Paper Cut Podcast: Analysis on "Welcome to the Monkey House"

The transcription discusses the life of author Kurt Vonnegut and his well-known book "Welcome to the Monkey House." It provides background information on Vonnegut's life, including his experiences in World War II and his family struggles. The transcription also discusses the context of the time in which the book was published, focusing on issues like women's rights, birth control, and population concerns. It briefly summarizes the plot of "Welcome to the Monkey House" and raises questions about its themes and symbolism, such as the use of the Kennedy Museum. Hi everybody, this is Papercut introducing me, Anna. Anybody else want to introduce themselves? We have Emily and we have Keisha. I'm Keisha. And Emily. And yeah, that is Papercut in a shell. And let's sort of just get into Kurt Vonnegut's Welcome to the Monkey House and dive right into his life as an author and how he came to write it. So I'm going to, Emily, I'm going to take over the Vonnegut info just so you have an idea of who our author is and where we're coming from. So Vonnegut was born in 1922 in Indiana. He died in 2007. He had a pretty long life. He's family was German American. His father was verbally abusive to his mother and she actually ended up committing suicide the day before Mother's Day in 1944 when he was enrolled in the World War. His dad really wanted him to study chemistry, but Vonnegut was kind of a, kind of quite the art scholar saying, if you really want to hurt your parents, if you don't want to be a homosexual, at least go into the arts. Eventually he got his master's in anthropology. As I alluded to, he also fought in World War II. He was actually taken as a prisoner in Dresden. That's where part of his inspiration for his most well-known book, Slaughterhouse Five, came in. He survived the Allies bombing the city by taking refuge in a meat locker, the Slaughterhouse. He was a big countercultural writer despite not really studying literature formally. In 1968 he published a short story collection wherein Welcome to the Monkey House was published. He authored for Playboy pretty often. His family was oftentimes going through it between his mother's suicide, Vonnegut himself attempting suicide in 1984, and his son Mark having a mental breakdown in 1972, who was an author in his own right. His final book, published when he was alive, was A Man Without a Country in 2005. As a fun fact, there's an asteroid and a crater on Mercury named after him. A little bit on, as I said, it was published in 1960. A little information about that time in history. This piece was really centered on issues and questions that were very present in that moment. Women were oftentimes seen as housewives or caretakers or homemakers full-time. Women who were not married or pressured to settle down and have children. This time was also when birth control laws started to really kick into swing. They used to be incredibly taboo, not illegal, but premarital sex had become more common and decent sex in the media. The birth control pill had been validated by the FDA around this time. Women were a little bit more open about premarital sex at this point. We started having a sort of counter-culture movement. Vonnegut was known to be a counter-cultural author, being an anti-war author, particularly during the Vietnam War. This piece is kind of counter-cultural, including all these questions about women and sexuality. At this time, we were also really concerned about population. The sort of population bomb was talked about a lot. One of the magazines that Vonnegut authored for, Playboy magazine, was also a large part of female sexualization in the 1960s, funnily enough. Anyone else want to add anything about the history of the context? Thoughts? I think you pretty much got it all. Yeah, I definitely think the whole fact about premarital sex is really important. And Welcome to the Monkey House, especially, we'll get into it too, but just how the pills they take in the story, you can't feel pleasure, and it's just kind of so contradictory to the whole point of premarital sex, especially for women. So yeah, I just thought that was an interesting way he made sex and sexuality and the feminist movement, so to speak, important in the story. Yeah, no, it's particularly interesting because, we'll give it as a summary, but all these questions, particularly about ethics, and how ethics, because the word ethic or morality is used a lot in the story, of how ethics and law interact in the sexuality sphere, and where Vonnegut decided to take that. I don't know if it's a critique or endorsement, we'll see, but spoilers ahead for Summary of the Monkey House. You're a little late, if you haven't read it, not gonna lie, 1968, you're kind of behind on the time, but if you want to read it yourself, turn it away, can't help. All right, so I'm going to do a brief summary of the Monkey House. So the larger world they live in, like the setting that it's in, we have a really huge government that has kind of taken over everything, like Vonnegut says that practically everything was the government on page five, and it seems to be a worldwide sort of government too, because we have an allusion to the President of the United States, or the world, and then all these statues of the President of the world at the time. There's no jobs, everyone's kind of wasting away in their rooms, and as we alluded to