Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut (1952) Text Review Packet Characters: Paul Proteus Protagonist, chief engineer of Ilium,

m, dissatisfied with the way things are because he can't find meaning in his job, son of a famous engineer who pioneered the machine-run society, came to Ilium as a fresh college grad with Shepherd and Finnerty Katharine Finch Proteus' secretary, wife of Bud Calhoun Anita Wife of Paul, has heavy contempt for the masses, would have been one of the masses had Paul not married her, cheats on Paul with Shepherd, likes things the way they are, sterile Bud Calhoun Subordinate of Proteus, always designing new machines, can't see the forest through the trees, loses his job because a machine he designed does it better Lawson Shepherd Proteus' second in command and bitter about it, always trying to get Proteus demoted Edward Finnerty Old friend of Paul's, quit his high-ranking job in D.C. because dissatisfied with the way things are, extremely eccentric and hermit-like, helps spearhead the resistance Rudy Hertz Former master lathe operator, proud to have had his lathe movements recorded by Proteus, Finnerty, and Shepherd so that machines could take over his job Kroner Proteus' superior, paternal, fierce believer of the machine-run society, lives in an old-fashioned mansion Baer Kroner's colleague, very socially awkward, brilliant engineer The Shah of Bratpuhr Spiritual leader of the Kolhouri sect, came to America to study the machine society and see how his own society could be improved, sees Americans as slaves, jolly, calls supercomputer EPICAC a false idol Ewing J. Halyard Head of the US Department of State, hosts the Shah as he tours the US, proud of America and the machine-run society, loses his job because of a technicality from years ago Khashdrahr Miasma Translator and bodyguard of the Shah, devoted to his job Fred Berringer Recent college grad, son of an engineer, not very bright but got hired because of his legacy, cocky, challenges checkers champion Proteus to a game but loses because the checkers-playing machine he was using (built by his father) broke down James J. Lasher Works as a chaplain, leader of the Ghost Shirt Society Luke Lubbock Actor, dull, personality changes with the costume he's wearing Alfy Makes his living at the bar watching the muted TV and guessing what song is playing, very independent Jonathan Lynn (born Alfred Planck) President of the US, never finished high school, only purpose is to serve as a face for the US Garth Proteus' competitor for a promotion to manager of Pittsburgh, overly eager to please, tries to kill the revered oak tree at the Meadows (a retreat for engineers) Doctor Pond Realtor who sells the farmhouse to Paul, disdainful of the farm's lack of modern amenities, reluctant to sell it to him because he think it is not fit for a man of Paul's status Mr. Haycox Old groundsman of the farm, bound to the farm by contract from its

previous owner, loves working on the farm, disdainful of Proteus because of his education Edgar R. B. Hagstrohm Reeks and Wrecks worker, chosen by the machines as the most average man in America, visited by the Shah, subtle dissatisfaction with his life (has an extramarital affair, wife is happy to do at least some housework when the dishwasher breaks down), eventually goes berserk destroying his house and running off into the woods

Structural, Literary, and Stylistic Techniques: The third person point of view mostly revolves around Proteus, but often refocuses on the limo containing the Shah and Halyard, and often spends brief amounts of time focusing on minor characters The tone of the narration remains impartial throughout the book Very onomatopoetic. Vonnegut takes the time to write out sounds effects and the language of the Shah. There is a page-long, alphabetized list of various machines lying strewn about after the revolution Narration sometimes slips in to machine language, abbreviated and quantitative Time almost always moves forward in the novel, except when Proteus flashes back to memories of his father Conflicts: People vs. machines: The need for efficiency during WWIII carries over into peacetime, driving engineers to make machines to take over more and more human tasks that don't require thought Most of the population (which had been greatly reduced by the war) is jobless but living comfortably because of the machines, and many people feel purposeless without skills that are needed of them In the machine-run society, the only possible futures for young women are to become wives or secretaries, and the only possible futures for young men are to become engineers or managers (if they make it through the extremely selective college admissions process), to join the army, to join the Reeks and Wrecks (who do construction and repair work), or to land one of the few jobs that haven't been taken over by machines (ex. Bartenders, writers, artists) The machines work by the rules and are impartial and unforgiving, ex. Trapping people on the train if they lose their ticket People across the country who are dissatisfied with the machine-run society form the Ghost Shirt Society and try to start a revolution, but ultimately fail (though the leaders knew from the start that they would probably fail), though their attempt will go down in the records Proteus vs. himself: His job provides him with material comfort, social status, and a wife, but he finds his work meaningless and damaging So he decides to quit his job and join the Ghost Shirt Society, at the same time that he

is fired so he can pretend to join the Ghost Shirt Society and gather information for Kroner on the resistance Proteus vs. his father: As indicated by the lie detector during his trial, Proteus is partially motivated to resist the machine-run society because of resentment of his father, even through Proteus never realized it himself His father was extremely successful and influential, and was instrumental in setting up the machine-run society Proteus was expected to follow in his footsteps

