Vonnegut as a "Bug in Amber"
Connection of Fiction and Autobiography in the Works of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
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Success
While the novels and stories mentioned in the previous
section all failed in finding the way out of amber, whatever
the amber might be in the case of each particular work.
Failure, even though it accompanies a lot of Vonnegut's
writing, is not the most common conclusion of a Vonnegut
story. More often than failure, success is seen to prevail
in majority of his books. It may not always be recognised at
first sight or first reading, but it is there.
The following section will make examples of what kind
of success can be found in Vonnegut's writing and how it
differs from book to book.
"Welcome to the Monkey House" (WTM:28-47)
In "Welcome to the Monkey House" the attempts to
overcome the world succeed, even though it is not shown
whether it works in a longer period of time or not. In the
story, the world is inhabited by far more people than the
world can sustain, people are obliged by law to take special
contraception pill which not only prevents conception, but
also takes all pleasure out of sex, so people stop
reproducing as well as having sexual intercourse. There are
so called suicide parlors everywhere, where people have
themselves killed humanely, so that the total population may
decrease. There is, however, an underground movement lead by
Billy the Poet. People in this movement refuse to take the
governmentally prescribed pills. They kidnap suicide parlor
Hostesses, women who work in the parlors, prevent them from
taking the pills, and show them, that what the world says
about sex is not true. As an alternative to overpopulation
they offer standard birth control pills.
It is not clear whether the way shown by Billy the
Poet is successful or not, but one thing is obvious: common
sense, as Vonnegut seems to point out, is the thing that can
gain victory over stupidity of the surrounding world, no
matter in which kind of world one may find oneself. It may
seem absurd that people would start taking pills that were
originally introduced in order that monkeys would not behave
indecently in sight of Sunday visitors to a zoo. There are,
however, other absurdities on the Earth, as Vonnegut
describes in his works (like wars, crime, greed etc.) and
common sense might work in these cases as well.
"Deer in the Works" (WTM:207-221)
In "Deer in the Works" Vonnegut illustrates a parallel
between a man, David Potter, lost in a maze of Illium Works
(not only a physical maze, but a maze of company ladders,
relationships between workers, ambition etc.) and a deer
that has accidentally run into the works and is stuck in the
physical maze. And as the employees of the works attempt to
corner the deer and catch it (in order to eat it later
during a company celebration), David Potter opens a gate and
the deer escapes, followed by D avid himself.
It appears that the Works serve the same purpose as
the amber in Slaughterhouse-Five. The deer is stuck, or
lost, there. David Potter, similarly, seems to be lost in
the works, out of the place, appears not to fit the
environment. Still, he is drawn deeper and deeper into the
entangled structure of the whole company. Seeing the deer
and maybe identifying its state with his very own, he
decides to let it go and does something very simple: opens
the gate for the deer and then himself steps into the woods
and closes the gate behind him. He doesn't look back
(WTM:221). A seemingly easy way out, a simple thing to do,
yet it is the way out of the amber in this case,
a successful one. However, it does not appear to be so easy
in the other books.
"Report on the Barnhouse Effect" (WTM:162-176)
The story "Report on the Barnhouse Effect", written as
early as 1950, provides a very good example of a way out of
amber. The world described here shows violence and wars and
evil etc. The world cannot do anything about it, when
suddenly one man, Barnhouse, learns and masters a technique
of affecting matter by means of pure thought. With this
technique, he manages to destroy the stock of weapons of the
whole world, as well as all the blood-thirsty and
war-wanting dictators and presidents.
This short story may be something that foreshadows the
author's later works and the message in it: while people
cannot do anything about the world by physical means, there
is a way inside the people, inside their heads and minds,
something that can lead them into victory with the otherwise
unbeatable enemy. On the other hand, it is a way that still
has a lot to do with the physical (destroying the weapons,
killing the evil people etc.), not the subtle ways the
readers can find in some of the l ater novels.
