Welcome to your first assignment for Enduring Questions, Fall 2011. In this post, you will find links to about 40 question sets about Kurt Vonnegut's 1961 novel, Mother Night.
After you've read the chapters listed below, click on the links, read the corresponding questions and comments other readers may have left (click on the "comment" button beneath each post to see them), and then join the discussion (or initiate it).
Howard Campbell dedicates his confession to Mata Hari, the Dutch exotic dancer and prostitute who was executed as a German spy during World War One. In 1931, the Swedish film superstar Greta Garbo played Mata Hari in the film with that name. Here's a striking three-minute clip from that film, directed by George Fitzmauriece:
Following the break is a chronological list of several more films that explore some of the issues addressed by Mother Night:
A disguised Dr. Benton is escorted out of Buckingham Palace
Question #1. Mother Night is one of those books whose introduction should not be skipped. It begins with this short, three-sentence paragraph: “This is the only story of mine whose moral I know. I don’t think it’s a marvelous moral; I simply happen to know what it is: We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” (v) We’re only one paragraph deep in this book, and we already have some unpacking to do.
First of all, there’s the question of the extent to which the claim—“we are what we pretend to be”—is true. Are we what we pretend to be? On the one hand, this claim seems obviously false. Pretending to be the Queen of England is not going to win me any privileges at Buckingham Palace. On the other hand, if you pretend to be a friendly person, even though in your heart of hearts you are a resentful jerk, someone might reasonably conclude that your friendly behavior counts for more than the sour attitude you have successfully hidden from the world. And if you pretend to love your job, will your boss really care that deep down, you’d rather be parasailing? When, if ever, do appearances (or actions) matter more than “true feelings”?
Another question relevant to this first paragraph concerns the relation between narratives and meanings. The author of Mother Night claims to know the moral of this story. We may choose to believe that this is an honest account of Kurt Vonnegut’s thoughts about his novel Mother Night. Or we may we choose to believe that this claim is but another piece of fiction like all the others contained with the covers of this novel. Either way, we are left with this question: do authors know what their stories mean better than readers do? Vonnegut may be able to speak about what motivated him to write Mother Night. And he might tell us what effect he hoped it would have on readers. But that is not the same thing as knowing what the moral of the story is. A reader might reach a different conclusion about Mother Night’s moral than the one recommended by Vonnegut. Would Vonnegut always be right in such disagreements? Some would say, “Yes. He wrote the book; he knows what it means.” Others might say that when it comes to the meaning of books, truth is in the eye of the beholder. Still others would argue that truth is communal property. In other words, it’s not true because you say it’s true; it’s true to the extent that you can convince others that it is true. What do you think?
#3. Before we leave the first page, consider the first sentence in the second paragraph: “My personal experience with Nazi monkey business was limited.” What do you make of that phrase: “Nazi monkey business”? The Nazis started World War II which, I am told by my good friends at Wikipedia (always there when I need them), resulted in more than 60 million deaths, including 6 million civilians (Jews, mostly) who were murdered in concentration camps. What effect is achieved by using the term “monkey business” to refer to what the Nazis did? (Just a few pages later the author refers to bombing victims as “jumbo fried grasshoppers.”)
Vonnegut is often praised for his dark sense of humor, but others find his irreverence offensive. Can you think of any reasons a sensible person might say comedy can serve a higher purpose than adding a few giggles to your day, a purpose that might justify its cheeky treatment of serious or tragic subjects? When is it inappropriate to make jokes about something?
4. On pages vi and vii of the introduction, Vonnegut discusses the allied fire-bombing of Dresden during World War II, which he, as an American soldier and prisoner-of-war, witnessed personally (click here to listen to Vonnegut talking about it; click here to see and read a letter he wrote when he was a Prisoner of war;). He deals with this event more extensively in his best-known novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, but given Mother Night’s concern with patriotism and crimes committed during World War II, you may want to explore the issue for yourself in order to respond to this question: Was the fire-bombing of Dresden justified? Was it a criminal act? Can you provide any examples of an act in a just war that some would claim was unjustifiable? How would defenders of the act go about justifying it? What reasons might both sides provide to support their claims? Click here for further reflection on the issue.