Passage Objectively, Paul tried to tell himself, things really were better than ever. For once, after the great bloodbath of the war, the world really was cleared of unnatural terrorsmass starvation, mass imprisonment, mass torture, mass murder. Objectively, know-how and world law were getting their long-awaited chance to turn earth into an altogether pleasant and convenient place to sweat out Judgment Day (6). The cat hissed and spat, suddenly raked Paul's hand with her claws, and jumped. With a bouncing, stifflegged gait, she fled before the sweeper. Snatching, flashing, crashing, shrieking machines kept her in the middle of the aisle, yards ahead of the sweeper's whooshing brooms. Paul looked frantically for the switch that would stop the sweeper, but before he found it, the cat made a stand. She faced the sweeper, her needle-like teeth bared, the tip of her tail snapping back and forth. The flash of a welder went off inches from her eyes, and the sweeper gobbled her up and hurled her squalling and scratching into its galvanized tin belly. Winded after a quarter-mile run through the length of the building, Paul caught the sweeper just as it reached a chute. It gagged, and spat the cat down the chute and into a freight car outside. When Paul got outside, the cat had scrambled up the side of the freight car, tumbled to the ground, and was desperately clawing her way up a fence. 'No, kitty, no!' cried Paul The cat hit the alarm wire on the fence, and sirens screamed from the gate house. In the next second the cat hit the charged wires atop the fence. A pop, a green

Analysis Summarizes what keeps people content in the machine-run society. In line with Vonnegut's recurring theme that science and technology can do more harm than good.

Cat represents humanity, or maybe just Paul himself. Tries to resist machines and make it to a place without them, but only ends up on the outside after it's dead. When the cat made a stand, did it know that it had no chance? Recall how at the twilight of the revolution, when the other leaders reveal that they knew all along that there was a slim chance of success, and Paul is the only one who really believed in it.

flash, and the cat sailed high over the top strand as though thrown. She dropped to the asphaltdead and smoking, but outside (13). It was an appalling thought, to be so well-integrated into the machinery of society and history as to be able to move in only one plane, and long one line. Finnerty's arrival was disturbing, for it brought to the surface the doubt that life should be that way. Paul had been thinking of hiring a psychiatrist to make him docile, content with his lot, amiable to all. But now, here was Finnerty, pushing him in the other direction (35). Science and technology restricting freedom and creativity. Another common theme with Vonnegut is dissatisfaction; here we see he argues that dissatisfaction is not necessarily a bad thing. Finnerty's character, though important, is pretty one-dimensional; all he does is be dissatisfied and act outside of social norms (ex. Bad hygiene, crashes dinner party). The foreign perspective gives a clear insight into the state of the machinerun society. It also shows the hubris of the American society, as embodied by ambassador Halyard. We see an example of how Vonnegut takes the time to write out the Shah's language. Why? It does add some humor (to spit is tooie), but that can't be the only reason. Some irony in Halyard's statement his own country must be a Goddman mess. America is kind of a mess, but not outwardly. We see in Haghstrohm, machine-selected as the most average man in America, that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the machine-run way of life. Summarizes where most Americans' dissatisfaction comes from. Vonnegut is warning that this is where society will be if we keep going the way we're going.

'[The Shah] said they're a fine bunch of slaves,' said Halyard. He turned to the Shah again and waggled his finger at the small, dark man. 'No takaru. No, no, no.' Khashdrahr seemed baffled, too, and offered Halyard no help in clarifying the point. 'Sim koula Takaru, akka sahn salet?' said the Shah to Khashdrahr. Khashdrahr shrugged and looked questioningly at Halyard. 'Shah says, if these [soldiers] not slaves, how you get them to do what they do?' 'Patriotism,' said General of the Armies Bromley sternly. 'Patriotism, damn it.' [] 'What the hell am I supposed to do?' said Halyard unhappily to the General of the Armies Bromley. 'This guy thinks of everything he sees in terms of his own country, and his own country must be a Goddamn mess' (66 and 68). Lasher sighed. 'What do you expect?' he said. 'For generations [the people have] been built up to worship competition and the market, productivity and economic usefulness, and the envy of their fellow menand boom! It's all yanked out from under them. They can't participate, can't be useful any more. Their whole culture's been shot to hell' (90). 'The Shah would like to know why [the wife] has to do everything so quicklythis in a matter of seconds, that in a matter of seconds. What is it she is in such a hurry to get at? What is it she was to do, that she mustn't waste any time on these things?'

Vonnegut shows how the people in the book often works towards a goal without thinking of what to do afterwards. Even Proteus is guilty of this after the revolution.

