Vonnegut as a "Bug in Amber"
Connection of Fiction and Autobiography in the Works of Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
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CHAPTER IV: Vonnegut as the Hero
This chapter will attempt to explain the reason why
Vonnegut writes as he does and investigate his interest in
his writing. It will explore the relationship between
Vonnegut's person and his fiction.
Fiction and Autobiography merged
Bergoettz calls some of Vonnegut's novels "personal"
(Bergoettz) and this chapter will show in which ways his
novels (and all writing) are personal and what it is that
Vonnegut is actually doing through writing books and
stories.
There are several features in Vonnegut's writing that
enable the reader to draw links between fact and fiction,
especially those between Vonnegut himself and his
characters.
Kilgore Trout - Vonnegut in the Mirror
Kilgore Trout is a character that appears in
Vonnegut's books more frequently than any other. While
playing a minor part in, for example, God Bless You, Mr.
Rosewater or Galapagos, being only mentioned in several
others, such as Jailbird or Hocus Pocus, he appears as the
major character in two other books: Breakfast of Champions
and Timequake. He is a writer, like Kurt Vonnegut. Trout's
person, however, is rather obscure. There are many details
about his life mentioned throughout these books, but the
bits and pieces of information often contradict one another.
For example, Breakfast of Champions says that he died in
1983. In Timequake, he is still alive in 2001 and, as
Vonnegut says, dies that year. (TQK:xiii). While in some
novels, he is an unknown writer, in others, he is
a distinguished writer and scientist who has even been
awarded the Nobel Prize (BOC:16,25). However, a short
biography can be put together from the pieces of information
available, with the omission of the contradicti ng parts,
however.
He was born in a family of ornithologists and spent
his childhood in Bermuda. It was depressing (BOC:31). He
started writing when he was fourteen years old, but no
distinguished publisher would publish his stories or books.
His prose was usually published in trash and pornographic
magazines only (e.g. The Black Garterbelt), fulfilling the
sole function of a filler between obscene pictures and
photos. The text had nothing to do with the pictures,
though. His paperback novels, when they managed to find
a publisher, were failures and usually served as
a shop-window dressing only. His readership was really
small; people who bought the pornographic magazines were not
interested in the text anyway and not many people bought the
paperbacks, either. He had only a few fans. One of the most
devoted ones was definitely Eliot Rosewater (SH5, ROS).
Another "avid fan" (SH5:168) is Billy Pilgrim, who has read
"dozens of books" by Trout. (SH5:166) Despite the low
popularity, he was very fruitful, having written 117 novels
and about 2000 short stories (by the time of the action of
Breakfast of Champions).
His family life was sad. His numerous mariages did not
work out and his son, Leon, ran away from home when he was
sixteen. He lived alone in his rented apartment in Illium.
Another known place of residence was an aparment in Cohoes,
NY, where he lived with his parakeet, Cyclone Bill, only. In
order to get money (which he ususally did not get from his
writing career) he did various jobs. He worked as "an
installer of aluminous combination storm windows and
screens." (BOC:20), he was "a stock clerk in a trading stamp
redemption center" (ROS:19). In Slaughterhouse-Five, his job
was "a circulation man for the Illium Gazette" where he
"managed newspaper delivery boys, bullied and flattered and
cheated little kids" (SH5:166). Giving freedom to his
parakeet in 1975 and having learned of his son's death, "he
becomes a vagabond" (TQK). However, at the end of his life,
the odds seem to work for him. He even receives the nobel
prize. (BOC:25) and even his jokes start to be taken
seriously. (BOC:19)
There are many reasons why a reader can draw
a conclusion that Vonnegut and Trout have a lot in common
and that, probably, when talking about Trout, Vonnegut talks
about himself. Various critics have come to this conclusion,
even before Vonnegut admitted himself that Trout has been
his "alter ego" (TQK:xiii). Lundquist, for example, has used
this term, alter ego, for Kilgore Trout as early as 1977
(Lundquist:41).
The things that are similar between Trout and Vonnegut
are many. One thing is their writing. Their stories, or
novels, often have the same themes or the same characters.
