Welcome to the Monkey House (short story)
| "Welcome to the Monkey House" | |
|---|---|
| Author | Kurt Vonnegut |
| Country |  USA |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Dystopia |
| Published in | Welcome to the Monkey House |
| Publication type | Anthology |
| Publisher | Delacorte Press (AKA Dell Publishing) |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Publication date | 1968 |
"Welcome to the Monkey House" is a Kurt Vonnegut short story that is part of the collection Welcome to the Monkey House. It is alluded to in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater as one of Kilgore Trout's stories.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
The plot is settled at some point in the future; the exact year is not mentioned. At this time the population on Earth is 17 billion human beings and the World Government is concerned with the task to decrease this number. It is therefore making a two-pronged attack on that problem by establishing the so- called Federal Ethical Suicide Parlors, where people can come to be killed painlessly by a hypodermic syringe. The other way of preventing reproduction is a mandatory ethical birth control, which makes people numb from the waist down and takes every pleasure out of sex. People who refuse to take these birth control pills are called “nothingheads” and are chased by the police for they are a danger to society. One day Pete Crocker, the sheriff of Barnstable County, comes to the Ethical Suicide Parlor in Hyannis and announces to the two hostesses working there that Billy the Poet, a nothinghead, was about to come to Cape Cod. Billy the Poet is known to be eager to deflowering hostesses, who are all virgins, and to send them smutty poems before he violates them. He has not yet been arrested by the police because his former victims were not sure about his outer appearance. One of the hostesses, Nancy McLuhan, is occupied with waiting for a patient asking for the deathly needle, when the telephone rings and the caller is delivering a dirty poem from Billy the Poet to Nancy. The police have already been checking on the telephone lines and so, convinced that the caller was Billy the Poet himself, the sheriff and the other suicide hostess Mary Kraft are heading to see him being arrested. Nancy is left alone with her patient who suddenly takes off his mask and reveals that he is Billy the Poet. He menaces Nancy with a gun and leads her to the deserted museum where the ancient Kennedy Compound is sheltered. There he waits until Nancy’s ethical birth control pills wear off and then violates her while some of his companions are holding her. Nancy is repulsed by the whole action and insults him. But as it turns out Billy is not a common rapist. He tells Nancy that she will be grateful one day for his making her understand that sexuality is a part of human nature and must not be suppressed by the Government. He leaves her alone handing her a bottle of ancient birth control pills which prevent pregnancy but allow sexual intercourse. The label on the bottle says: Welcome to the Monkey House.
[edit] Main characters
Nancy McLuhan:
Nancy McLuhan is a Hostess working at the Federal Ethical Suicide Parlor of Hyannis. She unites all the skills and virtues a Suicide Hostess has to fulfill: she is a virgin and convinced in the laws of the Government. She is an expert in Judo and Karate and holds advanced degrees in psychology and nursing. Furthermore she is plump, rosy and six feet tall and wears the typical Hostess’s uniform which contains heavy makeup, purple stockings and black boots. She looks 22 years old although she is already 63. This is due to the anti-aging shots people get twice a year. Nancy has adapted the conventions the Government put on the society but there is still a side in her which recognizes that this way of living is not quite right. When Billy the Poet’s helpers make her drink a truth serum and ask her what it feels like to be a virgin at sixty-three she answers, “Pointless” . Peter J. Reed suggests that “being an overgrown Barbie doll administering ethical suicide might well seem pointless. But the passage implies that her still being a virgin causes her to feel pointless, purpose evidently residing in her being a wife and mother”.[1]
Billy the Poet:
Billy the Poet is a so-called nothinghead who refuses to take the ethical birth control pills and tries to seduce Ethical Suicide Parlor Hostesses. He does so for his own ideology. He agrees with the World Government that overpopulation is a threat to the stability of the world but he thinks that human instincts such as sexuality must not be suppressed. He therefore hands birth control pills to the Hostesses which prevent reproduction but do not interfere with sexuality. Billy is not a strong alpha-male hero. He is not physically attractive and does not seek for power. He intends to bring an innocent pleasure back into the world and tries to express his tenderness by leaving Nancy a book of poetry containing Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways”. That was the poem his grandfather had read out to his wife on their wedding night. He does not see is actions as actual violations towards the Hostesses. He explains to Nancy that what she went through with him was pretty much the same thing a lot of brides had experienced a hundred years ago on their wedding night. He claims that a lot of them have afterwards become sexual enthusiasts. He wants all the people in the world to have this opportunity. His mission is quite successful; when he brings Nancy to the Kennedy Compound, there is already a group of his supporters waiting for them; members of his nothinghead underground culture.
J.Edgar Nation:
The title of the story which is also the inscription on the label of Billy’s birth control pills refers to the history of how the numbing pills have been developed. The druggist J. Edward Nation had taken his family to the zoo on the Easter Sunday. When they passed by the monkey house a monkey was playing with his genitals. Finding that this immoral behavior destroyed the spirit of Easter, Nation decided to invent the numbing pills for animals. Later on, when people stayed young and attractive on the long term due to the invention of the anti-aging shots, the pills were also imposed on humans. J. Edgar Nation’s name is a mixture made up by Vonnegut which derives from J. Edgar Hoover and Carrie Nation. Hoover, at that time the FBI director, “was vigorous in his moral judgments”[2] and Nation fought alcohol. Carrie Nation’s message is also present in the story, as Nancy is convinced that alcohol, or more precise Gin, is the worst drug of all.