Slaughterhouse-Five
Slaughterhouse-Five is the novel where the whole
concept of bugs stuck in amber appeared. Being the novel
about an event that has marked Vonnegut most, there are very
explicit suggestions as to how one can escape the amber.
A Duty Dance With Death
"A Duty Dance With Death" is one of the two subtitles
of Slaughterhouse-Five. This title seems to show a lot of
what Vonnegut is doing in this novel. It also brings the
reader upon the right track as to where the way out of amber
might be.
"A duty dance" brings about a picture of two people,
dancing. It is not that they like to dance with each other
or enjoy it. They have to dance, that is why it is a "duty
dance". They cannot choose differently, they simply have
this obligation to dance with each other. There is
a question, however, what can possibly be going on in their
heads and their minds. It is the only way out in this case.
One cannot help dancing with the person, but one can surely
escape in one's mind.
Death is the dancer in the case of
Slaughterhouse-Five. It is surely the death Vonnegut
describes in this novel, the death of thousands of people in
Dresden, the death that Vonnegut himself has witnessed. It
is also something that has to be dealt with, something
Vonnegut has to speak about, because it was a strong
experience. Just as described in the picture above, it is
something Vonnegut has to "dance" with, something he cannot
escape in any other way than in his mind. And this is
actually w hat Vonnegut succeeds in: escaping in his mind.
Slaughterhouse-Five is about feeling and not
feeling, about remembering and not remembering,
about looking and not looking back, about dying and
not dying, about living and not living. (Lifton:42)
Slaughterhouse-Five is also about dancing and not dancing,
the inventive reader could add to this quoted paragraph on
their own. In the human mind, there is a way go get out of
the amber of such things as the feelings and memories of the
massacre of Dresden and even death itself, as Vonnegut
appears to claim.
Rocky Mountains and free will
Vonnegut says in Slaughterhouse-Five that all the
moments of the past, present and future are fixed and one
can look at time as on the Rocky Mountain range from an
airplane (SH5:27). Humanity, however, cannot have this view
ascribed to the Tralfamadorians. Vonnegut, though, in the
novel enables Billy Pilgrim to assume this point of view,
and together with Billy, the readers get the same
opportunity. This is a powerful tool for escaping the amber.
Though people are bugs trapped in amber, they c an look at
everything the same way as the Tralfamadorians, they can
focus on the nice things in the world and leave the bad
things unnoticed. One cannot change the past, or the world,
but one can change the point of view. Tralfamadorians did it
with their wars:
"There isn't anything we can do about them, so we
simply don't look at them. We ignore them. We spend
eternity looking at pleasant moments . . ."
(SH5:117)
It is actually the piece of advice Billy gets from the
Tralfamadorians. Billy learns from them that it is stupid to
try to prevent wars and offers a way out:
"That's one thing Earthlings might learn to
do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful
times, and concentrate on the good ones." (SH5:117)
It is a way which corresponds with the subtitle, A Duty
Dance With Death, too. People can't change the facts, but
they can choose which ones they will concentrate on and
which ones they will ignore. When they find the freedom to
do as they will in concentrating and ignoring, they will
have found free will where otherwise there is none.
A movie seen backwards
Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five becomes "unstuck
in time" and sees a war movie backwards. War, which is
horrible, is here seen as a cute thing, thing full of
compassion and humane ideas. Airplanes flew backwards, got
to their base and weapons were taken off them. The factories
dismantled them (women especially) and shipped the minerals
to "specialists in remote areas. It was their business to
put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they
would never hurt anybody ever again" (S H5:75). The soldiers
turned into highschool kids and then into babies.
This is a particular example how one can change facts,
how one can see humane ideas even though the world offers
none. It is a perfect example of what has been said in the
previous section about finding free will in amber and
duty-dancing with death.
