The music will still be wonderful: Personality theories and Kurt Vonnegut
“No matter how corrupt, greedy, and heartless our government, our corporations, our media, and our religious and charitable institutions may become, the music will still be wonderful,” (Vonnegut, 2005). Kurt Vonnegut, an American novelist, was able to capture the human spirit by the dichotomy of good and evil in the individual and through society. In many of his novels Vonnegut’s protagonist transforms through a major crisis or experience. Vonnegut exemplifies the growth of individuals through catastrophic events. His view of society and collective human experience are portrayed by political satire of current events, in Vonnegut’s time, by using science fiction. How does Vonnegut understand humanity through good and evil?
The good and evil dichotomy Vonnegut establishes is similar to Freud’s description of the id, ego, and super-ego. The id is the part of human psyche that disregards all consequences and operates on the pleasure principle. Vonnegut’s view of the “good” of human nature are exemplified in Freud’s description of the id. Vonnegut describes life as a game: “The child [id] does a little something to the universe [the external world] and the Great Big Everything [ego] does something funny or beautiful or sometimes disappointing or scary or even painful in return,” (Vonnegut, 1991). In this case the universe would be the environment or society in which all individuals live and make decisions, this is also what Freud would characterize as the external world as understood by the ego and reality principle. The Great Big Everything, the ego, is how the individual perceives the choice they have made. Thus, the ego mediates between the internal world and the external world. The ego develops out of self preservation and controls instincts. Vonnegut describes as the child grows up and as responsibilities-intimate relationships, food, clothes, shelter-become important than a third player enters the game. Vonnegut describes, “that the third player is sometimes personified as an actual dictator, such as Hitler, or simply by a critic or curator…or in-laws,” (Vonnegut, 1991). Thus, this “third player” on an individual level would be parents or societal rules; on a societal level it would be the government and imposed laws. Freud would describe this “third player” as the super-ego, the moral component of the psyche. The ego creates balance between the child-like id and the rules of the super-ego. Vonnegut believes solitude is when a person gives up on the “third player” and lives a life without responsibilities to others and society. His protagonist in his books must go through an event which establishes this “third player,” which connects them to society as they mature as an individual. Vonnegut’s own life is played out much through this type of developmental experience. Throughout Vonnegut’s life how has he grown from the“child in the universe” to avoid solitude?
Through Vonnegut’s life his personality grows upon building blocks which have helped him achieve personal goals and self efficacy, as well as being a contributing member of his society. He exemplifies many traits that can best be described by Gordon Allport’s trait theory. He is characterized by his wit and humor, especially as a writer-what Allport describes as a cardinal trait. This trait is dominant, what some would call his star quality. He has written over twenty political satires and two autobiographies, as well as many articles and speeches. Vonnegut also displays central traits (which are typical in most individuals to a certain level). Vonnegut exemplifies thoughtfulness, honesty, imagination, pessimism, realism with some optimism about human nature. His secondary traits, traits that are seen in close interpersonal relationship (such as specific interests, likes, dislikes), are described in his autobiographies and memoirs written by his loved ones. These traits include Vonnegut’s warm-heart, secretive feelings, playful, energetic, affectionate, and that he had a certain amount of naiveté. In regards to his naiveté: “It was a trait that sometimes made friends feel protective out of concern he’d be exploited,” Loree Racksraw remembers of Vonnegut in her memoir Love as Always, Kurt: Vonnegut as I Knew Him.
He was born in 1922 and the youngest of three children. His sister and brother were five and nine years older than he. He believed the youngest child was always the jokemaster, this was the only way a child could enter into adult conversation. How does Vonnegut’s position as a jokemaster affect his personality?
Although Vonnegut believed that the youngest child was always a jokester, Allport would disagree that a behavioral approach (youngest child experiences certain situations and thus becomes a jokester) was not a deep enough explanation for this trait. He emphasized the uniqueness of each individual, and the importance of the present context, as opposed to past history, for understanding the personality. Allport believed that the psychophysical (psycho-brain chemistry, physical-environment) system determined unique adjustments to the environment. Allport would argue that for Vonnegut his personality was derived from his brain chemistry as well as adapting to the trials and expectations of his family environment and as the youngest child. This adaptation to become the jokemaster was Vonnegut’s way of reflecting and mastering the environment in which he was born. Allport viewed this as a survival mechanism; this idea relates to Vonnegut’s survival as child by entering into adult conversation.
