COMIC ABSURDITY AND THE NOVELS OF KURT VONNEGUT, JR. By WILLIAM GARY SHAW ...

212 Pages·2014·5.35 MB·English

COMIC ABSURDITY AND THE NOVELS OF
KURT VONNEGUT, JR.
By
WILLIAM GARY SHAW
I\ .
Bachelor of Arts
Oklahoma State University
Oklahoma
Stillwater~
1963
Master of Science
Oklahoma State University
Stillwater, Oklahoma
1968
Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate Co 11 ege
of the Oklahoma State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the Degree of
· DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
July, 1975
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COMIC ABSURDITY AND THE NOVELS OF
KURT VONNEGUT, JR.
Thesis Approved:
93899 5
ii
PREFACE
I wish to express my thanks to my readers, but not just for ser
ving on my conmittee and offering constructive help. I thank my major
adviser, Dr. Mary Rohrberger, from whom I have learned both about
literature and the art of teaching with a balance of pride arid humil
ity; I thank Dr. Clinton Keeler for being a continual intellectual
stimulant; I thank Dr. Peyton Glass III for changing my whole life
and literary perceptions by introducing me to Black Humor and a book
called Catch-22; and I thank Dr. Leon Munson for his support and
encouragement throughout my graduate years.
I wish also to thank Rita Handshy, whose typing and proofreading
on short notice and with impending deadlines was invaluable. A note
of thanks is also in order for Mrs. Martin in the graduate office for
her cooperation and help in the final stages of completing this
degree.
Finally, special gratitude is expressed for my daughter, Kim
berly, for her understanding why Daddy was seldom home; this
dissertation could easily have ridden with Jessee James for all of
my time it stole from her.
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter Page.
I. COMIC ABSURDITY 1
I I. KURT VONNEGUT, JR. 6
. . .
I I I. PLAYER PIANO 18
IV. THE SIRENS OF TITAN . 36
v. MOTHER NIGHT . . . . 55
VI. CAT'S CRADLE 76
. . . .
VII. GOD BLESS YOU, MR. ROSEWATER 102
VII I. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE . . 130
IX. BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS . 165
X. CONCLUSION .. 197
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 202
iv
no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy
11 •••
anything" (Cat's Cradle, p. 34).
v
CHAPTER I
COMIC ABSURDITY
Why comic absurdity? I first chose the word comic only to imply
humor, to insure that the tone of humor was never lost sight of amid
a 11 the chaos. I realize that novels such as Pl ayer Piano, The Sirens
of Titan, Mother Night, and Cat's Cradle cannot be truly seen as comic
in a traditional sense or in Northrup Frye's sense of the word, for
"comedy usually moves toward a happy ending, and the normal response
of the audience to a happy ending is 'this should be. 1 The endings
111
of Vonnegut's novels give no such feeling. According to Frye, "the
obstacles to the hero's desire, then, form the action of the comedy,
and the overcoming of them the comic resolution. 112 Or if the hero
does not triumph, he at least escapes. In what Frye calls "the
second phase of comedy, the hero does not transform a humorous
society but simply escapes or runs away from it, leaving its structure
as it was before."3 But in Vonnegut's novels there is no real tri
umph over opposing forces, and the best these novels can do is parody
conventional comic endings with a resulting irony. Unlike other
novels in the comic absurd tradition such as Catch-22 and One Flew
Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Vonnegut's novels do not even posit an escape.
There is no Yossarian or Bromden to light out for the territory.
Proteus is imprisoned at the end of Player Piano, Rumfoord dematerial
izes and both Beatrice and Malachi Constant die to conclude The Sirens
1
2
of Titan, Howard W. Campbell, Jr. is imprisoned and eventually hangs
himself in Mother Night, and Cat's Cradle ends not only with the death
of Jonah, but all other life on earth. It would seem, then, that
.
irony would be a much more appropriate term to describe these novels.
Why then cling to a term which obviously will be questioned?
Besides being somewhat synonomous {at least on a non-literary level)
with humorous, comic also has connotations and specialized meanings
which coincide with what I propose to demonstrate in this study.