Slapstick
Alternate worlds
The story of Slapstick speaks about Wilbur and Eliza
Swain, twins, who are very ugly. Their parents raise them in
seclusion, in an old mansion, and visit them once a year
only. The people who work in the mansion, the nurses etc.,
expect them to be stupid, they depend on their being stupid,
because they get a fairly good salary for taking care of the
two. Nobody suspects that they only pretend to be stupid.
When they mumble incomprehensively, nobody suspects that
they are actually speaking flue ntly in Ancient Greek. When
put to sleep, nobody suspects that they enter secret
passageways hidden everywhere in the old mansion, spying on
everybody or simply reading books in the library and
learning as much as they can.
This part of the story shows the reader that even
though things appear somehow on the outside, on the inside
they can be completely different. Wilbur and Eliza knew what
the world expected: "All the information we received about
the planet we were on indicated that idiots were lovely
things to be," Wilbur and Eliza say, "so we cultivated
idiocy" (SLP:41). They acted the way they were expected, but
inside, they lived a different life, a life in an alternate
universe, a universe of their own, a universe, where the
world could not enter.
What has just been described can be seen as one way
out of the amber. People cannot change the world, but they
can possibly find an alternate universe inside themselves
which can help them go through life in a much better way.
Extended Families
Slapstick also shows onother way out of amber. Here
Vonnegut shows that natural families do not work very well
and people are lonely and unhappy. The main character,
Wilbur Swain, is separated from his twin sister and he finds
himself alone. He is not the only person who is wandering
around with no fellow man. However, he has a solution for
America, he has a solution for humankind. He becomes
a presidential candidate and uses a simple election slogan:
"Lonesome No More!" His program offers an alternative to the
faulty natural families: a "Utopian scheme for reorganizing
America into thousands of artificial extended families."
(SLP:122)
It said that there was nothing new about
artificial extended families in America. Physicians
felt themselves related to other physicians,
lawyers to lawyers, writers to writers, athletes to
athletes, politicians to politicians, and so on.
Eliza and I said these were bad sorts of
extended families, however. They excluded children
and old people and housewives, and losers of every
description. Also: their interests were usually so
specialized as to seem nearly insane to outsiders.
"An ideal extended family . . . should give
proportional representation to all sorts of
Americans, according to their numbers. The creation
of ten thousand such families, say, would provide
America with ten thousand parliaments, so to speak,
which would discuss sincerely and expertly what
only a few hypocrites now discuss with passion,
which is the welfare of all mankind." (SLP:123)
The excerpt above describes Wilbur Swain's plans for the way
out of people's misery and loneliness.
The slogan "Lonesome No More!" and the whole plan was
considered to be childish and ridiculous and was rejected at
first (by the omnipresent and intelligent Chinese, for
example). However, Wilbur Swain says that it won his
election (SLP:124). American loneliness was the only subject
he needed for victory (SLP:125). The election trick was
easy: Wilbur promised to create artificial families, so that
everyone might have ten thousand brothers and sisters
(SLP:126). He won the election, became the president of the
United States of America and his artificial family plan
worked. Everybody had an extra middle name and, with the new
middle name, happiness came to the otherwise unhappy world.
Things in which this scheme of artificial families
helped were several: it offered a solution to crime, for
example. At first, Vonnegut offers an apology for criminals:
"They were not basically criminals . . . but they yearned to
partake of the brotherhood they saw in organized crime"
(SLP:129). After the new scheme had been introduced, this
problem was solved: "If you know of a relative who is
engaged in criminal acts, . . . don't call the police. Call
ten more relatives" (SLP:139). Families that had "high moral
standards were the best maintainers of law and order" and
"police departments could be expected to fade away."
(SLP:139) This obviously is a solution.