To mention several examples, one story that is very similar
is Trout's novel 2BR0TB (ROS:19-21) and Vonnegut's short
story "Welcome to the Monkey House". In both, the reader can
find the idea of Ethical Suicide Parlors, where people can
have themselves killed legally and humanely. The two places
are described almost identically. Another thing Trout and
Vonnegut have in common is the planet Tralfamadore and
aliens called Tralfamadorians. It is the planet where Billy
Pilgrim (SH5) is taken to when kidnapped by UFO's. This
planet appears also in Sirens of Titan. It appears in
several of Trout's stories, for example "Protocols of the
Elders of Tralfamadore" (HOC). Even though the accounts of
Tralfamadore and Tralfamadorians differ slightly both in
Trout's stories and in Vonnegut's books, it is an element
the two writers have in common.
Many of the novels of Kilgore Trout have similar
themes as Vonnegut's and attack the same things over and
over again, such as automation, free will, religion, human
stupidity, greed and obsession with money, sexual lust etc.
Many of Trout's stories appear throughout Vonnegut's books,
usually stripped so that the readers can read the plot of
the story condensed into one paragraph. One, and definitely
not only, example can be the story about a money tree:
Trout, incidentally, had written a book about
a money tree. It had twenty dollar bills for
leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its
fruit was diamonds. It attracted human beings who
killed each other around the roots and made very
good fertilizer. (SH5:167)
Another parallel between Trout and Vonnegut can be
seen in the publishers of their stories and books. Vonnegut,
too, was first published in various magazines. "Welcome to
the Monkey House", for example, appeared in Playboy. Others
include The Atlantic Monthly, Collier's Magazine,
Cosmopolitan, Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, Ladies
Home Journal, The New York Times, Saturday Evening Post,
Venture etc. His first books appeared in paperback only.
In God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, the reader can find
the description of Trout's favorite formula for writing
stories:
Trout's favorite formula was to describe
a perfectly hideous society, not unlike his own,
and then, toward the end, to suggest ways in which
it could be improved. (ROS:20)
This is the very formula that Vonnegut himself is using in
his fiction, as has already been described.
In the biography of these two people, there are also
several suprising coincidences. For example, Vonnegut, just
like Trout, probably started writing at an early age. In
1936, Vonnegut, when at High School, was one of the
publishers of a school magazine, Shortridge Daily Echo
(Zelenka:159). He was fourteen when he started attending the
school, just as Trout was fourteen when he started writing.
His first short story, "Report on the Barnhouse Effect",
however, was published another fourteen years later, at the
age of twenty-eight. Some places are also common both for
Trout and Vonnegut: especially Cape Cod.
Trout can really be seen as Vonnegut's fictional
counterpart, a parody of Vonnegut or Vonnegut's mirror
image. Beorgettz notes that Trout is "also a representation
of what Vonnegut himself might become." (Beorgettz:chapter
1) This is one of the reasons why the reader can consider
Vonnegut's fiction to be more autobiography than fiction.
Billy Pilgrim and other autobiographical characters
Kilgore Trout is not the only literary character that
seems to carry Vonnegut's image. In his writing, the reader
can find more characters that could be called
autobiographical characters.
Billy Pilgrim is probably the most obvious of the
characters that reflects Vonnegut himself. Billy Pilgrim
re-lives the hell of the fire-storming of Dresden in 1945,
an event that probably had the greatest impact on Vonnegut
and his writing. Apart from the identical events that Billy
and Vonnegut experience (the war, being prisoners-of-war,
work in Dresden and the actual bombing), Vonnegut prompts
two other hints that leave no doubt that Vonnegut equals
Billy Pilgrim: "That was I. That was me. That was the author
of this book," (SH5:125, 148) Vonnegut writes.
Another of Vonnegut's characters that could be
connected with the writer himself by the mark "equals" is
Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain in Slapstick. Without the fact that
Vonnegut said himself in the prologue that Slapstick is
rather an autobiography, the readers would hardly be able to
see the autobiographical elements themselves. Having read
this before the novel starts makes them constantly wonder at
the things depicted in the story. Vonnegut says this about
the novel: "It depicts myself and my beautiful sister as
monsters." (SLP:24) His sister, Alice, was embarassingly
tall, and died of cancer (Nicol:1302) and even though the
setting is all fictional, it is about Alice and Kurt. The
book is about "what life feels like to Vonnegut"
(Nicol:1302). It is also an experiment with old age
(SLP:25) which Vonnegut started to enter (he was fifty-four
when Slapstick was published.)