'Live!' said Doctor Dodge expansively. 'Live! Get a little fun out of life.' He laughed, and clapped Khashdrahr on the back, as though to jar him into feeling some of the jollity in this average American man's home. The effect on Khashdrahr and the Shah was a poor one. 'I see,' said the interpreter coldly. He turned to Wanda. 'And how is it you live and get so much fun out of life?' Wanda blushed and looked down at the floor, and worried the carpet edge with her toe. 'Oh, television,' she murmured. 'Watch that a lot, don't we, Ed? And I spend a lot of time with the kids, little Delores and young Edgar, Jr. You know. Things' (164). The play was virtually the same play that had begun every Meadows session, even before the war, when the island had belonged to a steel company. Twenty years ago, Paul's father had brought him up here, and the play's message had been the same: that the common man wasn't nearly as grateful as he should be for what the engineers and managers had given him, and that the radicals were the cause of the ingratitude. When Paul had first seen the allegory, as a teen-ager, he'd been moved deeply. He had been struck full force by its sublime clarity and simplicity. It was a story in a nutshell, and the heroic struggle against ingratitutde was made so vivid for his young mind that he'd worshiped his father for a little while as a fighter, a latter-day Richard the Lionhearted. 'Well,' his father had said after that first play, years ago, 'what are you thinking, Paul?' 'I had no ideano idea that's what was going on.' 'That's the story,' his father had said sadly. 'The whole story. That's the way it is.' 'Yessir.' Their eyes had met, and and inexpressibly sweet sense of eternal tragedy had passed between them, between their generationsa legacy of Weltschmerz as old as humanity. Now, Paul stood by himself on a dark walk, bewildered by the picture of, as Kroner put it, the men at the head of the procession of civilization, the openers of doors to undreamed-of new worlds. This silly playlet seemed to satisfy them completely as a picture of what they were doing, why they were doing it, and who was against them, and why some people were against them. It was a beautifully simple picture these procession leaders had. It was as though a navigator, in order to free his mind of

Why doesn't Wanda live and get so much fun out of life? What keeps her back? Maybe paralysis; before machines took over, she probably spent her down-time watching TV and taking care of the kids. But now down-time is pretty much all the time. Or maybe because she feels she lacks purpose because the machines make her unneeded.

Gives some insight into Proteus' relationship with his father. He'd worshipped him at one point, but now is trying to destroy what his father had created. (As a side note, the book never mentions his mother or if he had one.) What happened between then and now? Why does Proteus come to hate his job and the machine-run society? Maybe Proteus is jealous, in a sense. Both he and the machine-run society are his father's creation, but the society is the one his father dedicated his life to. Even this one touching moment revolves around the society.

worries, had erased all the reefs from his maps (220). 'SupportedI guess!' said Halyard. 'It's the Golden Age of Art, with millions of dollars a year poured into reproductions of Rembrandts, Whistlers, Goyas, Renoirs, El Grecos, Degas, da Vincis, Michelangelos...' [...] A lot of research goes into what's run off, believe me. Surveys of public reading tastes, readability and appeal tests on books being considered. Heavens, running off an unpopular book would put a club out of business like that!' He snapped his fingers ominously. 'The way they keep culture so cheap is by knowing in advance what and how much of it people want. They get it right, right down to the color of the jacket. Gutenberg would be amazed' (243). Lasher took [the bottle], and toasted the others. 'To all good Indians,' he said, 'past, present, and future. Or, more to the pointto the record.' The bottle went around the group. 'The record,' said Finnerty, and he seemed satisfied with the toast. He had got what he wanted from the revolution, Paul supposeda chance to give a savage blow to a close little society that made no comfortable place for him. 'To the record,' said von Neumann. He, too, seemed at peace. To him, the revolution had been a fascinating experiment, Paul realized. He had been less interested in achieving a premeditated end than in seeing what would happen with given beginnings. Paul took the bottle and studied Lasher for a moment over its fragrant mouth. Lasher, the chief instigator of it all, was contented. A lifelong trafficker in symbols, he had created the revolution as a symbol, and was now welcoming the opportunity to die as one. And that left Paul. 'To a better world,' he started to say, but cut the toast short, thinking of the people of Ilium, already eager to recreate the same old nightmare. He shrugged. 'To the record,' he said, and smashed the empty bottle on a rock (340). Ironic because the supposed Golden Age of Art is based on reproducing old masterpieces. Another example of loss of freedom in the machine-run society. The people don't make culture; the government and scientists determine what the people want and give it to them. Draws parallel with Gutenberg, the first mass producer. The machine-run society is like mass-production on steroids. Why is Lasher so concerned with the record? Why have a revolution that's bound to fail? I am reminded of Harrison Bergeron, how Harrison goes on TV to give the people a glimpse of what could be before being shot dead. So I guess Lasher created the revolution as a symbol to show the people what could be done, and maybe inspire future revolutionaries. Poor Proteus. Once again, he's the unsuspecting chub left out.

One thing this novel has in common with others I've read is that a foreign viewpoint helps give insight into the real nature of things. In Heart of Darkness, the main character travels to a foreign land and learns more about human nature and western society. Ender's Game is kind of an antiexample of this. Ender loses motivation to train after living in the space academy for a while, and

only re-gains it after spending some time back on Earth to remember what it is he is protecting. His sister was also instrumental in motivating him. The sister is Ender's closest friend, the epitome of familiarity. Maybe then it is familiarity, not foreignness, that is the thing in common here, though the two are related. In an unfamiliar environment, the main character of Heart of Darkness is able to reflect on what is familiar to him and compare the two. Same goes with the Shah of Bratpuhr. This serves to give the reader a reliable narrator, free from the shortsightedness that comes from being a part of what is being examined.