Slaughterhouse-Five Through Morrison's Eyes

Slaughterhouse-Five was written in 1969, right at the peak of Vietnam, about World War II. Its most obvious theme is an anti-war sentiment. But after reading Morrison’s Playing in the Dark, and rereading certain passages, I’ve come to believe that there are subtle racial messages buried deep within the prose. I don’t think that Slaughterhouse-Five has a central, consistent racial theme, but the way Vonnegut writes certain does seem to reflect what Morrison would deem an Africanist presence.

The main way I went about criticizing Vonnegut through Morrison’s lens was to do exactly what Morrison did herself: document the points in the story where non-white characters appear and analyze why the writer chose to make that character a minority. There were two notable spots where this occurred.

First there is the scene where Billy huddled up in the corner of the stone cottage that held American prisoners of war just after he was captured by the Germans. At the end of that sequence Vonnegut points out that Billy fell asleep on the shoulder of the captain, who was also a rabbi. I thought hard why Vonnegut made a point of having that character be Jewish. He didn’t mention it just in passing either, (it was reasserted that the captain was a rabbi on the next page as well) which led me to believe that he purposely made that character Jewish.

Now I’m not sure if Morrison would consider this an entrance of a non-white character, and it probably isn’t, but Jews have been traditional victims of violence to the relative extent that Africans have been. I began to think that Vonnegut placed this image of intimacy between a Christian and a Jew to say something about the white Christians. He wants the character of Billy Pilgrim to seem innocent, and includes Billy’s dependence on someone different from himself to make this point: Vonnegut has to make this character Jewish, otherwise the point is lost. In fact, Vonnegut is really showing that he is aware that race relations are a major problem in America.

Vonnegut slightly switches tactics a few pages later. At this point, Billy is at a stoplight in what is assumed to be a violent neighborhood (it mentions broken grocery store window and graffiti). A black man taps on Billy’s window, but Billy “does the simplest thing. He drives on.”

By stating that Billy does the simplest thing, Vonnegut is implying that Billy (or quite possibly himself) feels guilty about this course of action. It shows that Billy and Vonnegut are aware that this is a moral cop-out, but in order to balance this scene with Billy’s innocence, Vonnegut must reassert that it wasn’t because the man was black that Billy didn’t roll down the window, it was time and simplicity (as if to say that if the man were white, Billy would have done the same thing). But then why make the excuse for Billy? The problem is that if the man were white, the message Vonnegut tries to make would not speak on race relations, it would speak on Billy’s relations with the poor. Vonnegut has to make this character black in order to make his point. This clearly shows Vonnegut sees this situation as a problem, and it also says a lot about Vonnegut’s inner struggle over the problems with race in America.

These two scenes show that Morrison’s book still holds merit even if the book seemingly has nothing to do with race. This even quieted my own doubts about the application of Morrison’s brand of criticism to Slaughterhouse-Five. I hope to make it clear that these two scenes are not contrasting but comparable. In both, Billy’s innocence holds true (it may not seem so in the car scene, but say the man tapping on the window were white. By saying that Billy did the simple thing, Vonnegut implies that Billy would have acted exactly the same had the man been white. Therefore he is technically innocent). And ultimately, in both scenes, Vonnegut subconsciously drops clues acknowledging race as a struggle in American society.

James' Overdue Blog Assignment

Since we're recently on the topic of criticism, I thought it would be interesting to have everyone contribute a critical review of a book or movie. This can be a work you loved, hated, found interesting, or just feel like bringing up for discussion. The review should contain some of the plot or at least relate what the book/movie is about. It should also give your impressions of the piece, what you felt as a result, and any other ways the book/movie captured a feeling or theme. Part of my motivation in assigning this is to get ideas for movies and books I should see and read, but I will be just as thrilled if you write about a book you thought really stunk. I guess the only rule is to keep it original.

Batuman's Critique of Criticism

Elif Batuman's essay concerning the role of modern criticism was thought-provoking if nothing else. The piece mainly asserts itself as a pensive analysis of the function of literary interpretation, laden with rhetorical questions, personal narratives and opinions, and allusions to great writers/thinkers of the past.

The main tactic employed by the essay is to juxtapose Freud's thoughts on how the dreams are simultaneously meaningful and arbitrary with Tolstoy's response to Stakhov's criticism of his Anna Karenina. The main point Batuman tries to make is that novels should be open to interpretation because the meaning that is afforded them is not corrupting the art form but actually reinforcing their significance.

I would tend to agree with Batuman. I may not be as long-winded as she but I do think she uses a valuable argument, despite her overuse of lofty texts and prestigious authors. Criticism is necessary to cement the meaningfulness of a work and plays an important role in framing the text for potential readers.