Another problem, apart from crime, that Vonnegut sees
and often criticizes is the issue of war. War is usually
a problem of nations and therefore Vonnegut has dealt with
nations first. The new family scheme eliminates nations and
leaves only families (SLP:145). The main character, after
having witnessed one family meeting says:
I was impressed. I realized that nations could
never acknowledge their own wars as tragedies, but
that families not only could but had to. (SLP:164)
Further, Vonnegut even describes one war in progress and
shows how different it is from the wars the reader knows and
the war Vonnegut himself witnessed:
"I have just come from observing a battle far
to the north of here, in the region of Lake
Maxinkuckee. It was horses and spears and rifles
and knives and pistols, and a cannon or two. I also
saw many people embracing, and there seemed to be
a great deal of deserting and surrendering going
on.
"This much news I can bring you from the
Battle of Lake Maxinkuckee": I said --
"It is no massacre." (SLP:169)
People who enjoyed violence were not let to fight in wars,
and neither were people with children to look after.
The scheme also solved the problem of mistreated
children, children who were born in families where parents
could not, were not able to, or didn't want to, take care of
them. "That was surely one of the most attractive features
of Eliza's and my invention, I think: Children had so many
homes and parents to choose from," Wilbur Swain says
(SLP:166).
Most of all, the scheme enabled individuals to find
their own place where they fit. They made this possible even
for people who by no means deserved it, for people who would
deserve something completely different, for criminals, for
badly behaving individials and so on. Everybody had a place
within the society, a place in Humanity. "Once a Daffodil,
always a Daffodil," the family meeting tells a woman who
wants to expel some people from the family for fighting on
the wrong side of a battle. Th is family accepts a person
not because of his/her achievements or behavior or
qualities, but because he/she is a member of the family,
a part which cannot be torn away.
The artificial family scheme was successful. Americans
were "happier than they had ever been" (SLP:146). It is one
of the hints at the way how the world could be re-built or
re-invented.
Sirens of Titan
Sirens of Titan is a novel about searching for the
purpose of life. The long search ends with finding the
purpose: the whole purpose of humankind was to deliver
a spare part to a Tralfamadorian ship stranded on the planet
Titan. The human beings were controlled by Tralfamadorians
to fulfill this purpose, while wandering and searching and
about their own great purposes. What's more absurd, the
stranded Tralfamadorian's purpose was only to deliver
a message to a far-away civilization, which simp ly said
"Greetings!"
In the book, Church of God the Utterly Indifferent is
described as the main religion. It teaches people that God
will not do anything, neither good, nor bad. It tries to
persuade people to stop praising or blaming God for
anything, since he does not do anything. It shows that
Divinity, or the Creator of the Universe, failed in giving
the world a purpose.
However, there is a way out of the amber presented
here: If the universe cannot confirm a purpose of life,
Humanity has to invent one. And Malachi Constant does invent
the purpose at the end of the novel, saying:
It took us that long to realize that a purpose of
human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to
love whoever is around to be loved. (TIT:220)
This may be the key sentence of the whole novel: Stop caring
about God (He will take care of Himself) and care about
people instead, about fellow men.
Timequake
In Timequake, there can also be found a way out.
Kilgore Trout is the person who finds it. First the reader
can see him in a picture gallery:
He hung up the painting again, and even made
sure it was hanging straight. "That seemed somehow
important, that the picture was nice and straight,"
he said, "and evenly spaced from the others. At
least I could make that little part of the chaotic
Universe exactly as it should be. I was grateful
for the opportunity to do that. (TQK:154)
It seems a little thing but Trout considers it important.
Though he cannot do anything of much importance (on the
scale of the whole world), he is capable of doing a little
thing only and he does it, ceasing to care about the big
things, he finds pleasure in doing the tiniest bit.
Later in the novel, the reader can read about the
so-called Kilgore's Creed: "You were sick, but now you're
well again, and there's work to do." (TQK:169) This creed
saves humankind later, when people get free will back but do
not know what to do. Timequake moved everybody ten years
back and when they got to the point when the timequake
stroke, nobody knew how to live on. There was not any way
out. Kilgore Trout, however, invented one. He told people
a simple sentence, the Kilgore's Creed. The y believed it
and started working, helping other people live and learn how
to live again.
