Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1994. [Vol. 2.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 22)

STUDIES - Donald E. Morse: The Joyful Celebration oflJfe. Kurt Vonnegut's Affirmative Vision in Galapagos and Bluebeard

A full moon, after all, had come to be known as a "bomber's moon." Even an orange could suggest a diseased planet, a disgraced humanity, if someone remembered, as many did, that the Commandant of Aushwitz and his wife and children, under the greasy smoke from the ovens, had had good food every day. {Fates 44) \ But Karabekian goes far beyond this initial reaction and so with, as he puts it, this "last thing I have to give to the world," discovers and fulfills his vocation as an artist something he had been unable to do either as an Abstract Expressionist or as an illustrator. Unlike his earlier work, this last painting reflects powerfully his life-experience and feelings. It gives him peace, while eliciting a positive response from the common people who come to view it (300, 283). He thereby becomes an example of "the artist.

.. freely functioning in relation to society, [while]

... society wants what he is able to offer" (Cahill 473).

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5 No longer does Karabekian have to browbeat his audience-whether a cocktail waitress in Midland City or his neighbor on Fire Island

—into accepting what he has done as art Rabo the one-eyed painter becomes king in the blind land of art Vonnegut thus suggests in Bluebeard that the true artist uses technique

—whether it be putting paint on canvas or putting words on paper

—to serve human beings and their human feelings.

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6 In the end Karabekian serves humanity not by providing it with more interior or exterior decoration, but by depicting a "crucial [subject].

.. which is tragic and timeless." In so doing, he stands out in bold relief against the pale shadow of Dan Gregory, who, despite his talent and popular success, Contrast Troufs total lack of relationship to society in Galapagos where the evolved seal-like humans obviously neither read nor write. I

6 Vonnegut through Karabekian aligns himself with, among others, Adolph Gottlieb and Mark Rothko who challenged the "widely accepted notion among painters that it does not matter what one paints as long as it is well painted. This is the essence of academism." They maintained as a positive alternative that "the subject is crucial and only subject-matter is valid which is tragic and timeless.

.. Consequently, if our work embodies these beliefs it must insult any one who is spiritually attuned to interior decoration; pictures for the home.

.(545). 122