Billy Pilgrim as a "Hero"

Having taken the Hero's Journey class last year, the discussion of Billy Pilgrim's traits and value as a hero or protagonist was interesting to me.  Although our curriculum has included a number of characters who deviate significantly from typical heroic classifications, I feel that Billy is especially unusual.  He is not a dark, deep, brooding antihero, nor is he a morally-motivated hero of myth.  In the vast majority of the scenes we see Billy in, he is devoid of passion and emotion entirely and takes complacency to an extreme; Billy is more willing to understand events as simply happening to him or the work of destiny as opposed to believing in his own capabilities.  This perspective is of course only made more bleak by his curse of being "unstuck" in time, and although the exact details of what Billy could conceivably change are not explicated, it is apparent that he has no interest in interacting or altering the world around him in his past.

While this may make Billy Pilgrim unappealing or not relatable, I think Vonnegut does very well to create such a passive, defeated character as the protagonist for his anti-war novel.  Aside from a pretty in-depth look at the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder, Vonnegut provides an image of the profound hopelessness and desensitization that results from war.  The clearest indicator of this is Billy Pilgrim's repetition of the phrase "so it goes" whenever death occurs in the novel, perhaps also in an attempt to elicit a reaction from the reader.  This acceptance is just one example of how simple Billy appears from an external perspective, and he was likely written to be of mediocre intelligence. Yet, are not the majority of people in the world average?  I think in Vonnegut's anti-war efforts he is trying to make a point about how ridiculous it seems to soldiers in the thick of battle to fit killing and war into metanarratives.  We've said that Billy's "so it goes" phrase devalues loss of human life, but perhaps trying to rationalize the deaths of so many is just as problematic.

Chapters 52 and History as Fiction

Mumbo Jumbo was certainly a unique experience: at times very entertaining, but equally confusing and full of abstruse references.  Initially, Chapters 52 felt incredibly irrelevant to the loose plot that Reed had been constructing in the novel, but ironically it is this arc that really forms Mumbo Jumbo's alternate perspective into a coherent metanarrative.  As we mentioned in class, it seems that Reed is speaking directly through Papa LaBas, and the rest of the novel merely serves to warm us up to this condensed paradigm of American and world history.

Chapters 52 functions as a standalone postmodern work in many ways, but not necessarily in the same ways that Mumbo Jumbo as a whole is.  The line between myth and fiction is unclear, and it is self-referential in a humorous and engaging way, incorporating pop culture references wherever possible and using very modern casual language (Osiris giving Isis his "rod", Set pulling chariots to the side of the road to ask for licenses, etc).  At the same time, the metanarrative's agenda is very present, and Reed is unapologetically biased against the Atonist power structure, with whom he bunches Moses and Jesus to name a few.  However I would argue that these provocative/offensive aspects of his narrative are included consciously; Reed is replicating the Western-biased metanarratives which are ubiquitous in America, and instead flipping the perspective completely.  Not only is he making the unfairness more apparent to a white audience, but he is also showing how incredibly convincing and powerful metanarratives can be when using limited evidence to make larger conclusions.  In addition, Reed's fusion of fiction and history and both casual and sincere language makes his narrative much more appealing, which in itself is a postmodern invention that we are using more and more often as a society when telling our stories.

History vs. Fiction Revisited

Something that I believed at the outset of this course that I have now called into question regarding the differences between history and fiction is that history is more capable of constructing reliable and useful metanarratives than fiction.  I based this on the inherent limitless nature of fiction; history must always depict and interpret events that the author asserts truly happened, whereas fiction can make the choice to include some or no factual events in its text at all.  However after reading Hayden White's essay on this topic, I realized that he and others had largely removed fantasy and fantasy/sci-fi from consideration, and I think this addresses the issue that I had presented earlier.  By cutting out the useless (at least to a historian) aspects of fiction, we are left only with the historical/realistic stories that provide some commentary or insight on reality, whether that be through untold stories or from untold perspectives.

Another problem that I had with equating of history and fiction as equally relevant narrative-constructing tools is that a work of fiction will ultimately come from a single author's perspective; no matter how learned and open-minded they are, it is up to them to present information in a certain way.  Yet history is no different.  It too begins as a retelling by a single person, and is only useful when considered from a variety of other perspectives.  Even history books themselves usually have many authors.  To examine a fictional story such as Ragtime with no context, and simply judge it based on its presentation of factual information is therefore useless and unfair.  If one believe the mission of narratives is to explain the events that led to where we are today, then history may indeed be more relevant.  But if one believes that we consume narratives to dictate proper actions and improvements from the past, then fiction may be a better solution, where we often see a greater and more honest emphasis on the human experience.

Evelyn Nesbit's Charity

Earlier in class we discussed Doctorow's development of Evelyn Nesbit, specifically in the context of her newfound interest in charity.  The class had mixed reactions. Some thought that this shed light on (or created) a more complex and caring side of a historical figure who was more or less seen as shallow and amoral in her time.  Others found her fascination with Tateh's daughter to be based in novelty, invasive, and even pedophilic.  I definitely believe that Nesbit has at least some noble intentions behind caring for the girl, and her willingness to stay anonymous and uncelebrated is admirable.  In addition to this, in a novel that frequently uses characters to make sociopolitical commentary, I felt that Doctorow was trying to initiate a discussion of the nature of charity and its corruption in some cases.

Nesbit is not supporting a broad group of poor people in her visits to the slums.  Instead, she is visiting and becoming a patron of a specific family.  Pushing any possible predatory motivations aside, one must consider the motivations behind her charity specifically.  Why does one choose to support an individual instead of a larger group?  Some might say that it establishes a base of human respect and dignity between both parties, but it is perhaps also a result of the upper-class philanthropist's dissatisfaction at not being able to witness firsthand the results of their donation.  The quite substantial donations that Nesbit does make are to anarchist newspapers, not a despicable cause by any means, but most would find these to be less pressing in the grand scheme of things.  Would it not be more honorable for her to sincerely donate large sums of money to the poor as a whole?  I don't think there's a concrete answer to this question, but I was very intrigued by Doctorow's construction of this plot arc surrounding Evelyn Nesbit and the Tateh family.