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
The most humane book, however, is probably God Bless
You Mr. Rosewater. It describes maybe most human compassion
than any other book by Vonnegut. It speaks about
a "fabulously well-to-do" Eliot, who gives up his money and
wealth and retreats to a small town Rosewater, Indiana where
he starts his mission of help for people. Though other
people consider him to be "crazy as a loon" (ROS:10) and
call him The Saint, Holy Roller or John the Baptist, he
carries this mission out.
Vonnegut seems to present Eliot as a kind of present
day savior, messiah. Eliot comes to Rosewater to play Jesus
to the poor, fighting with people's lonelines, poverty and
also fighting with fire (he is obsessed with firefighting
and volunteer firemen are the greatest heroes for him).
Eliot offers a way out of all those things that are
criticized in this book: greed, hypocrisy, lust etc.: help
to the fellow man. He re-invents some things, such as money:
What he does is what he says at a convention of
science-fiction writers: "Think about the silly ways money
gets passed around now, and then think up better ways"
(ROS:22). He re-invents the term "artist" as well:
"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. The
factory, the farms, the mines across the
river--they're almost completely automatic now. And
America doesn't even need these people for
war--not any more. Sylvia--I'm going to be an
artist."
"An artist?"
I'm going to love these discarded Americans,
even though they're useless and unattractive. That
is going to be my work of art. (ROS:36)
This extract quite well describes the human compassion the
book creates and the re-invention of the purpose of Eliot
Rosewater's life.
Summing up success
The above are a few examples of how Humanity succeeds
in getting out of the amber. There are some original
features in each book, but there are also many common
features of these successful escaping methods.
A rather common feature or theme is re-invention of
the Universe. The reader can see Billy Pilgrim re-invent the
world around himself, look at some things only and ignore
the bad moments. He manages to change a war movie full of
violence and blood into a cute humane movie. Kilgore Trout
manages to do a similar thing with the picture in the
gallery and with his Creed. Malachi Constant re-invented the
Universe, too, and found a meaning and purpose there where
there was neither meaning nor purpos e. Wilbur Swain
re-invented the world through the artificial extended family
scheme. Above all, Eliot Rosewater re-invents the Universe
through using money for completely different purposes than
other people do, through helping people just because they
are people.
Messianic Characters
It has been noted that Eliot Rosewater is a kind of
messiah coming into today's world. He, however is not the
only one: Other characters could get the label "messiah" as
well, as they appear throughout Vonnegut's books. Goldsmith
notes this and identifies several messianic characters. One
of the messianic characters is Winston Niles Rumfoord, who
"is out to prove to the inhabitants of Earth that their old
religions are useless and myoptic." (Goldsmith:1-2) Another
is Boyd Johnson, alias Bokonon, the founder of the religion
Bokonism. His contributions "seem more substantial, because
they are based on love and compassion for others."
(Goldsmith:3) Kilgore Trout is another messiah, having
credit for, for example, mental recovery of Eliot Rosewater,
Billy Pilgrim yet another. (Goldsmith:4-5) Paul Proteus is
identified as political messiah. (Goldsmith:5) These
messiahs help the characters or the reader walk upon an
unmapped and previously untrodden path and lead them toward
the goal, help th em find a way how to escape from the
amber. Kilgore Trout could be the best example of this,
having had so much influence upon his fans, giving them so
much in his books. If undergone similar analysis, other
characters from other Vonnegut's books and stories could be
identified as messiah characters, such as Billy the Poet in
"Welcome to the Monkey House" etc.
Humanity versus Divinity
Humanity does not conquer Divinity physically. It
cannot do it. It is not capable of being set free from the
bonds that Divinity set on it. However, Vonnegut's Humanity
does manage to outwit Divinity. Even though it is physically
impossible to be set free, Humanity manages to liberate
itself. One aspect did not really fit the definition of
a machine (as was shown in the section on Humanity) and it
is crucial in this moment: human imagination. It is
something that is not under Divinity's control. It is
something people are free to use at any time, at times when
they are otherwise controlled by the 'enormous forces'.
