be "purposeful without a shred of conscience"
(TIT:200). These traits, or most of them, can be recognized in
most human characters in Vonnegut's books.
Humanity's vulgarity is obvious from perhaps everything
Vonnegut has written: from how people talk and how they act, from
their 'animal' attitude towards sex etc.
Lack of sensitivity is also a very often used quality of
humans. Vonnegut demonstrates this by many ways: the previously
mentioned Humanity's attitude towards sex (lacking sesitivity
altogether), human greed (people are not stopped by anything in
their chase for silver and gold) and the ever present shadow of
war when people forget the value of Human life altogether and
turn into "homicidal imbeciles" (HOC:3).
That people are purposeful is also a very often expressed
quality of humans. People keep doing what they seem to be
programmed for, what they seem to be designed for. One of these
purposes is surely the already mentioned reproduction. An example
of this can be found, for example, in Deadeye Dick:
The actress playing Celia could ask why God had
even put her on Earth.
And then the voice from the back of the theater
could rumble: "To reproduce. Nothing else really
interests Me. All the rest is frippery." (DED:185)
Another aspect of Vonnegut's novels that can hint at the issue of
purposefulness is people's being reduced into unthinking entities
by various institutions. People are often seen as robots under
orders, willing to do anything. One of the most often described
institutions is surely the army, because Vonnegut still seems to
be haunted by his experience from World War II. For example, the
main character in HOC says that he was a professional soldier and
would have killed the returning Jesus Christ if ordered by
a superior officer (HOC:2). In Sirens of Titan Vonnegut describes
soldiers as people with antenna in their heads, controlled by
radio to do anything the commander chooses (TIT:63).
These are not the only ways Vonnegut uses to show people's
purposefulness. There is a hint at it in each book by him.
However, this aspect will be dealt with later in the essay.
The only exception from the traits of 'a machine' applied to
Humanity would probably be the lack of imagination. It cannot be
said that Vonnegut's characters lack imagination. On the
contrary, he often emphasizes human imagination. This aspect,
however, will also be dealt with later. It is, in my opinion,
a crucial quality of Vonnegut's Humanity.
This chapter has so far dealt with indirect indications of
people's being machines. However, this trait is also very often
defined in the text directly. This direct definition is perhaps
most common in Breakfast of Champions. One of the Kilgore
Trout's books (which plays a major part in this novel), Now It
Can Be Told says that all people, all living things are machines
and the only entity with free will is the reader of the book
(BOC:173-5, 253-7). Another example is the people being seen from
the viewpoint of Tralfamadorians (Vonnegut's favorite 'race' of
aliens). These beings see everything what happens, what happened
and what will happen, at the same time.
Lionel Merble was a machine. Tralfamadorians, of
course, say that every creature and plant in the
Universe is a machine. It amuses them that so many
Earthlings are offended by the idea of being machines.
Outside the plane, the machine named Valencia
Merble Pilgrim was eating a Peter Paul Mound Bar and
waving bye-bye. (SH5:154)
Another way of direct definition of this character trait is
considering the parts of human body to be components of
a machine. Talking about anatomy Vonnegut often uses words as
wires, motors, switches, computers etc. (e.g. BOC:3).
To sum up, Vonnegut argues that "human beings are robots, are
machines" (BOC:3). He both indicates this directly and
indirectly. Vonnegut also provides a 'formula' (defining the term
'machine') by which the reader can see this by him/herself
(TIT:200). There is, however, one element in the formula, into
which the image of humanity does not fit. This element is human
imagination.
Summing up Humanity
This part of the essay has shown the overall image of
Humanity in Vonnegut's books. It has illustrated that Humanity
(as a literary character) is ugly, dirty, funny-looking, fat etc.
It has been born with some of these qualities, and the others
were caused by Humanity neglecting itself. The environment, where
Humanity lives is as miserable as its physical appearance: the
Earth has turned into a cramped, neglected, dirty, smelly place.
These negative qualities are, however, strongly overpowered by
'inner' qualities. Humanity is seen as a machine moving
incontrollably forward, driven by several 'fatal lusts' (such as
greed for money and wealth, ambition, sex). The machine never
stops, decency is unimportant, human lives are unimportant. The
'monster' moves onward, destroying everything that gets in its
way. However, the machine also seems to be driven by a much
higher force, by something completely out of Humanity's control.
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