Kilgore Trout "co-stars" in Breakfast of Champions
with Dwayne Hoover. The latter is also much like Vonnegut.
Hoover has a dog, Sparky, and loves to get down on the floor
and roll around with him and speak to him (BOC:17-18). In
the prologue to Slapstick, Vonnegut says that this is his
own love, too:
I used to spend a lot of time rolling around on
rugs with uncritically affectionate dogs we had.
And I still do a lot of that. The dogs become
tired and confused and embarassed long before I do.
I could go on forever. (SLP:12)
This is one connecting thing that connects Hoover with
Vonnegut. Another of the connecting things is Dwayne's job:
a car salesman. Vonnegut himself was a Saab dealer in
1954-56 (Zelenka:160).
David Potter in "Deer in the Works" also reminds
a reader of Kurt Vonnegut. The story probably is about
Vonnegut. Potter comes to the Illium Works to apply for
a job as a writer in advertising and sales promotion
(WTM:207). He also owns a weekly paper in Dorset. Vonnegut
himself was working as a publicist in General Electric
Company in Schenectady, N.Y. Feeling trapped, like Potter
and the deer, he left in 1951 and became a full-time writer
(Zelenka:160).
Rudy Watz is also a reflection of Vonnegut, as he says
in the preface of Deadeye Dick (DED:xiii)
The neutered pharmacist who tells the tale is my
declining sexuality. The crime he commited in
childhood is all the bad things I have done.
(DED:xiii)
Not only from these, but from other characters of
Vonnegut's can the reader conclude that Vonnegut often
writes about himself. It is also the usual first person
narrative Vonnegut mostly uses. Slapstick, for example, is
an autobiography of Wilbur Swain, therefore written in first
person. In Hocus Pocus, Eugene Debs Hartke writes about his
life on bits of paper, and again, there is the first person
narrative. Bluebeard is another autobiography, this time of
Rabo Karabekian. Jailbird is another. Palm Sunday and Fates
Worse than Death have the subtitle "An Autobiographical
Collage", yet the style and the narrative does not differ
much from Vonnegut's other novels that could be named
"fiction", Timequake, for example. The narrative helps to
persuade the reader that Vonnegut, by talking about other
people, talks about himself. That is why it appears to be so
attractive and natural for Vonnegut to choose the first
person narrative in majority of his books, especially the
later ones.
Further, the personal prefaces and prologues to his
books usually contain the same devices as the actual novel.
For example, in the prologue to Slapstick, Vonnegut uses the
same "senile hiccup 'hi ho'" just as throughout the whole
book (SLP:12,16,17,19,25). Chapter one of
Slaughterhouse-Five, being an introduction, uses for example
the recurrent phrase "So it goes" (SH5:21). The frequency of
and-so-on's and et-cetera's and other similar phrases
Vonnegut uses in his fiction is also something th at
connects the actual story with the personal note in the
beginning.
Autobiographical Places
Vonnegut writes about many places, but many of them
are actual places, where Vonnegut lived or worked.
Indianapolis can be one of them. Many events of Vonnegut's
writing are set in Indiana, or the capital itself. Cape Cod
appears in many books, too (CAT, ROS, SH5 etc.) and it is
actually where Vonnegut has lived as well (TQK:xi). To name
a few more, Schenectady and New York appear in his books
frequently, too, and these two places are also where he has
lived.
Vonnegut appearing in his books
Vonnegut himself has appeared as a character in his
books or, if not as a character, he mentions himself in the
narrative. This happens especially in his later fiction,
where the style of writing requires it. The way Vonnegut has
been writing recently, appears to be a kind of taking
inventory of things in his head. The best example is
probably the novel Timequake: Vonnegut wrote one version
first but it "stunk" (TQK:xii) so he rewrote it. It is now
a "stew made from [Timequake-1's] best parts mixed with
thoughts and experiences during the past seven months or so"
(TQK:xii). His autobiographical "collages", Palm Sunday and
Fates Worse than Death, are written in a similar way. One
book of his even uses him as a literary character: Breakfast
of Champions.
The fact that Vonnegut himself appears in his own
books draws still a closer link between Vonnegut's life and
his fiction. At times he seems to cease to use parallels and
analogies and writes it in a straightforward way that he is
writing not about fictional things, but about things that
are real, things that Vonnegut can see in the world about
himself.