5. At the end of the introduction (vii-viii), the author makes the following remarkable claim: “If I’d been born in Germany, I suppose I would have been a Nazi, bopping Jews and gypsies and Poles around . . . .” What effect is this claim likely to have on readers’ appraisal of the author’s moral authority?
Does it expose him as an immoral opportunist?
Or does it reinforce his standing as an honest man?
6. In the “Editor’s note” on page ix (Mother Night is one of those books whose editor’s note should not be skipped), the author cautions readers against the lies that Campbell may have included in his confession: “To say that [Campbell] was a writer is to say that the demands of art alone were enough to make him lie, and to lie without seeing any harm in it.” The irony is thick, since Campbell himself is an artistic creation. To suggest that Campbell existed is a lie (Vonnegut’s)—except that the claim is made within the covers of a book that is labeled as a fiction.
Pinocchio (1940). When he lied, his nose grew.
Can fiction lie? Does labeling something as fiction excuse it from all moral judgment? If fiction can not “lie,” can it be false in ways that are morally condemnable? Later in the same passage (ix-x), the author suggests that “lies told for the sake of artistic effect—in the theater, for instance, and in Campbell’s confessions, perhaps—can be, in a higher sense, the most beguiling forms of truth."
What do you make of the suggestion that fiction and art are more powerful/dangerous (“beguiling”) than the more straightforward truth claims made by journalists, say, or historians? What account for the power of fiction, which by its very definition, does not claim to be “the truth”?
In Chapter 1, “Tiglath-Pileser The Third . . .” Campbell expresses his dismay at learning that his guard does not know who Paul Joseph Goebbels is (if you don’t know who he is, click on this link or this one to find out). In the same chapter, Campbell hides his ignorance of the identity of Tiglath-pileser the Third. Both Goebbels and Tiglath-pileser are depicted here as great villains. And you can imagine why someone might think it important to remember their deeds. American philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952) once wrote that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (fromLife of Reason I).
If you were to make a list of ten historical figures American public school children should learn about, whom would you put on the list and how would you identify the importance of each in a single sentence? What factors shape your choices? How many on the list are villains? How many are Americans? How many are men? How many are women?
The clip below is a trailer for the 2005 documentary The Goebbels Experiment.
8. In Chapter 2, “Special Detail . . .,” (7-9) one of Campbell’s guards encourages Campbell to write a about the Sonderkommando, those Auschwitz prisoners who volunteered “to shepherd condemned persons into gas chambers and then lug their bodies out,” (knowing that when the job was done, they too would be killed). Why does the behavior of the Sonderkommando seem so puzzling? What, if anything, does their behavior tell us about human nature? Why might reasonable people disagree about whether or not volunteering for the Sonderkommando was a shameful thing to do?
A soldier's blank stare. Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter(1982).
In Chapter 4, “Leather Straps,” (15), one of Campbell’s guards tells Campbell that “almost everybody who came through [World War Two]” got so that they “couldn’t feel anything.” (16) What, if anything, does this claim suggest about the nature of war? What, if anything, does this claim suggest about the experience of reading about war or about the experience of seeing scenes depicting war on a video screen? A tangential question: why is “cold-blooded” murder (that is, murder that is executed without feeling) considered to be more morally reprehensible that a “crime of passion”?
In Chapter 5, “Last Full Measure,” Campbell claims that Purgatory is worse than Hell. Why do you think he makes this claim?
To thicken the soup of your thought on this question, you may want to read about the philosophy of absurdism (which my good friends at Wikipedia define as “the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent meaning in life and the human inability to find any”).