Bryant points out that Vonnegut's Humanity "is a complex
combination of nobility and meanness, knowledge and
ignorance, grandeur and ignomity" (Bryant:322). It is
a complex of good and bad qualities. The bad qualities
(meanness, ignorance and ignomity) can be ascribed to
Divinity, because Humanity cannot be blamed for them. It is
not able to suppress them. If one scratches out the bad
qualities (which are mostly in majority), the good ones will
remain. Benjamin DeMott complains that Vonnegut's Humanity
"serves evil too openly and good too secretly" (DeMott
1971:30). The outside of Humanity is controlled by Divinity,
the villain, therefore Humanity appears to be evil. What
happens 'inside' Humanity is what's beyond the villains
power. That's what makes Humanity a good character. It does
serve good above all things. Evil things are beyond its
control.
The novel Bluebeard emphasizes the difference between
'meat' and 'soul'. "My soul knows my meat is doing bad
things" (BLU:246). Soul is good. Meat is evil. The story
"Unready to Wear", which was written as early as 1951, also
points at this distinct parts of a human being: "The mind is
the only thing worth anything" (WTM:240). "[The body] brings
out the worst in us, no matter how good our psyches are"
(WTM:243). "The minute you get in [the body], chemicals take
over" (WTM:244). Kilgore Trout in Breakfast of Champions
also agrees with this: "Our awareness is all that is alive
and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is
dead machinery" (BOC:221). Vonnegut, indeed manages to make
the awareness a sacred component of a human being. If people
did not possess it, they would really be simple machines or
puppets.
On meaning and purpose of life
Most of Vonnegut's novels deal with the meaning of
life, seeking its purpose. Ranly says that "Vonnegut employs
only a scientific, mechanistic meaning for purpose and fails
to find a reasonable purpose in either the universe or in
man" (Ranly:211). Humans, therefore find a meaning in
themselves. If they seem to have been created for some
pathetic reason, they can surely invent a purpose inside
them. The main character of Sirens of Titan discovers this
kind of answer at the end of the novel: "It took us that
long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who
is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved"
(TIT:220). Samuels notices this as well: "life passes human
understanding but not our powers of enjoyment"
(Samuels:31). It is this alternative that can be found in
the heart of Humanity that is the means by which it outwits
Divinity. If Divinity "wants to write about somebody who
suffers all the time" (BOC:241), Humanity's only way of
winning is not to suffer.
This chapter has shown that there are no real villains
or heroes in Vonnegut's books. These characters can be found
only when Humanity and Divinity are considered to be
literary characters. Humanity was proved not to be the
villain, despite all the vile things it does. It is led into
doing them by Divinity and that is why Divinity is the
villain. Humanity, however, could not be considered to be
the hero if there was no additional aspect of its character
to being the puppet. This aspect has bee n found in
Humanity's awareness, its imagination, the capability of
discovering its own answers. This becomes a way for
outwitting Divinity, a way of winning over it. Therefore,
Humanity can be considered to be the hero.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I: Humanity
Characteristics of Humanity
Playthings, puppets
Human life and its value
Bugs in Amber
CHAPTER II: Divinity
Characteristics of Divinity
Other Divinity characters
The Divine Father
Religion
CHAPTER III: Hero vs Villain
Hero vs. Villain
Unsuccessful Ways Out
Successful Ways Out
Humanity vs. Divinity
On meaning and purpose of life
CHAPTER IV: Vonnegut as the Hero
Fiction and Autobiography merged
Vonnegutīs amber
Vonnegutīs ways out
CONCLUSION
List of Abbreviations Used
Bibliography
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Last modified: Apr 2, 1998