Gatsby Flashback

Scene Analysis: End of Chapter 6

On page 110, Fitzgerald writes: "His [Gatsby's] life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was." It is at this point that an sequence of back to back ellipses lead us into the sort of dream-like flashback. This is one of the most interesting scenes of the book up to this point. Fitzgerald essentially psycho-analyzes Gatsby and his motives for a brief moment before plunging the reader into the extremely abstract and intimate narrative that occupies the last page and a half of chapter six.

Perhaps the most startling portion of this sequence is when Gatsby notices that the sidewalk makes a ladder "mounted to a secret place above the trees." It is from this point that the scene becomes decidedly abstract as Fitzgerald writes, "he could climb to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck on the pap of life, gulp down the incomparable milk of wonder."

What this means in terms of literal imagery is open to wide interpretation, but the words definitely hint that Gatsby sees something wonderful but is unable to obtain it. Gatsby has put Daisy on such a high pedestal that no amount of intimacy with her will satisfy his hopes and dreams. The scene is a fleeting phenomenon, as that type of look into the character of Gatsby is extremely rare throughout the book. But at the end of chapter six, Fitzgerald utilizes his command of language and near-lyrical ambiguity to propel the character of Gatsby to a new level of familiarity with the reader--a minor revelation to lead into the chaos of chapter seven.

Of the People, By the People, and For the People* (as long as they're upper class)

From its conception to the present day, America has been a nation geared toward the wealthy—or more correctly—the bourgeois capitalist. The amount of historical narratives and evidence to support this claim is enormous to the point that there is no denying that an advantage has been given to the rich all throughout our nation’s history.

This began with the very birth of our modern government. The Constitutional Congress that composed our governing document was completely comprised of men belonging to the upper middle class or higher. As a result, they felt that the average American, most likely to be a poor farmer, was incapable of making an informed decision on who to vote for. Thus senators and presidents were not directly elected (direct election of senators was awarded in the early part of the twentieth century and our president is still elected by the Electoral College). As a result of this structure, the political voice was taken away from the poor, who could not afford a private education.

This continued into the Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century. Government was corrupted by corporate interest (although one could still reasonably make this claim), and America was literally run by the capitalist class. The poor worker and farmer had no voice in government policy, resulting in the top one percent of society owning ninety percent of the overall wealth. Because the capitalist got whatever he (every business tycoon was male) wanted, the workers suffered unbearable conditions, terrible hours, disfigurations, loss of appendages and limbs, and in a fair amount of cases—death.

It continued into the mid-1900s. America became extremely paranoid regarding communism, because it threatened to eliminate the bourgeois class. It was a proposed attack on the wealthy. In this manner the United States desperately fought and competed with the USSR and communism for nearly fifty years, leading to unfathomable amounts of defense spending.

The America of the rich is still in tact today. Why is the United States virtually the only post-industrialized nation without socialized medicine? Simple. If America had universal government-provided health care, the corporate interest of large-scale insurance companies would be ignored. We can’t let that happen. The result is a nation that spends more per capita on health care than any other country in the world but ranks 39th in infant mortality and 36th in life expectancy (New England Journal of Medicine). It’s quite obvious that we would rather see the wealthy become wealthier than see the poor continue to live.

The Things They Carried

In many ways, The Things They Carried is a departure from the usual Vietnam literary genre. I don't think O'Brien challenges my understanding of the Vietnam war so much as he deepens my understanding of human nature.

Prior to reading The Things They Carried, I already held a fairly substantial knowledge of the Vietnam war, the anti-war movement, and the circumstances surrounding the actual combat on the ground. The Things They Carried did not provide me with a historic record or account of the important events during the Vietnam era. Rather it used the Vietnam War as a medium to relate deeper ideas concerning human nature and emotion.

In that sense, O'Brien differs from other authors who have written about Vietnam. The Things They Carried is not about firefights or dramatic battle scenes. It is about using the novel format to help the reader comprehend how Vietnam exposes human emotions that had previously lay dormant (when the threat of death is not present).

O'Brien conveys these heavy thoughts and ideas very uniquely and cleverly. He plays with genre expectations and the ideas of non-fictional truth. He uses the concept of weight to allow the reader to gain an understanding of the psychological burdens people carry. The Things They Carried is most different from a Vietnam novel in that it is not trying to educate the reader on war; it is trying to educate the reader on life, and I think O'Brien is successful in doing so.

Royko Op-Ed piece

I had to take this opportunity to expose the class to my favorite author/character ever. Mike Royko is a boss (to put it in the terms of Max S-R). This was written after the presentation of Picasso's sculpture in Chicago, and I hope you will enjoy Royko's commentary on the event--I did. He's never been accused of using too little voice, as I'm sure you'll find.

Royko