Something is comic when it causes laughter or amusement, which these
novels do. A comic is one who tells jokes or funny stories, which
Vonnegut certainly does. A comic may also be a funny, often animated
film short characterized by excessive violence. It is sometimes a
picture-book or funny book or a short newspaper piece characterized
by humor, two dimensional characters, and an oversimplified conflict
between good and evil. The zany world of the Marx Brothers is a
'
comic one, and film technique is not far from narrative technique in
Vonnegut's novels. As an added bonus, comic makes a good pun on
cosmic, which when coupled with the idea of absurdity, functions very
well to describe Vonnegut's novels.
In addition, the absurd vision is a comic one; the more grotesque
the horror is, the easier it lends itself to the ludicrous. And like
Beckett, Ionesco, Pinter, and Albee, Vonnegut "employs the ludicrous
ness of comedy to show that life is itself absurd. 4 Vonnegut combines
11
the absurdity of Camus with that of Ionesco. "When Camus talked of
the Absurd in The Myth of Sisyphus, he meant a life lived solely for
its own sake in a univese that no longer made sense because there was
no God to resolve the contradictions .... But for Ionesco, absurdity
3
was what it usually is: raging, hilarious farce. 5 What Kierkegaard
11
calls Despair is present in the absurdity of these novels, but the
absurdity also contains inherent humor. The comic and nightmare
elements are These two conflicting but coexisting ele
insepar~ble.
ments allow us the paradox of simultaneous distance and nearness, of
laughter and horror. Vonnegut makes comedy work in the midst of human
anguish, makes the horr.ors of life more bearable by emphasizing their
ludicrous qualities. Thus awareness of absurdity can bring laughter
as well as anguish. And laughter allows detachment which paradoxi
cally leads to love or compassion.
Trying to discover a good definition for or explanation for
comedy is a great deal like trying to hold mercury in one s hands; it
1
keeps slipping through one's fingers. Most critics of Vonnegut s works
1
are not much help since they generally avoid the issue by using a
phrase such as, "an explained joke is never funny, or "when a joke is
11
dissected, it abruptly ceases to be funny." They then go on to other
aspects of Vonnegut s works. Even writers dealing with comedy avoid
1
classification by saying, "we plague ourselves by trying to sort comedy
from burlesque, satire, and farce ... and the points where they over
lap are none too clearly defined. 6
11
Despite these examples of how to avoid obvious problems, I have
attempted to analyze the techniques Vonnegut uses for comic effect and
the relationship between them and absurdity. Although this effort may
not be totally successful, I hope it is more useful than the usual
dodging of the issue.
According to Robert Corrigan, "comedy operates in that middle
zone between the serious and the absurd which Aristotle called the
4
Ludkrous .•.• The Ludicrous (whether it take the fonn of the gro
tesque, or exaggeration, or physical deformity) [is] the proper sub
ject matter for comedy.117 Clearly, Vonnegut works within the proper
subject matter for comedy; a writer who makes more use of the ludi
crous would be hard to find.
The belief that ours is a chaotic universe without meaning, thus
absurd, is a dominant theme in contemporary American fiction. In order
to show this, contemporary novelists frequently either abandon con
ventional novel fonn or else parody the novel's conventions. Vonnegut
conveys absurdity by parody and burlesque, ridiculous events, grotesque
characters, juxtaposed incongruities, non-seguiturs, various fonns of
verbal wit, and anything else that might serve to destroy the reader's
concept of a logical, orderly world.
Vonnegut has also had plays and numerous short stories' published.
My concentration on the novels was the result of severa1 factors. First,
I was interested in examining Vonnegut's themes and techniques in that
one genre. Second, Vonnegut himself dismisses his short stories as
8
hack work done solely to financiftlly sustain his novel writing. And
anyway, the short stories are filled with the same themes and techniques
which are in his novels, and the latter better develop both. In fact,
9
some of the short stories are incorporated into the novels. Third,
while Happy Birthday, Wanda June is a good play, the same themes and
techniques are also present in the novels. Fourth, the seven novels
comprise an adequate spectrum to study the form and content of Vonnegut's
work. And finally, Vonnegut has promised to write no more novels,10
which affords me the opportunity of dealing with the seven novels as a
completed canon, not an in-progress report.