Player Piano

I THINK THE PICTURE SPEAKS FOR ITSELF ABOUT THE NOVEL

"Call yourself a doctor, too, do you? said Mr. Haycox.

"I think I can say without fear of contradiction that I earned that degree," said Doctor Pond cooly. "My thesis was the third longest in any field in the country that year--eight hundred and ninety-six pages, double-spaced, with narrow margins."

"Real-estate salesman," said Mr. Haycox. He looked back and forth between Paul and Doctor Pond, waiting for them to say something worth his attention. When they'd failed to rally after twenty seconds, he turned to go. "I'm doctor of cowshit, pigshit, and chickenshit," he said. "When you doctors figure out what you want, you'll find me out in the barn shoveling my thesis."

This is one of the most humorous passage in the novel. The straight-shooter, Mr. Haycox, boldly insults not only the two doctors, but their society itself. The average worker points out the ridiculousness of so many professions where the title of doctor is given to the people who work in that field. Mr. Haycox thinks the title is just a self esteem booster for the men because in his eyes only dentists, vets, and physicians are acutally doctors. But in this society, just because a man writes an 800-some page document, he gets to put DR. in front of his name. The humor of Mr. Haycox's thesis was just a slap in the face to the doctors. He jokes that if their professions can give them the title of doctor, then why not his. His thesis however, is real work, not just a fabricated sucking up in the form of words on a 896 page paper. I love how the person doing the ridiculing in this passage is the one that the doctors look down upon. Mr. Haycox may not be Dr. Haycox, but it is definitely apparent that he is the one with the intelligence to know how messed up their society is.

Betrayal is a central theme in the novel. One of the most prevalent examples of betrayal is soceity's betrayal of itself. The society in the novel continued to pursue technology to the extent that it eliminated much of the need for the talents and skills of real people. People began replacing themselves with machines, and for the most part just stood by and watched it happen. I find it completely ridiculous that even after they destroy Illium, there are people rummaging through the wreckage to see if there is anything they could use to build what else?--MORE MACHINES!!! How does that make any sense? With a mentality like this, there is no one to blame for the betrayal of society except for society itself. Bud Calhoun provides an example of the self-inflicted betrayal when he creates a machine that can do his own job. Is technology and the pursuit of expanding it that tempting that common sense to know when enough is enough is ignored? However ironic this may seem, it is very typical of human culture to shoot themselves in the foot and then complain about it. And once the complaints cause action, it only results in the same thing happening again. Look at war in our culture. When there is a war going on everyone complains about the death and destruction, but there is almost always a war going on somewhere in the world. Maybe human curiosity and interest just cannot be taught a lesson...


Player Piano had to be my favorite novel we have read thus far this year. It seemed to be quite unique from all the other mechanized society novels we read. I felt like Vonnegut created themes and symbols that were easier to understand and relate to. The society in the novel was perhaps one of the most believable of all the novels we have read. There is such a push for technology advancements and automated this, automated that in our society that even now, machines are doing the jobs humans once did. Most of them still need humans to operate them, but how long will it be before our society looks unnervingly similar to Illium? I also liked Player Piano because a large group revolted against the norm in chaos. In the other novels, it was really only one or two characters who tried to overthrow the powers in control. Even in We, when the one group tried to take over the INTEGRAL, there was not much action. The revolt in this novel, however, was full of destruction and showed the rebellious group coming so close to success. In the novel, I also found Paul's journey of understanding what is important to him and what he truly values, quite interesting to follow. Many people criticize Paul for not acting fast enough or for not really being that strong. I found that Paul was just in a difficult situation and it just took him some time to see the light. I don't believe he let Anita control him; he just was trying to grasp for any chance that they may have actually shared true love. Anita's selfishness and ignorance was so great that it was amusing to read. All she worried about was the fame that would come with being the wife of an important engineer. In my eyes, she was such a weak, distasteful character. The relationship between Paul and Anita was a direct shot by Vonnegut at marriages in our society. So many people get married for the wrong reason, and end up not really being in true love with their spouse. Vonnegut is trying to show how mechanical some marriages are even in real life. Whenever author's take shots at big issues in our society through their characters in their novels, I find it very entertaining. One last thing I enjoyed was Vonnegut's style. I loved the way he used satiric and ironic humor to prove his points. Overall, I really liked Player Paino.