In Chapter 7, “Autobiography,” Campbell reports that his father never tired of looking at a “picture history of the First World War,” which featured “pictures of men hung on barbed wire, mutilated women, bodies stacked like cordwood—all furniture of world wars.” (25-26) This behavior and the morbidity of Campbell’s mother strike him as “queer” (that is, “odd” and inexplicable).
Before we dismiss the Campbells as outliers, consider the various spectacles of violence that people (even you, perhaps?) find entertaining. What, if anything, does this kind of behavior suggest about human nature? What, if anything, does it say about what makes people happy? Or the role governments might play in the regulation of violence?
In Chapter 9, “Enter My Blue Fairy Godmother . . .,” Campbell reports that since he can’t control the things going on in Germany, “Hitler and the Jews and all that,” (34) as his questioner puts it, he doesn’t think about it. Some might condemn Campbell’s willful ignorance; others might accept it as sensible and healthy, even.
Niemöller on the cover of TIME, December 23, 1940
One person who might have condemned Campbell was German pastor Martin Niemöller, who was in Germany in the years leading up to the War. Niemöller berated German intellectuals (why them especially, do you think?) for not doing enough to stop the Nazi rise to power. As Niemöller famously described his own failings in the years leading up to the war, “First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
In light of Vonnegut’s claims about of public action and private belief (“We are who we pretend to be”), Campbell’s inaction (his decision not to think about, much less condemn, the Nazis) is more significant than any private moral judgment about the Nazis that he chose not to make public. If silence is consent, Campbell is not merely an idle bystander; he is complicit in the crimes committed by those he refused to call out.
On the other hand, not worrying about things you can’t control seems like a sensible prescription for mental and emotional health and happiness. So how can we draw the line between the anxiety disorder and moral responsibility? What definition of happiness (and mental health) should govern our analysis of this question?
13. In Chapter 9, “Enter My Blue Fairy Godmother . . .,” Campbell reports that he could not claim to hate the Nazis because he “knew them too well as people” (36). Consider this claim in light of your experience reading imaginative literature. Some people say that much of the value of studying literature is that it widens a reader’s circle of empathy. Literature allows a reader to see the world from someone else’s perspective and gain a greater understanding of the emotional world someone else inhabits. It is easy to see why “walking a mile in someone else’s shoes” might be an enlightening vicarious experience, but is there a danger in it as well? Can literature encourage us to sympathize with the wrong people? Does knowing the Nazis “as people” limit our ability to hate them? Does limiting our ability to hate them limit our ability to respond to them appropriately (violently)? Should we ever shun efforts to humanize villains?
Ever see the film Max(2002)? Some critics complained that it humanizes Hitler . . .
Later in Chapter 9, Campbell suggests that the best reason to expect him to be a spy is that he is “a ham.” As a ham, he would enjoy the “grand acting” opportunity--a chance to “fool everyone with [his] brilliant interpretation” of a Nazi (39). This confession suggests that Campbell’s motives for serving his country were impure. He was less interested in performing his patriotic duty than he was in the ego trip it would afford him.
But from a moral perspective, how much should motive matter to us? If a hero runs into a burning house to save a child, do the child’s parents care if she did it because she wanted to become a celebrity? Would we admire Campbell more if he told us his motives were selfless? Or would we doubt his sincerity? Or his self-awareness?
Ever seen the film Hero(1992) directed by Stephen Frears?
In Chapter 10, Campbell describes “Das Reich der Zwei, the nation of two my Helga and I had” (42) and compares the intensity of their romantic love for each other to the nationalist zeal so many “patriotic lunatics all around us” felt during the Nazi rise to power in Germany. “We didn’t listen to each other’s words,” he writes, “We heard only the melodies in our voices. The things we listened for carried no more intelligence than purrs and growl of big cats.” (43) We are accustomed to accounts of World War Two that condemn the Germans for their unthinking enthusiasm for the Nazis. But Campbell’s narrative hits closer to home because it suggests that great evil is made possible by young lovers like Campbell and Helga, who take no interest in politics.
