46 pages • 1 hour read
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1965A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Satire
Satire is one of the oldest forms of social commentary, and the literary genre uses humor, ridicule, and irony to critique public figures, social norms, and governments. The aim of satire is to use the absurdities of human nature to draw attention to underlying social issues as well as institutional corruption, hypocrisy, and incompetence. Satire differs from simple comedy in that the author’s intention is to both entertain and inform audiences. Through his fiction, Vonnegut uses satire to draw attention to and critique war, inequality, injustice, greed, and the American dream. Vonnegut’s most famous satire is Slaughterhouse-Five, published four years after God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Whereas the former exposes the tragedies of war, the latter is a social commentary on the dehumanizing effects of American values. Elements of satire include anachronisms, irony, juxtaposition, overstatement, parody, and understatement.
Postmodernism
Postmodernism emerged as a reaction to World War II, circa the late 1950s and early 1960s. Postmodernist writers rejected modernism’s rational and logical approach to knowledge. Modernism encompasses five core elements: “experimentation, individualism, multiple perspectives, free verse, and literary devices” (MasterClass. “Modernist Literature Guide.” Masterclass.com, 2021). Conversely, postmodernism encompasses “the embrace of randomness, playfulness, fragmentation, metafiction, and intertextuality” (MasterClass. “Postmodern Literature Guide.” Masterclass.com, 2021). Other postmodernist techniques include irony, parody, caricature, pastiche, and faction.
Like Vonnegut’s other works, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater reflects several postmodernist elements. Intertextuality is when a text refers to another text, typically through the use of allusion, quotations, pastiche, and parody. Vonnegut alludes to songs, poems, authors, historical figures, and more throughout the novel to characterize Eliot and convey the work’s themes. Vonnegut also employs metafiction via Trout, in which the author draws the reader’s attention to the fictitious nature of the story itself. The use of metafiction thematically develops The Fear of Uselessness and Obsolescence and provides readers with an alternative lens with which to view Eliot and his values. Vonnegut heavily relies on irony to highlight the novel’s satirical elements. An example of irony is how Fred wants to end his life to secure insurance money for his family, while Fred’s affluent cousin offers the citizens of Rosewater, Indiana, money to not end their lives. Vonnegut also uses caricature—or the gross exaggeration and oversimplification of traits—to characterize the wealthy, especially Senator Lister. Vonnegut incorporates faction, or the integration of historical events with fiction, to convey the thematic relevancy of his assertions. Through this work and others, Vonnegut has become one of the most prominent postmodernist writers of the 20th century.
Allusion
A literary allusion is a textual reference to another literary work or figure. Allusions can refer to historical periods, figures, and events as well as other authors, literary works, and characters. In employing allusions, the author empowers readers to draw from their own knowledge to make connections about the text. In God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Vonnegut alludes to the poetry of William Blake and John Donne. Blake was an English poet and artist who set the groundwork for Romanticism. Donne was an English poet and scholar known as the founder of Metaphysical Poets. Donne used satire to critique society, and both Donne and Blake’s works explored the social, ethical, and political corruption of institutions like the Church, the government, and the ruling class. Religion influenced the works of both poets, and Vonnegut’s novel also includes many direct Biblical references. Through religious allusion, Vonnegut inherently draws comparisons between the titular Eliot Rosewater and Jesus Christ, creating a religious allegory.
Another prominent character comparison emerges through Vonnegut’s allusion to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Eliot maintains that Kilgore Trout’s 2BR02B is a nod to Hamlet’s famous opening soliloquy in which Hamlet contemplates suicide: “To be, or not to be—that is the question” (Act III, Scene 1). Through this allusion, Vonnegut connects Eliot to the Prince of Denmark, a conflicted son who sees the corruption within his kingdom. In Chapter 3, Eliot directly likens himself to Hamlet and addresses Sylvia as “Ophelia,” Hamlet’s ill-fated love who drowns herself as a result of Hamlet’s “madness.” Although there are striking similarities between the two protagonists, Eliot’s character functions as an “inversion” of Hamlet (Gannon, Matthew. “The Tragedy of Eliot Rosewater, Prince of Indiana.” The Vonnegut Review, 2013).
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