Vonnegut's "amber"
Having demonstrated the way characters in his books
are "stuck in amber" and defined what the "amber" is in some
works in particular, it can now be shown what kind of
"amber" Vonnegut finds himself.
The key novel remains Slaughterhouse-Five, which
depicts the author's experience in World War Two and the
destruction of Dresden. Though there were many other
difficult events in Vonnegut's life, the events around 13th
February 1945 are certainly most influential of his writing.
Though Dresden is mentioned only in a few books (e.g. SH5,
ROS), the issue of war recurs very frequently in most of his
books, be it World War Two, the war in Vietnam or any other
wars or battles, both real and fiction al. It appears to be
very difficult for Vonnegut to escape from the memories, the
experiences he gained as a soldier, from the vision that he
saw, vision of the dead people, cruel people, sadistic
people, innocent people etc. in the war.
It is not only the death he saw during the war that
haunts him. It is generally the unfairness of affairs on
this planet. A great shock for him was the death of his
sister Alice and her husband, which left their children
orphans. He returns to this events several times in his
writing, first in Slapstick, and several later books as well
(e.g. Palm Sunday).
Weekly Guardian once asked Vonnegut what his idea of
perfect happiness was. His answer was: "Imaging that
something somewhere wants us to like it here." (Quoted in
Huber:/fwtd.html) This answer corresponds with what this
essay has shown about Vonnegut's Divinity: it is
indifferent, it makes people suffer. Divinity, as Vonnegut
describes it, certainly does not want people to "like it
here". This is also a fact which Vonnegut cannot escape and
change anything about.
Vonnegut's ways out
Vonegut has found himself in an "amber" but he has
also decided not to stay there. It is apparent from his
writing that he has found a way out for himself. It is
possible to watch the development, Vonnegut's progress,
throughout his books. With the help of the ways that have
been already identified in his books, the following sections
will explore and identify Vonnegut's personal ways out.
Re-invention
The most common way out of amber in Vonnegut's novels
and stories was re-intervention. The "amber" which trapped
Vonnegut has surely been highly uncomfortable, causing a lot
of suffering and painful memories. Since Vonnegut could not
control these circumstances of his life, could not take
anything back, could not revive dead people and undo the
harm, he needed to find a different way out. Therefore, in
the same way as characters in his books, Vonnegut needed to
re-invent the universe, the worl d, his life, so that he
could stay alive and keep his sanity. It can be told from
his writing, that he has succeeded in the re-invention.
Re-invention through literature
One of Vonnegut's tools of re-invention is literature.
It seems that the most important way that Vonnegut has found
for escaping the amber is his writing, his fiction as well
as non-fiction. The position of an author of books offers
him several vantage points.
Billy Pilgrim effect
The first of the vantage points is what will be called
"Billy Pilgrim Effect". Billy Pilgrim, in
Slaughterhouse-Five, tends to get "unstuck in time". It
means that he travels in time back or forth, living through
various periods of his life.This also enables him, for
example, to see the war motion picture backwards. This
time-travelling also helps him accept the Tralfamadorian
attitude towards life, makes it possible for him to
concentrate on good moments and forget about the bad ones.
Similar tool is used in some other novels, too. Leon Trout,
for example, narrates the story of Galapagos in the same
almost random way, in this case from the position of a ghost
in a far future. Similar effect is reached e.g. in Timequake
through Vonnegut's first person narrative. Timequake has
been called a "stew" (TQK:xii), being compiled of an
original book and Vonnegut's experiences.
Literature in general offers Vonnegut the same
viewpoint of Leon Trout or Billy Pilgrim, or Eugene Debs
Hartke etc. He can write whatever he wants, he can
concentrate on some things while ignore others. "I could
sort out good ideas from heaps of balderdash," (SLP:89)
Vonnegut says about Wilbur Swain, his own fictional
counterpart in Slapstick and it seems to be true for
Vonnegut. He can look at life the same way Billy Pilgrim at
the stretch of the Rocky Mountains (SH5:61). Literature
enables him to "see a war movie backwards" just as Billy
Pilgrim.
Humor
Humor is also a very often used tool Vonnegut uses.