Are those who say they are “not interested in politics” responsible at some level for the crimes of the world’s political leaders? Has contemporary Western society made a cult of love that distracts people from more significant political concerns? Does the entertainment media, with its focus on romantic love, encourage us to think like cats in heat (and thus, to extend the metaphor, allow the rats in politics to run wild)?
In Chapter 11, “War Surplus,” Campbell characterizes his romantic feelings for Helga as a “narcotic” that “got me through the war” (46-47). By letting his “emotions be stirred by only one thing—my love for Helga,” Campbell was able to avoid “going insane” (47).
In what ways is love (for a lover, a friend, a family member, a child) like a powerful drug that deadens pain, distorts perception, or creates addiction? What reasons might a sensible critic give for justifying Campbell’s choice to focus on his relationship with Helga during time of war?
In Chapter 12, “Strange Things in My Mailbox,” Kraft makes a case for the enduring value of art. As a young man, Kraft “held [the arts] in supreme contempt,” but with maturity he came to a different conclusion. “Future civilizations,” he says “…are going to judge all men by the extent to which they’ve become artists. You and I, if some future archaeologist finds our works miraculously preserved in some city dump, will be judged by the quality of our creations. Nothing else about us will matter” (56).
It is not difficult to find cases that support Kraft’s theory. In 1940, four teenagers discovered a cave in Lascaux, France where drawings of bulls and horses have been miraculously preserved. The drawings were 17,000 years old. They are widely admired. This seems to suggest that Kraft was right.
Yet many people look down on the arts (not just painting, but literature, dance, movies, theater) because they are impractical. What purpose do they serve? Why should college students be required to take courses in the humanities which have nothing at all to do with the jobs many will eventually take after graduation? Why should people attribute so much value to the paintings of bulls?
The film below contains footage of the Chauvet cave, which was discovered in 1994.
In Chapter 13, “The Reverend Lionel Jason David Jones, D. D. S., D. D. . . .,” Campbell reports that Dr. Jones was convicted of “Conspiring to destroy the morale and faith of the members of the military and naval forces of the United States and the people of the United States in their public officials and republican form of government” (68).
Isn’t this just another way of saying Jones was bumming out the soldiers? Should this be considered a crime? Doesn’t the U. S. Constitution give men like Dr. Jones the right to say things that might depress people? Even soldiers?
Read the rest of the charges leveled against him on page 68. How many of them do you think are punishable crimes?
Under what conditions can a speech act be considered criminal?
In Chapter 16, we are told that during the war Helga “was captured and raped in the Crimea” (80). Later, “She was shipped to the Ukraine by boxcar” and “was put to work in a labor gang.” Human history is packed with similar stories of violence. Any investigation of what it means to be human should probably offer an account of the prevalence of such stories in the human experience. Presumably, some humans believe the road to happiness involves raping others, treating them like commodities, and enslaving them. Can we simply dismiss these behaviors as anomalous? Or does their commonality tell us something important about what it means to be human?
In Chapter 16, Campbell reports that he demonstrated for Kraft “the meaning of patriotism to, respectively, a Nazi, a Communist, and an American” (81).
How do you think he might have illustrated the similarities and differences between each?
In Chapter 18, “Werner Noth’s Beautiful Blue Vase,” Noth, a believing Nazi, tells Campbell he gave up caring whether Campbell was a spy or not when he became convinced that Campbell had done more to help Nazis through the persuasive speeches he made on the radio (“You alone kept me from concluding that Germany had gone insane”) than he could have damaged them by providing secret intelligence to the allies (99).
Why might an educated person make the case that in war time effective propaganda is as important as or more important than access to battlefield strategies and tactics?
For most people today, the word “propaganda” has negative connotations; it is a term typically used to describe the speech acts of people we disagree with or are suspicious of. How can you identify propaganda when you see or hear it? What do we call speech acts that are designed to persuade people of views we support?
