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A Parable to Vonnegut's Life
Vonnegut was born into an evil world. We all have been born
into it. However, Vonnegut went through the hell of World War II,
eye-witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden at the end of the war.
He saw so many people who were killed in vain, innocent people
burned alive in the fire-storm. This has obviously left scars
- not physical scars. He saw so much unfairness in the world and
he tried to find where the fault was.
He found out how stupid people are, how vile they are, how
cruel they are. However, he seems not to be satisfied with this
discovery. He does not want people to be the evil ones. He feels
the need to love people, but if people are not worth loving, who
is? Nobody. Vonnegut keeps digging into the nature of human being
in hope of discovering that they are actually good. His book
Gal pagos has this introductory quotation from Anne Frank: "In
spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at
heart," and Vonnegut seems to really believe it. However, if we
want something evil to be good, we have to remove the bad things.
In order to lift up the minority of good things, we must somehow
erase the majority of bad things. Vonnegut manages to do this. He
invents an entity onto whose back he puts all the blame:
Divinity. Thus, people are made clean and pure, worthy of love.
John R. May says that "we may not be able to undo the harm that
has been done, but we can certainly love, simply because they are
people, those who have been made useless by our past stupidity
and greed, our previous crimes against our brothers. " (May)
Vonnegut managed to find a way of adaptation to the chaos
this world offered him. "It is hard to adapt to chaos," says
Vonnegut, "but it can be done. I am a living proof of that: It
can be done." (BOC:210) Vonnegut re-invented himself. If the
world could not confirm a reasonable purpose, he invented one.
He also seems to try to show that he is a better person than
Divinity. In Breakfast of Champions he decides to free his
literary slaves. "No more puppet shows" he cries. (BOC:5) "Mr.
Trout, I love you," says Vonnegut to his literary slave when
liberating him from his bond. "I have broken your mind to pieces.
I want to make it whole. I want you to feel a wholeness and inner
harmony such as I have never allowed you to feel before."
(BOC:293). If Vonnegut can do it, probably Divinity can learn
from him. It can shout "Arise, you are free, you are free," as
well. (BOC:294) If it does not, it changes nothing, since
Vonnegut is free. He has found freedom in himself.
Vonnegut and God in court
Vonnegut, as he himself says, is a sceptic and
a Free-thinker. He says he does not believe in God Almighty, yet
God plays the major part in his books. Vonnegut's work seems to
become a great courtoom, with Vonnegut the Judge and God the
defendant. The events and human beings in the book are witnesses.
Vonnegut apart from being the Judge is also the Approver. If God
manages to prove that He is not guilty, that He is not guilty
even though He allows wars, poverty, sicknesses, murders of
innocent people etc, He may be acquitted. (adapted from Lewis)
However, Vonnegut still may find out that he has got the
'wrong guy'. While admitting the existence of God in his books,
he never mentions the devil. Similarly to Christian faith,
'Christian God' and Christians, Vonnegut hates sin and loves
people. He also ascribes the origin ofsin to a higher entity. The
only real difference is that for Christians this entity is the
devil and for Vonnegut it is 'God'. However, basically these two
beings, the devil as seen by Christians and 'God' as seen by
Vonnegut, are in fact the same entity: the evil one. What
Vonnegut fails to see is the God as seen by Christians. Well,
there is still hope that, as the trial goes on, the Judge and the
Jury (the readers) will find out that the defendant is not
guilty.
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