Vonnegut's books truly are often very humorous and
entertaining. The reader may sometimes consider this
inappropriate, because Vonnegut often uses his joke in
places where people would not expect them, for example when
burning the rotting dead bodies after the bombing of Dresden
or mourning his sister's death. When Alice died, he wrote
the novel Slapstick about her and himself, depicting the two
siblings as monsters. Leaving aside if it is ap propriate or
not, Vonnegut seems to use humor to help him reach deeper
into the subject about which he is writing, and maybe even
help him come to terms with all the things he has
experienced. Scholes notes that
the humor in Vonnegut's fiction is what enables us
to contemplate the horror that he finds in
contemporary existence. It does not disguise the
awful things perceived; it merely strengthens and
comforts us to the point where such perception is
bearable. (Scholes:23)
It took Vonnegut more than twenty years to write a book
about Dresden. Slaughterhouse-Five was finally published in
1969, many years after his return from the war. In his
introduction to the novel, Vonnegut explains how difficult
it was for him to write the book:
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
twenty-three years ago, 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...
But not many words about Dresden came from my
mind then--not enough of them to make a book,
anyway. And not many words come now, either...
(SH5:2)
It seems to have taken him twenty-three years to
re-invent the whole affair and write a book about it, using
humor which helps him approach the matter and describe the
things he had gone through.
All Vonnegut's books use humor and most of them for
the same purpose, even though they seldom speak about such
tragic reality as Dresden. Yet all the themes of his books
are serious and humor makes it easier both for Vonnegut and
the reader to cope with it. "Comedy looks into depths which
tragedy dares not acknowledge" (Scholes:23) and that is the
reason for the unusual style of his books.
Sci-fi
Another tool Vonnegut often uses as a means of escape
is science-fiction. Majority of his stories can be labelled
"sci-fi" as well as his early novels, Player Piano, Sirens
of Titan and Cat's Cradle. The other works by Vonnegut tend
to have some sci-fi features as well, such as Timequake,
Slapstick or Galapagos. In many of them he uses his
fictional counterpart, Kilgore Trout, to incorporate some
sci-fi ideas into his books. Most surprisingly, though, he
uses some science-fiction elements eve n in his book about
Dresden, Slaughterhouse-Five. It seems absurd that in such
a serious book Vonnegut would use his favorite
Tralfamadorians.
Science-fiction seems to have a similar role in
Vonnegut's writing as humor. It helps him touch the
essential things which he really wants to talk about. It
seems that Vonnegut wraps an issue in a science-fiction coat
and thus brings it to absurdity. Then, while talking about
absurd things, he talks about the essential things as well.
"The truth of Vonnegut's vision requires its fiction," says
Scholes about Vonnegut's usage of sci-fi in
Slaughterhouse-Five. "Art, as Picasso has said, is a lie
that makes us realize the truth. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is a true
artist." (Scholes:23) Vonnegut himself says that
science-fiction was the best way how to write about
opinions on various things: General Electric and
the loss of human dignity, the loss of trust in the
government, the loss of belief in god, the loss of
belief in the innocence of science and so on.
(Vonnegut, quoted in Zelenka:111, transl.)
Sci-fi, similarly as humor, helps Vonnegut achieve
a different perspective of history and its cruel and
unpleasant facts. It helps him re-invent the world and
change it for better.
Bargaining in good faith
In Slapstick Vonnegut mentions Laurel and Hardy, two
comedians of his time and as he says in the book's
dedication, "angels" (SLP:7). What he found so intriguing
about the two is that "they never failed to bargain in good
faith with their destinies" (SLP:11) and that "they did
their best with every test" (SLP:11). This is what
Vonnegut's life may seem to be -- a big test. (Zelenka:15)
What Laurel and Hardy did on the screen, Vonnegut is
doing on paper: doing his best to pass the test his life has
given him and bargaining in good faith with destiny. In
Breakfast of Champions Vonnegut said that God was perhaps
trying to find how much human beings could stand before they
broke (BOC:166). Vonnegut refuses to break even though his
mind and memory are haunted by the horrors of war, and is
trying to stand his ground despite Divinity's "destructive
testing".