What did U.S. propaganda look like during World War II? See anything wrong with this 1943 short animated film: Education for Death, produced by Walt Disney?
In Chapter 23, “Chapter Six Hundred and Forty-Three . . .,” Campbell claims that loving a country is silly, as silly as hating it. “It’s impossible for me to get emotional about it,” he reports, “because real estate doesn’t interest me” (133). As Campbell sees it, the “imaginary lines” that separate countries from each other are “as unreal to me as elves and pixies.”
He suggests that this may be “a great flaw” in his personality. Why might an educated person say that a lack of emotional connection to a country is a personality flaw? Why, on the other hand, might an educated person argue that it silly to love or to hate a country?
For more on those who believe in pixies (including Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes), check out this video:
In Chapter 25, “The Answer to Communism,” a “barfly” describes the “Moral Rearmamament movement” which “believes in absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness, and absolute love” (141). Why might Vonnegut have included this minor character in the novel? What attitude does Mother Night encourage readers to take toward this alignment of beliefs? How might an articulate supporter of the Moral Rearmament movement criticize Mother Night?
In a Moral Re-Armament play, Marion Clayton Anderson plays Miss Trust, whispering doubts and seeds of dissension into the ears of labor leaders played by Vic Kitchen (on the left) and Norman Schwab.
The Moral Re-Armament movement produced "Up with People;" a movement that is depicted in the 2009 documentary Smile 'Til it Hurts (see trailer below):
Chapter 27, “Finders Keepers,” offers a brief account of the life of Lazlo Szombathy, a character who is not integral to the plot. What does the inclusion of this chapter say about the worldview endorsed by Mother Night?
In Chapter 28, “Target,” Campbell describes a caricature of a Jew which he recommended that Nazi soldiers use for target practice. “The amateurishness of [the caricature] made it look like something drawn on the wall of a public lavatory;” he claims, “it recalled the stink, diseased twilight, humid resonance, and vile privacy of a stall in a public lavatory—echoed the soul’s condition in a man at war” (154-155).
What might an educated reader challenge this characterization of the soul of a man at war? Is this true of the souls of most men at war? In order to conduct war, is it necessary to depersonalize the enemy, to see them as stereotypes or caricatures, as vermin or as pure evil?
In Chapter 29, “Adolf Eichmann and Me . . .,” Campbell argues that people believed the ludicrous claims he made on the radio because they were “so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought, so eager to believe and snarl and hate” (160). It was “unquestioning faith” that made them surrender their capacity to think, he says, and he characterizes their decision to believe without engaging their intellect as “terrifying and absolutely vile.” Many people celebrate the steadfastness of those who have “faith in things unseen.”
Can people rely on their intellect to provide them with a foundation for all their beliefs? Should they try? What role should learning play in the creation of our belief systems? Are the beliefs of educated people to be more trusted than those of uneducated people?
In Chapter 29, Campbell says of himself: “I always know when I tell a lie, am capable of imagining the cruel consequences of anybody’s believing my lies, know cruelty is wrong. I could no more lie without noticing it than I could unknowingly pass a kidney stone” (166).
Can you imagine a scenario in which a mentally healthy person might tell a lie (not just report misinformation) and not realize it?
In Chapter 29, Campbell associates his sense of morality with his sense of humor, when comparing himself to the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann. “The only advantage to me of knowing the difference between right and wrong, as nearly as I can tell,” he writes, “is that I can sometimes laugh when the Eichmanns can see nothing funny” (166). One page later, Eichmann makes a joke about the six million who died in the Holocaust.
Given Campbell’s comment about his ability to laugh when the Eichmanns can see nothing funny, what does Eichmann’s joke say about the relationship between moral sensibility and comic sensibility?
In Chapter 31, Campbell describes August Krapptauer as someone who listened to his heart instead of his mind. Those in attendance at the eulogy took the description as a compliment; Campbell seems to have considered it a condemnation.
How can we account for the differing interpretations of the description?