He grew up during the Great Depression which had devastating effects for his father who could no longer make a living. He went to grade school in Indianapolis at the James Whitcomb Riley School #43. He remembers drawing boats, houses, airplanes of the future, because after the Great Depression there would be a better future. Although Vonnegut came from a family of artists-his father was a painter and architect; he was steered away from the arts. He wanted to be a writer, but instead attended Cornell University as a chemistry major. How did the decision to become a chemistry major affect Vonnegut’s decisions throughout college?
Rollo May would suggest that Vonnegut was not able to escape the powers of his parents and was not able to progress to a new level. Thus, development was blocked and produced a psychological conflict that resulted in anxiety for Vonnegut. This anxiety gave rise to poor coping mechanisms and thus, while at Cornell he enlisted in the U.S. Army. Freud believed that anxiety was represented in internal conflict between the id and the superego. Sullivan, however, saw anxiety as existing only as a result of social interactions.
Vonnegut’s choice to join the army can be understood through three personality theorist’s views of anxiety. However, Freud’s theory most accurately represents Vonnegut’s conflict. His anxiety stemmed from an internal conflict between the id and superego. He had wanted to be a writer, his own personal desires represented by the id, while society at the time was placing strong morals and values on responsibility and duties to the country, these moralistic expectations would be represented by the superego.
The army sent him to the Carnegie Institute of Technology and the University of Tennessee to study mechanical engineering. In the army he was a private with the 106th Infantry Division during World War II. On Mother’s Day, May 14, 1944, his mother committed suicide. How did Vonnegut cope with his mother’s death? According to Sullivan, mothers show their anxiety about child rearing to their children through various means. The child does not have a way to deal with the mother’s anxiety and thus, learns selective inattention. The child begins to ignore or reject the anxiety or any interaction that could produce these uncomfortable feelings. As an adult Vonnegut used this technique to focus his attention away from this stressful situation. Vonnegut believed his mother had a metal disorder. He states, “We [Vonnegut’s family] were able to keep her insanity a secret, since it became really elaborate only at home between midnight and dawn,” (Vonnegut, 1991). He believes she may have been an alcoholic because he suggests Alcoholics Anonymous might have helped her. She was using both alcohol and barbiturates (Phenobarbital). Vonnegut uses selective inattention to avoiding coping with the loss of his mother. He does not portray a loss or sadness about his mother in either of us autobiographies. Later on December 14, 1944 he and five others from his battalion were captured by German troops. On February 13, 1945 the British firebombed the city of Dresden, the largest massacre in the history of Europe. The whole city was burned down and about 135,000 were killed in one night. Vonnegut and the other prisoners of war in his group survived the attack in an underground meat slaughterhouse. The Germans called the building Slaughterhouse Five, which became the name of Vonnegut’s most well known book. As a prisoner of war he was required to clean up dead German bodies. When it became apparent that the huge funeral pyre would not hold all the bodies and the smell was unbearable, the bodies were burned in the streets with flame throwers. He says his mind was blank as he carried the bodies as loved ones of the deceased watched him carry the bodies toward the pyre. What state of mind was Vonnegut in when he described his “blank mind?”
May would describe Vonnegut’s psychological state through different modes of existence. Through the physical aspects of both the internal and external environments (umwelt) Vonnegut experienced extreme horror and unusual high rates of trauma and being surrounded by death. The personal relationships of the individual (mitwelt) that Vonnegut had experienced in that experience did not have any meaning to him; he did not have a relationship with the dead or of the witnesses. Lastly in his individual consciousness (eigenwelt) Vonnegut was experiencing increased pain and numbness. His coping mechanisms at the time did not allow for him to think about horrors he was experiencing. May believes individual experiences and lives in all three worlds simultaneously.
