Kurt Vonnegut Welcome to the

Kurt Vonnegut Welcome to the Monkey House Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) is one of the most prolific and revered American authors in modern history. His signature work, Slaughterhouse Five was published in 1969 to great critical acclaim. In that story, Vonnegut illustrates the horror of wartime and, more broadly, human folly. His other works have covered a diverse range of international topics and are always told through a mix of science fiction, fantasy, and auto-biography.

A turbulent personal history, including a mother who committed suicide on Mother's Day in 1944 and a notoriously traumatic experience as a prisoner of war during WWII, contributed to both his subject matter and his writing style. Known for his deft wit and use of irony, Vonnegut has become a regular fixture in college literature courses. In 1968, before his breakout hit Slaughterhouse Five was published and while Vonnegut was still a relatively unknown author, he released Welcome to the Monkey House.

The book was a compilation of short stories that had previously been published in Canary in a Cat House (1961), plus twelve newer pieces. The publication of this compendium caught the attention of critics, and when his best-seller was published a year later, the literary world was ready for him. Among the stories in Welcome to the Monkey House is the title piece, a classic example of Vonnegut's writing style, subject matter, and use of literary tools. The story presents a science fiction story that raises timeless moral dilemmas facing humankind.

Welcome to the Monkey House: A Summary The story presents a futuristic world with a global population that has ballooned to 17 billion people. There, the so-called World Government has a single-minded focus on reducing population growth. This is accomplished through two fronts. First, residents of this futuristic Cape Cod are encouraged to commit "ethical suicide," a rather creepy scenario that takes place in "suicide parlors" where willing participants are killed by friendly and beautiful hostesses with lethal syringes.

Second, all residents must take daily pills that numb the body from the waist down and therefore render sex joyless. These pills are to be taken three times each day, and are called "ethical birth control pills." Those who refuse to take their pills are dubbed "nothingheads," and are subject to fines and jail time. Billy the Poet is the protagonist of the tale.

He is a representative of a shadowy underground, sought by the World Government, and determined to reintroduce the joys of sex, one unsuspecting female at a time. Billy proceeds through the story by bedding virgins and attempting to convince them of the error of the Government's way. When the story begins, he is closing in on two of the ethical suicide hostesses, Nancy and Mary. Billy ultimately chooses Nancy as his prey. He captures her and leads her into his home in the Kennedy Museum where his gang awaits.

They ply her with gin, a drug so powerful that Nancy had been warned about it: "even a person numb from the waits down would copulate repeatedly and enthusiastically after just one glass." (43). She is dressed in seductive clothing, and marched into a cabin to meet with her attacker. Billy the Poet rapes Nancy, but the depiction of this incident doesn't coincide with any modern images of the act. She refuses him, and he calls in his friends who hold her down.

Then, "he deflowered her with a clinical skill she found ghastly." (47). Neither of the two main characters are much moved by the act itself, but Billy explains that this is how wedding nights used to go for virgins: they are reluctant participants at first, but then learn to love sex later. He tells her that the government is afraid of sex and its implications, and they have squashed the natural beauty in humankind.

He justifies his rape thusly: "So you see, Nancy, I have spent this night, and many others like it, attempting to restore a certain amount of innocent pleasure to the world, which is poorer in pleasure than it needs to be." (49) Ethical Dilemmas There are a number of ethical issues and social problems raised in this story.

Early in the piece, Vonnegut clarifies the ethical nuance that his World Government is enforcing: "the pills were ethical because they didn't interfere with a person's ability to reproduce, which would have been unnatural and immoral. All the pills did was take every bit of pleasure out of sex." (Vonnegut, 1968: 31). He plays with the irony of this image, by describing the virginal hostesses as wearing highly sexualized outfits including "purple body stockings with nothing underneath and black leather boots," (31).

Sure enough, all of the nothing-heads find these hostesses to be attractive; at the same time "sex was the last thing any hostess ever had in mind" (33). In this way, Vonnegut turns our traditional notions of what is sexy upside-down. A simple pill, mandated by government, can give body stockings a sinister, rather than sexual, meaning. While sex and population growth are the main topics for Vonnegut's story, he also introduces a few tangential, but related, ethical quandaries. For example, he raises questions about the role for government.

In his future Cape Cod, most people are unemployed since everything has become automated. As a result, "the average citizen moped around home and watched television, which was the government," (34). In this way, Vonnegut describes not just an ethically dubious future, but one that has been crafted and enforced by a government that is reminiscent of Big Brother. The government is thus pursing a reasonable aim -- population control -- in a highly unreasonable way. Government is portrayed as insidious and all-powerful.

Physical beauty is another ethical problem in this story. All of the residents who participate in government mandated programs also receive anti-aging shots twice per year. They all appear to be twenty-two, the plumb of youth. Only Billy the Poet, the very representation of sex and noncompliance has aged. The Hostesses dub him the "foxy Grandpa," although we later learn that he has participated in anti-aging treatments too.

Nancy, the hostess, is 63 years old chronologically, but Vonnegut's world is so topsy-turvy that these ages are rendered meaningless except for their connotations of sexiness. Again, our usual understanding of sexiness and physical beauty falls apart in Vonnegut's careful telling. Furthermore, these complications make it difficult to decide which of the two characters is morally guilty. This is a theme throughout Vonnegut's work, where "he writes a great deal about the difficulty of determining who is a victim and who is an attacker." (Davis, 2006: 8).

The world is a morally ambiguous place for Vonnegut, and when we play with our assumptions about age and sex and government, we find ourselves in a place where assigning blame becomes impossible. It is instructive to study Vonnegut's work in the context of his life; that is, "the events that have shaped his life have also shaped his written development," (Rider). He was fascinated with the struggles of the middle class, and believed that part of his task as a writer was to challenge conventional wisdom.

Thus, he sought not only to entertain but also "on his agenda is a rebellion against the American class system," (Rider). These themes are vivid in Welcome to the Monkey House. Use of Humor and Literary Techniques Vonnegut's writing style has roots in his early career as a journalist. He wrote in short, simple, declarative prose. This style was both his trademark and a conscious choice that underscored his "anti-elitist stance" (Rider). His characters are presented as caricatures with exaggerated personality features.

His writing has been characterized as "extreme humanism" (Hume 1990), but in truth critics have struggled to characterize Vonnegut. One attempt to do so comes up with: "Most of his work contains elements of meta-fiction, experimentalism, structural anthropology and semiotic dabbling," (Rider). He may also be a post-modernist, as his writing creates worlds with shifts in reality and storylines that elude conventional moral judgment.

Most critics of his early work label him a science fiction writer, and note that this is "a genre usually marked by a weakness of real characters and the pronouncement of human messages," (Levitas, 1968). Many observers also celebrate his accessible prose, noting that his "appeal to college students & #8230; may be linked with his ability to explore philosophically profound questions in prose that is neither convoluted nor simply theoretical," (Davis, 2006: 7).

Weak character development, innovative use of humor and satire, and a simple prose writing style combine to create a uniquely Vonnegut voice. Calling Billy the Poet a "foxy Grandpa" is quintessential Vonnegut irony. The sexless virgins are all portrayed in sexy terms, wearing sexualized outfits and appearing to be permanently 22 years old. Only the sex-crazed criminal has aged, and he is described as "bald, was shaky, had spots on his hands," (Vonnegut, 1968: 35). But even this appearance is a ruse.

Later, when he is seducing Nancy at the point of a gun, he removes his old disguise and appears, like everyone else, twenty two. The message is further developed when he refuses to listen to her explanation about why she would work.