In Chapter 32, Wirtanen argues that “a responsible historian” would classify Campbell as a Nazi, even if she knew about Campbell’s spying commission.
Without knowing the kind of information Campbell transmitted in his broadcasts, would you agree? What arguments could be forwarded to support and challenge Wirtanen’s claim?
A scene from Europa, Europa, about a Jew who avoided persecution by pretending to be Aryan:
In Chapter 32, Campbell imagines himself becoming “a sort of Nazi Edgar Guest, writing a daily column of optimistic doggerel for daily papers around the world” (189). This would not, presumably, be happy fate, from Campbell’s perspective.
Read some of Edgar Guest’s poetry and decide for yourself if it is “optimistic doggerel.” Then try to write some “optimistic doggerel” yourself. Can you think of any reason why someone might feel contemptuous of Guest’s writing?
The video below is a bank ad featuring Ben Kingsley reciting the Guest poem "My Creed" from his book, Heap o' Livin' (1916).
Chapter 37, “Dat Old Golden Rule”: After learning that Resi and Kraft are Russian spies, Campbell decides to return to their company rather than take advantage of the escape opportunity Wirtanen had provided him.
Why do you think he decides to go back? What, if anything, does this have to do with the Golden Rule (“do unto others as you would have them do unto you”)?
Your optical sense says: "These stalks are broken."
In Chapter 37, Campbell confesses to “a ghostly lack in myself. Anything I see or hear or feel or taste or smell is real to me. I am so much a credulous plaything of my sense that nothing is unreal to me” (213).
Why do you think he describes his trust in his senses as a flaw? What kind of person doesn’t trust her senses?
In Chapter 43, “St. George and the Dragon . . .,” Campbell describes Bernard B. O’Hare as “the man who perceived his noblest aspect in his loathing and hounding of me” (244). This characterization does not seem intended to compliment O’Hare.
Why might someone admire O’Hare’s relentless pursuit of a war criminal like Campbell? Why does Campbell regard O’Hare with such disdain (aside from the fact that O’Hare has singled out Campbell for harrassment)?
In Chapter 44, “Kahm-Boo,” Campbell surrenders himself for trial.
Why do you think he makes this choice, when he knows that it is unlikely that he will be able to prove that he was working as a spy? What moral purpose, if any, is served by his surrender?
At the end of Chapter 45, “The Tortoise and The Hare . . . ,” Campbell confesses that the thought of being a free man again strikes him as “nauseating” (267).
Mother Night is replete with characters who, at one time or another, pretend to be someone else. Campbell pretends to be a Nazi and then, later, in New York City, when his downstairs neighbor confronts him about his identity, he pretends not to have been one. The Russian agent, Iona Potapov, pretends to be “George Kraft” when he befriends Campbell. Resi, agreeing to work as a spy for the Russians, pretends to be Helga, and then, after Wirtanen reveals the Russian plot to Campbell, she says she was only pretending to go along with the Russians. And, finally, Harold J. Sparrow, assumes the alias of “Frank Wirtanen,” when he works as a spy.
The many complex layers of deceit at work here may seem possible only in a world of fantasy. Yet on a much more prosaic level, such playacting is a part of our everyday life. People often pretend to be someone they are not or pretend to feel something they don’t. Sometimes our motives are admirable, sometimes they are not. For example, we may pretend to be interested in something someone says (even though, in truth, we find it unutterably boring) because we don’t want to hurt their feelings. Or we may do it because we want them to do something for us (give us a good grade, lend us money, etc.).
Should we be troubled by this kind of commonplace deception? Should we avoid fakery, strive to show our true selves and “keep it real”? Or should we admire the self-control exercised by those who are able to put on their game face even when they are not “feeling it,” show courage when they feel fear, and smile though their heart may be breaking?
The scene below is the from the 1936 film, Modern Times, starring Charlie Chaplin. The theme music, written by Chaplin, provided the melody for the popular song, "Smile (Though Your Heart is Aching)."