People versus God Almighty
Vonnegut does not stay at just passive enduring
Divinity's tests. He goes on and apparently challenges
Divinity. Divinity is in Vonnegut's eyes a failure. Life
under this God is unfair and Vonnegut, refusing to submit to
such an authority, seems to be calling upon a higher
authority. C.S. Lewis has written an essay "God in the Dock"
where he describes a common relationship of people to God:
that God is in the dock and has to defend himself and prove
that he really is the God Almighty that the Bible says He
is. Vonnegut seems to be doing the same, creating the
biggest case in history: people (or Humanity) vs. God (or
Divinity).
The courtroom scene is created through Vonnegut's
writing, through works of both fiction and non-fiction. In
this trial, God is the defendant and Vonnegut presents the
pieces of evidence against Him one by one, the wars, the
state of human beings, the chaotic universe, the over-sized
brains, heredity and so on. They are Divinity's fault. The
human beings and the events of Vonnegut's books are
witnesses, Vonnegut himself being the state's evidence or
approver. If God managed 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 might be
acquitted. (adapted from Lewis) However, the pieces of
evidence speaking against Divinity are so numerous, the
testimonies so convincing. The jury, the readers, seem to
have no other choice than to say "guilty".
The trial with God or the argument with and against
God may be another purpose of his writing, of literature in
his hands. Vonnegut, seeing no other way of getting even
with Divinity, uses literature to help him. Here he is free
to speak against Divinity, which is in his opinion
responsible for all the bad things. It is also a kind of
re-invention.
New Religion
Apparently having won his literary trial, Vonnegut has
created a new religion. Having condemned seeking help in
Divinity altogether, he tells people to turn to themselves.
Vonnegut himself does this through literature which helps
him find his individual answers to paradoxical truths and
answers (Reed:94). He also becomes a creator, a god,
similarly as in his novel Breakfast of Champions, the master
of puppets, the one who has the power to create and destroy
as he will. By standing in this posit ion, he appears to
give hints at how it should be done, especially at the end
of Breakfast of Champions, when he decides to give his
slaves freedom.
Re-invention through love
Vonnegut was born into an evil world. 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. Vonnegut may be asking the question who
is worth loving if not people. He keeps probing in the
nature of human beings in hope of discovering that they are
actually good. His book Galapagos has this introductory
quotation from Anne Frank: "In spite of everything, I still
believe people are really good at heart," (GAL) and Vonnegut
seems to really believe it. However, if he wants something
evil to be good, he has to remove the bad things. In order
to lift up the minority of the good things, he must somehow
erase the maj ority of the bad things. 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,
in a review of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, quotes
Vonnegut:
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, (Vonnegut quoted in
May)
and it is what Vonnegut tries to prove throughout his
writing and life.
Even though Vonnegut is an atheist and a free-thinker
and a sceptic (PSU:30), he seems to be fascinated by the
person of Jesus Christ, especially His Sermon on the Mount.
In this sermon, Jesus teaches the people much about love for
their neighbour, even love for their enemies (Matthew 5-7).
Vonnegut, though calling religion "balderdash", says that
Christ's Sermon on the Mount cannot be considered
"balderdash" (TQK:112). Leonard makes a list of "sacred
documents" for Vonnegut, which includes Christ's sermon:
In his last novel, Slapstick (1976), Kurt Vonnegut
told us that he believed in the Bill of Rights,
Robert's Rules of Order and the principles of
Alcoholics Anonymous. In his new novel, Jailbird --
his best, in my opinion, since Mother Night (1961)
and Cat's Cradle (1963) -- he adds another sacred
document. It is the Sermon on the Mount. (Leonard)
In spite of everything that Vonnegut had said about God and
people, he was once invited to preach in an Episcopal Church
in New York. The opening sentence of his speech was "I am
enchanted by the Sermon on the Mount." (PSU:325)
Summary of Vonnegut as a hero
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 fro m 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.
One of his invented purposes of life is "love for
one's neighbor". Although this appears in Christ's teaching
("You shall love your neighbor as yourself" - Mark 12,31),
Vonnegut isolates this commandment from the other important
commandment Jesus gives people, numbering it first in
importance: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and
with all your strength" (Mark 12,30). Though quoting
Christ's words, Vonnegut chooses only the p arts of his
teaching that speak about love for people: it's the people
that matter most. "We are here to help each other to get
through this... whatever it is," (Mark Vonnegut, quoted in
TQK) seems to be Vonegut's motto. This is probably what he
is also doing in his writing: helping people to get through
life, helping people invent their purpose of life, helping
people go through difficult situations etc.
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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