When writing the book in 1968 about Dresden Vonnegut recalls Mary O’Hare, wife of Bernie O’Hare (another POW during the bombing of Dresden), who stated, “You were nothing but babies then,” (Vonnegut, 2005). Vonnegut realized truth of this statement for many soldiers; they are in fact babies. After 23 years, and many attempts to write about his experience in Dresden, he was able to write Slaughterhouse Five subtitled The Children’s Crusade. Why did it take him twenty three years to write Slaughterhouse Five?
Sullivan’s theory about selective inattention can describe Vonnegut’s inability to write what horrors he had experienced in the past. Like with his mother’s suicide, Vonnegut had an inability to recall the emotional suffering he had faced during his time as a POW. Again, Vonnegut used selective inattention to focus his thoughts away from this traumatic situation. However, he was eventually able to cope with his feelings, anxiety, and memories and write one of the most celebrated novels in literature. It is now one of Time magazine’s top 100 all-time best-English language novels written since 1923. After the war, he married Jane Marie Cox, whom he met in kindergarten, however the two separated in 1970. Vonnegut attended the University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York, in public relations for General Electric, where his brother Bernard worked in the research department. In 1965, on the verge of abandoning writing, Vonnegut was offered a teaching job at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. While he was there, Cat’s Cradle became a best-seller. The anthropological content of this book led the University of Chicago to accept it as his thesis. He was awarded a Masters of Arts degree in 1971. What drove Vonnegut to accept the teaching position at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop?
Allport studied how motives and drives affect choices and personality. He suggested that drives are based on an existing need. In this case writing was his passion in life and Vonnegut wanted to continue teaching writing and continue his endeavor of becoming a famous writer. However, he had not received his masters and had responsibilities to fulfill as a father and husband. His original motive, to be a writer, was a based on childhood dreams. The drive formed as a reaction to this motive. Allport suggests that drives may change and outgrow the motive. In the end, Vonnegut‘s drives and motives were consistent with his desire to become a writer. Allport believed that as learning occurs so do new skills and capabilities. As Vonnegut learned more about the world, his writing improved and his research was based on factual anthropological resources. Fortunately, his motive for wanting to be a writer drove him to continuing education and learning new skills.
During 1971 his Saab automobile dealership went out of business. He had been the owner and manager of the first Saab dealership, Saab Cape Cod, in the United States. During this time he was living in West Barnstable, Massachusetts. He believes because he spoke ill of Saab and Swedish engineering he “diddled [himself] out of a Nobel Prize.” (Vonnegut, 2005). Why did Vonnegut believe he had an impact on his destiny-not receiving the Nobel Prize? May proposed that limitations are imposed by destiny. To have freedom from the external world an individual must accept these limitations. Vonnegut believed he should have won the Nobel Prize, but due to his expression of dislike for Saab, the Swiss did not like him. May would suggest that there are certain limitations in life that we do not have control over. He would disagree with Vonnegut’s theory. Instead May would argue that due to circumstantial destiny we are only able to achieve what we do achieve. Freedom from anger and regret are thus obtained. As with all humans, all individuals are destined to die, thus knowing death awaits gives life meaning. May would suggest Vonnegut write a new, better book to achieve his goal of winning the Nobel Prize, thus acknowledging destiny and engaging destiny.
Vonnegut lived with photographer Jill Krementz after his separation from Jane Marie Cox and later married Krementz after the divorce was finalized in 1979. Vonnegut raised three children with Cox and his sister’s three children after she died of cancer. Soon after the children had left home, Vonnegut states, “she was attacked by terrible loneliness which I couldn’t begin to satisfy,” (Vonnegut, 1991). His son Mark was named after Mark Twain. Later he and Krementz adopted a daughter, Lily. He believes the most important part of marriage is respect. Vonnegut smoked unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes, a habit he referred to as a “classy way to commit suicide” (Vonnegut, 2005). Why did Vonnegut smoke cigarettes if he knew they would eventually kill him?