[edit] Motifs and critique
The crucial motif in that story is sexuality. The story was originally published in Playboy of January 1968 and some of the aspects discussed seem to be written right for this very readership . The sexual tension through the story is intense and a good counterpoint to a society which wants to suppress human instincts such as sexuality. Written in the year 1968 at the peak of the sexual revolution during the so-called Sexy Sixties the story was highly topical at that time.[3] It was also that year when Pope Paul VI published an an encyclical detailing the new official Catholic position against birth control pills and artificial contraception. “Welcome to the Monkey House” is Vonnegut’s critical answer to these actions. He suggests that fake morale driven to the point of wanting to deny human nature cannot be tolerated.
In the case of “Welcome to the Monkey House” this fake morale is imposed by a World Government. Vonnegut has often discussed the dangers of egalitarianism but not to the extent that one single system forms and controls all the people in the world. Everything has been made equal; from the fact that all Suicide Parlors have purple roofs and the Howard Johnson’s diners orange ones, to the egalitarian TV programs, people’s young looks and the fact that no one has sex. Equality endangers individuality; Vonnegut has “consistently decried the self-righteousness that imposes controls on the individual human rights of others”[4] His arguments are even more harshly presented in another short story of his, “Harrison Bergeron” (1965), where the Americans are controlled by a Government that wants to equalize people physically and mentally by handicapping them.
Another problem Vonnegut discusses in “Welcome to the Monkey House” is the overpopulation of the world. In the story 17 billion human beings live on planet earth. This leads to the fact that most of the people are unemployed. They sit at home watching television programs which are controlled by the Government. These programs aim to enforce the Government’s power by showing advertisements and shows which propagate the laws and rulers and ethical suicide. Almost all the work is done by machines. Even in the restaurant Howard Johnson’s which is next to the Suicide Parlor all the work is done by a machine. To make people feel more comfortable eating there, are record produces regular restaurant-noise. Furthermore most species of animals and plants in the world are extinct such as bees, birds or mosquitoes because they had to step back from growing mankind. The measures the Government develops to prevent further growth of population are drastic: The rulers encourage ethical suicide and prevent reproduction by numbing people’s lower part of the body. Vonnegut mentions overpopulation not only in “Welcome to the Monkey House” but also in another story of the same collection “The Big Trip Up Yonder/ Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” (1954) where he describes how in the Year 2158 six generations of a family live together in just one small apartment. He wants to draw his reader’s attention to the threat of overpopulation in order to avoid the sceneries which are described in his stories.
[edit] Style
Reading the story it can be recognized to which extent Vonnegut is influenced by his early work as a journalist. His sentences are rather short and easy to read in order to be reached and to be understood by as many people as possible[5] . The dystopian, science fictional setting is perfect to underline his social and political critique. Vonnegut is able to give a futuristic preview of what could become of the world if people will not change. Despite the rather drastic plot Vonnegut still intends the story to be funny. There are a lot of humoristic elements to be found: J.Edgar Nation and his being offended by a monkey, the president of the world Ma Kennedy who has a “THINK” sign in her office, people who take the pill having blue urine or the Kennedy Compound as a museum. The entertaining ironical hints draw more attention to the fine details of the story. Vonnegut uses humor, at times very black humor, to transport his serious message.
[edit] Publication history
- First published in January, 1968 in Playboy magazine.
- Published in August, 1968 in the collection Welcome to the Monkey House by Delacorte Press.
- Re-released on September 8, 1998 in the re-publication of Welcome to the Monkey House by Dial Press.
[edit] Adaptations
- Showtime presented "Kurt Vonnegut's Monkey House," with an adaptation of this story in 1991.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ [Reed, Peter J. (1997): The Short Fiction of Kurt Vonnegut. Westport, London: Greenwood Press. p.99]
- ^ [Reed, Peter J. (1997): The Short Fiction of Kurt Vonnegut. Westport, London: Greenwood Press. p.101]
- ^ [Pinternagel, Stefan T. (2005): Kurt Vonnegut jr. und die Science Fiction. Kilgore Trout, Trafaldamore and Bokononismus. Berlin: Shayol.p.38]
- ^ [Reed, Peter J. (1997): The Short Fiction of Kurt Vonnegut. Westport, London: Greenwood Press. p.99]
- ^ [Allen, William Rodney (1991): Understanding Kurt Vonnegut. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.p.3]
[edit] Further reading
Klinkowitz, Jerome (1998): Vonnegut in fact. The public spokesman of personal fiction. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press
Leeds, Marc (1995): The Vonnegut Encyclopedia. An Authorized Compendium. Westport, London: Greenwood Press
Leeds, Marc; Reed, Peter J. (1996): The Vonnegut Chronicles. Interviews and Essays. Westport, London: Greenwood Press
Petterson, Bo (1994): The World according to Kurt Vonnegut. Moral Paradox and Narrative Form. Åbo: Åbo University Press
