Time travel and interplanetary travel as both narrative device and critique on Western assumptions of the absoluteness of time and space allow Kurt Vonnegut to interweave and interrelate the two World Wars to the Vietnam War. References to the painting The Spirit of ’76, the novel The Red Badge of Courage (Simon & Schuster Enriched Classic)
, and the battle for Hill 875 affiliate the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and the Korean War to his deconstruction of political metanarratives of patriotism. Time travel allows a juxtaposition of the lies told to Pilgrim’s (and Vonnegut’s) generation about WWII to be inscribed on the war of his son’s generation, the Vietnam War. Voyages to Tralfamadore also undermine American metanarratives as the aliens provide an outsider’s perspective to the narrative.
, and the battle for Hill 875 affiliate the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and the Korean War to his deconstruction of political metanarratives of patriotism. Time travel allows a juxtaposition of the lies told to Pilgrim’s (and Vonnegut’s) generation about WWII to be inscribed on the war of his son’s generation, the Vietnam War. Voyages to Tralfamadore also undermine American metanarratives as the aliens provide an outsider’s perspective to the narrative.The metanarrative of American imperialism calls for the sacrifice of its citizens (mainly young men) to expand its “much-envied” systems of capitalism and democracy to better the lives of those under the “oppressive” system of communism. Vonnegut undermines these presumptions by retelling his experience at Dresden when Americans bombed civilians under false pretences. Americans, not the enemy, are shown to be “a threat to world peace” (142). Even the disjoined paragraph structure of the novel undermines grand narratives, allowing for gaps in memory, enforced and voluntary silence, and repressed memory. These breaks in narrative emulate the absence of the Dresden raid in the Official History of the Army Air Force in World War Two, a conscious decision to keep the events “a secret from the American people” (191). Likewise, the inclusion of living people into a world of fictional characters, some of whom appear in the context of Vonnegut’s other novels, causes the reader to doubt the authenticity of the information provided, thereby calling into question the authoritative voice of historians. For instance the fictive Howard W. Campbell, Jr, the protagonist of Vonnegut’s earlier novel Mother Night
, quotes an actual line attributed to the American humorist Kin Hubbard in his critique of capitalism, which he calls America’s “most destructive untruth” (129). Capitalism, he claims, has made American prisoners-of-war the “most self-pitying, least fraternal, and dirtiest of all prisoners of war...incapable of concerted action” (131), hence not the exemplars of “truth, justice, and the American way” which the metanarrative presupposes. As the narrator relates, there are almost no Supermans, almost no All-American boy heroes in this story. Throughout the narrative only Edgar Derby stands up for the American ideals of “freedom and justice and opportunities and fair play for all” (164), only to be killed for a petty crime soon afterwards. Hence, the hero does not triumph as in a Greek epic, but is doomed. Even in the commodity of ideas, the best ideas, like those of Kilgore Trout, cannot rise to the top if, like Trout’s novels, the “prose [is] frightful” (110). The packaging and marketing of ideas, heroes, ideologies, etc is shown to outweigh their inherent value, thus undermining capitalist ideals. Democracy, another component of “the American way,” is also ridiculed through Edgar Derby’s election as the leader of the American prisoners-of-war. An Englishman calls for nominations, when there are none, the Englishman nominates Derby for them, after which two or three of the hundreds of soldiers second the motion while “[m]ost of the Americans were in stupors or asleep” (144).
, quotes an actual line attributed to the American humorist Kin Hubbard in his critique of capitalism, which he calls America’s “most destructive untruth” (129). Capitalism, he claims, has made American prisoners-of-war the “most self-pitying, least fraternal, and dirtiest of all prisoners of war...incapable of concerted action” (131), hence not the exemplars of “truth, justice, and the American way” which the metanarrative presupposes. As the narrator relates, there are almost no Supermans, almost no All-American boy heroes in this story. Throughout the narrative only Edgar Derby stands up for the American ideals of “freedom and justice and opportunities and fair play for all” (164), only to be killed for a petty crime soon afterwards. Hence, the hero does not triumph as in a Greek epic, but is doomed. Even in the commodity of ideas, the best ideas, like those of Kilgore Trout, cannot rise to the top if, like Trout’s novels, the “prose [is] frightful” (110). The packaging and marketing of ideas, heroes, ideologies, etc is shown to outweigh their inherent value, thus undermining capitalist ideals. Democracy, another component of “the American way,” is also ridiculed through Edgar Derby’s election as the leader of the American prisoners-of-war. An Englishman calls for nominations, when there are none, the Englishman nominates Derby for them, after which two or three of the hundreds of soldiers second the motion while “[m]ost of the Americans were in stupors or asleep” (144). The Traflamadorians’ ability to observe a fourth dimension, allowing for the collapsing of chronological time, attacks the foundation of history and the causal relationships of the metanarratives (example: if you are good, you will be rewarded, if bad, you will be punished). Their perspective of reality differs greatly from that of the metanarratives propagated by Western societies. Narratives concerning sex and reproduction (114), chronological linear time (114), war and peace (117), free will (151), the form of human bodies (87), Christianity (108-110), conceptions of beauty (113), etc are all shown to be faulty, subject to the same perspective-shifting as changing of a pair of eyeglasses, being blind, or suffering from blurred vision engenders (emphasized by Billy Pilgrim’s vocation of optometrist). In fact the Tralfamadorians’ ability to see the future as a fact already accomplished indicates that the American-centric belief of causing the destruction of the universe is completely unfounded, since a banal mistake made by a Tralfamadorian test pilot will bring its demise. Depthlessness, as Jameson suggests, reigns. Similarly both the “Three Musketeers,” as signifying to Billy Pilgrim the death of three fellow combatants, and the “Milky Way,” as a reality to him in his space travels, are both reduced to commodities: the candy bars his wife consumes.
No comments:
Post a Comment