Sullivan would identify Vonnegut’s lack of self regard part of the bad-me representation of the self. The bad-me are aspects of the psyche that are considered negative. Sullivan would regard Vonnegut’s recognition of the bad part of smoking as part of the bad-me, and then use it as a defensive mechanism to selectively attend away from and avoid thinking about. Vonnegut was a political satirist and addresses moral and political issues in most of his books and articles. In A Man Without a Country, he wrote that “George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography,” (Vonnegut, 2005). His favorite book that he wrote is called, Galapagos. It is about a group of people who become ship wrecked during a nuclear war. Unfortunately, little do the characters know, but they are the last humans left on earth. He uses Darwin’s natural selection and American society values to allude to the destruction of the earth and people’s disregard for the earth and preservation of the future for generation to come. In his final autobiography he exemplifies his regard for the 2004 election, and without much optimism; speaking of Bush and John Kerry, he said that “no matter which one wins, we will have a Skull and Bones President at a time when entire vertebrate species, because of how we have poisoned the topsoil, the waters and the atmosphere, are becoming, hey presto, nothing but skulls and bones,” (Vonnegut, 2005). What was Vonnegut attempting to portray about human nature? And how does this show his view of human existence?
Vonnegut was portraying what Freud described as Eros and Thantos. These are the essence of conflicting human drives: the desire to live through reproduction and survival, and the death instinct through the eventual and inescapable physical human end. The death drive is inherent in all living things to return an inorganic state. Vonnegut shows the dichotomy of choices an individual makes throughout life; he believes that along with reproduction and survival humans are motivated by power. Acknowledging pain through threat of death increases an individual’s desire to live, thus by avoiding pain and any threat to life. However, the death instinct leads an individual toward inescapable death. Many of Vonnegut’s protagonists experience both the life and death instincts. For example, in Galapagos while the shipwrecked crew believes that human existence is continuing while they are stuck on an island, Vonnegut writes that the world has been destroyed by nuclear warfare. Vonnegut describes how humanity in an attempt to strive toward reproduction and life, it is encountered by death. Vonnegut believes each individual strives for life and power, and thus avoids the realities of death by blindly heading towards it. He argues that most people do not make decisions about the present that will be beneficial to the future. He states, “There is not a chance in hell of America becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts us absolutely,” (Vonnegut, 2005).
Vonnegut characterizes himself as a humanist. He did not associate himself with any religious affiliation, although both of his wives were Episcopalian. He considered religious doctrine to be, “so much arbitrary, clearly invented balderdash,” and believed people were motivated by loneliness to join religions (Vonnegut, 2005). Why was he unaccepting of seeking religious conformity?
Vonnegut would agree with May’s view of seeking conformity. May argued that the individual should be authentic to his or herself. He and Vonnegut both agreed that life is short. Vonnegut states that humans do not know anything that “has to do with what time really is,” (Vonnegut, 2005). Both believe that the individual needs to be true to themselves and be aware that it is possible to make changes for the future by being the best person you can be to yourself and others through: freedom, love, will, and choice. Free will is the ability that every individual, not fate or God, must decide on their own morals, values, and deal with issues ranging from social change to death. How does Vonnegut advocate change for humans? What does this show about his personality?
Vonnegut advocated humanism it in various writings, speeches and interviews. He was a Humanist Laureate (in the Council for Secular Humanism’s International Academy of Humanism) and in 1992 he was named Humanist of the Year by the American Humanist Association (AHA). Vonnegut later became president of the AHA. May would argue that Vonnegut achieved the central developmental task through love and will. Through his writings and involvements he attempted to produce an effect. Vonnegut aimed at influencing others through political satire and through writing was no forceful. May would contend that Vonnegut’s life was fulfilled by mature integration and harmony, even if he was unsettled about the future of human existence.
References
Rackstraw, Loree. (2009). Love as Always, Kurt: Vonnegut as I Knew Him. Philidelphia, PA: Da
Capo Press.
Vonnegut, Kurt. (1991). Fates worse than death: An autobiographical collage. New York, NY:
The Berkley Publishing Group.
Vonnegut, Kurt. (2005). A man without a country. New York, NY: The Random House
Publishing Group.
