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

DONALD E. MORSE THE JOYFUL CELEBRATION OF LIFE KURT VONNEGUT'S AFFIRMATIVE VISION IN GALAPAGOS AND BLUEBEARD Only Galapagos (1982) and Bluebeard (1987) among Kurt Vonnegufs novels may be said to celebrate life and escape the "air of defeat" which pervades all the others.

1 Both works investigate important issues: Galapagos warns against the ultimate effects of humanity's proclivity for destroying the planet and all life on it, while Bluebeard examines the human temptation to trivialize talent and creativity contrasted with the enduring substance and value of art Both have naive narrators, and while their subjects appear widely separated, the values they espouse are closely related. In Galápagos latter day human beings slowly evolve over eons into less destructive and far more lovable, furry, polymorphosely perverse, aquatic creatures, thus ensuring their own survival in the far future, along with that of other beings 1 In all his other novels the heroes experience significant loss, defeat, or death beginning with Paul Proteus in Player Piano (1952), who finds himself used then abandoned by the revolution he helped instigate as well as the corporation he served so loyally and so long, and continuing through Eugene Debs Hartke incarcerated hero of Hocus Pocus (1990), who leaves a horrendous trail of wounded, dead, and/or emotionally maimed. See Morse "Two Studies" and Kurt Vonnegut (74—88) for a discussion of the pervasive "air of defeat" in Vonnegut's novels. Some of the material for this essay appeared earlier in Kurt Vonnegut in a different form and within a different context 109