Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1993. [Vol. 1.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 21)
STUDIES - Donald E. Morse: 'Why Not You?": Kurt Vonncgufs Debt to The Book of Job
least, "Slaughterhouse-Five was actually burned in a furnace by a school janitor ... on instructions from the school committee." 7 Clearly the members of that committee were attempting to protect the young from the contents of this novel which they believed threatened their view of the world and religion. Vonnegufs book thus takes its place in an honorable company that includes the Book of Job, the Old Testament Prophets, and Jesus's Sermon on the Mount —all of which have at various times threatened the beliefs of those in authority. 8 Much of the perceived threat stems from the morality central to these works, including Slaughterhouse-Five, which challenges orthodoxy by asserting that the terms, "punishment" and "reward" along with the values they embody do not make a lot of sense from the human, but only from the divine perspective. The unnerving implications of such a position are clear: If human beings cannot perceive much less receive rewards or punishments, then why would anyone do good rather than evil? According to the Book of Job and much of Judeo-Christian belief, a good person is simply a person who does good for its own sake rather than out of hope of reward or from fear of punishment. Good people are good rather than evil because that is who and what good people are. When people do good that becomes their reward. Someone who does evil, on the other hand, is simply someone who does evil which in turn becomes its own punishment. (Compare Ralph Waldo Emerson's equally disquieting notion of evil as "merely privative" in his "Divinity School Address.") None of Vonnegut's characters, including those in Slaughterhouse-Five is fundamentally evil; rather each is a human being to whom accidents happen. Most are innocent. As Vonnegufs father once astutely observed: "you never wrote a story with a villain in it" {Slaughterhouse-Five, p. 7). Billy Pilgrim is neither 7 Palm Sunday, p. 4; see also pp. 3—17. In a "Dear Friend" letter written to solicit funds for the ACLU (The American Civil Liberties Union), Vonnegut reveals that SlaughterhouseFive'^ among the ten "most frequently censored [and bannedl books" in American public schools and libraries. Others in the top ten include John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, Judy Blume, Forever, and Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn. "Kurt Vonnegut," undated letter, pp. 2—3. 8 See for example the prologue to Vonnegut's Jailbird (New York: Dell Publishing, 1979), especially pages XVIII —XIX. 82
