Kurt Vonnegut's Second Novel example essay topic

'It took us that long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved. ' (Vonnegut: 220) The Sirens of Titan is Kurt Vonnegut's second novel. He has written it in 1959, seven years after his previous Player Piano. It has been described as a pure science fiction novel and, after only one reading, it really can be considered to be one. The intricate plot and fascinating detail may obscure the serious intent of the novel. If compared to other novels by this author, it makes much smoother reading because there are much fewer subplots, digressions and simultaneous developments.

The storyline of Sirens of Titan is much more straightforward than in the other works (e.g. Slaughterhouse-Five, Galapagos, Hocus Pocus, Breakfast of Champions etc.) 'The Sirens of Titan, for all its wondering's, futurity and concern with larger, abstract questions, transmits a greater sense of direction and concreteness. Rather surprising, too, is the fact that the novel with its science fiction orientation, with its robots and near-robot humans, and with its several central characters who are intentionally presented as being rather cold-hearted, generates more human warmth than Player Piano which is directly concerned with the agonies of exploring and following conscience, emotion and love. Three possible explanations for this present themselves: first, Vonnegut's skill has grown in the intervening seven years; second, the science fiction mode affords the author more detachment, and he is less didactic in this work; third, the positive forces, particularly love, carry more weight. ' (Reed: 66) The Sirens of Titan has been, as many other Vonnegut's books, influenced by his experiences from World War Two (The Fire-bombing of Dresden was a benefit just to one man, to Kurt Vonnegut.

Over the years, he got five dollars for each corpse, ashe himself says.) The war is not the novel's primary target, yet it has a great effect on it. 'In this, his second novel, Vonnegut discovered an answer to Dresden, but he did not yet know how to apply it. Winston Niles Rumfoord's discovery that 'everything that ever has been always will be, and everything that ever will be always has been' (Vonnegut: 19-20) lies inert in the novel, separate from its aesthetic resolution. In order to exorcise Dresden with this new vision, Vonnegut had to rid himself of his youthful notions if romanticism and liberalism, to acquire a context for Rumfoord's theory of time, and to isolate and to define the aesthetic problem raised by Dresden. ' (Some) Vonnegut writes about the Martian Army planning attack on Earth, probably thinking about the years he spent in army himself. He describes the soldiers as unthinking puppets controlled by radio.

In order to implant the antenna into a soldier's brain, his head must be shaved. He also mentions several individuals, who did everything voluntarily. Unk's son also adds to this image of a soldier: when you are 14 years old, they shave your head and you become a man. This Vonnegut's description of a soldier is highly ironic.

Another important thing in The Sirens of Titan is Vonnegut's image of God and various religions. He describes how people blindly and hungrily follow Gods. I think that Vonnegut presented a wonderful example of this in the part when Unk and Boaz were stranded on Mercury. 'Boaz's home vault had a boor on it, a round boulder with which he could plug the vault's mouth. The door was necessary, since Boaz was God Almighty to the harmoniums. They could locate him by his heart beat.

'Had he slept with his door open, he would have awakened to find himself pinned down by hundreds of thousands of his admirers. They would have let him up only when his heart stopped beating. ' (Vonnegut: 142) Vonnegut creates a new kind of religion, the Church of God Utterly Indifferent. In this concept he illustrates that God Almighty doesn't care about his creations (an idea that was probably conceived by Dresden as well). That's why people can stop blaming everything that happens to them, bad or good, on God. This is also what circumscribes the main theme of the novel.

'While an indifferent universe may confirm no purpose in our existence, we can give meaning to life by the way we lead it. ' (Reed: 86) Vonnegut hints at this by the first sentence of the novel:' Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. ' (Vonnegut: 7) However, it becomes more clear at the end, when Unk is finally on Titan with Rumfoord, Bea, their son, and Salo the Tralfamadorian. It turns out that the whole point of human civilization on Earth was to deliver a spare part forSalo's space ship and that the whole point of Salo's space wandering was to deliver a message saying only, 'Greetings!' to distant world.

'The point, as it always is when Vonnegut takes us to another planet, is to give us some perspective on man's pride, so that we can quit worrying about how we fit into cosmic purpose and start worrying about how we can be kind to each other. ' (Older man).