with the population bomb earlier, there's ridiculous overcrowding population going on, with 17 billion human beings on the earth, context, we have about 7 billion right now, so imagine that, but again, and more. Like Vonnegut refers to them as being like drooplets, the little bumps on a raspberry. It's a very interesting comparison, I'm glad you ruined raspberries for me. It's even kind enough to give us a definition of drooplet, in case you're wondering, it's the pulpy little lumps that compose the outside of a raspberry, but the way the government tries to control that is there is a mandatory birth control pill that you take three times a day, that means you completely numb from the way it's done, and you have blue urine, fun little side effect, and if you don't take it, there's a fine of $10,000 and 10 years in jail. People who don't take it are called nothing ends, they're want sex, and that's horrific. Then the second part of the government's attempt to help the population is ethical suicide, where they keep putting ads on the TV and saying like, oh, go to, and I quote, going to the nearest suicide parlor, asking a hostess to kill you painlessly while you lay on a parka lounger. It's a very kind of consumerist moment going on right here. And then out to the suicide clinic, there's a big thermometer on the side of the building with a line of where population should be and where it's at. It's kind of a larger world. Some of the characters, the biggest ones are Billy the Poet and Nancy McLuhan. Thank you, Nancy McLuhan, that's my bad. Sorry, Nancy. Like, you know, the most things that occur in this story, I don't know me, but we open with Pete Crocker, who's a random sheriff guy. Billy the Poet, who originally is a very good foxy grandpa, pulls a little sneaky on us. Nancy is quite an artistic protagonist. She is one of the people that works at those ethical suicide locations. She is one of the nurses, ironically enough, who are completely naked except for stockings and high heels and lipstick. And her bob. So she's probably a protagonist, and then Mary Croft is her fellow host's virgin mare. Plot, really quickly, so we can get into the analysis, is that sheriff guy, Pete Crocker, comes in, warns Nellie and Mary about Billy the Poet, who's a nothing head. He's been seducing all of these hostesses and women. He's terrible. And Nancy and Mary are very unimpressed. They really don't care, think it's a joke. Of course, all nurses know, are experts in martial arts, so they're ready to punch in five different ways, and she shows the cop, so we're good. Nancy ends up receiving a dirty letter, a poem in a letter, from Billy the Poet, and she's meanwhile trying to balance convincing this foxy grandpa to commit suicide for her, and he tells her the story of the birth control pill that they take now, which was a guy who went to a zoo with a bunch of monkeys, and they were playing with themselves, and they were horrified. So he made this pill, and now he's a human. Eventually, Nancy keeps getting messages from Billy the Poet, receives a phone call, reads a poem that another nurse had been given by Billy, but Billy reveals himself to not have been caught by the cops, as the cops had thought, and as Nancy had thought, that he's actually the little foxy grandpa that she was talking to about the birth control pill, takes her by gunpoint through the sewers to the Kennedy Museum, where they bathe her and make her sleep in a bed, put her in a little white nightgown, and then she has to sleep in that museum bed, that Kennedy Museum bed. They give her a truth serum, they ask her how it feels to be a virgin, she says, pointless, kind of weird move on Monica's part. Then she wakes up, is brought to a yacht, talks with Billy, who tells her, don't worry, this is for your own happiness, oh, content warning, sexual assault, rapes her, and Billy says, if there's any way to make you happy, I wouldn't have done this. And the final line is, welcome to the monkey house, because he gives her birth control that would not make her known from the waist down, but still have no kids. So, a lot to go off of in quite a short page number. Anything you guys wanted to start off with, opening up? I just thought it was really interesting how they wove in the whole Kennedy part, and how it took place, quite literally, on their estate, and I'm like, is that to say, like, the Kennedys were kind of like an empire? Does that have anything, like, why was he supposed to be so specific about the Kennedys? Like, I know Kennedy, like, assassinated 63rd, and then like, just a bunch of tragedies after that, but what was, like, the tie-in? I was so interested in why he, like, do you have any, like, say, like, not say, but like, takes on that? Yeah, I mean, I thought the world government was an interesting little note of whether or not, well, I mean, during the 1960s, we kind of started to get into the Cold War, and all the McCarthyism, and all this really worry about communists, and, like, big government, spooky. So I don't know if this is Vonnegut, who was, like, anti-war, and I believe more socialist-esque, whether or not this is a critique of what, like, other people think big government would be, what's going on there. I also was interested in how the, how goofy the history of, like, president of the world looked in relation to post-modernism by Jameson. He talks about post-modernism having this effacement of, an effacement in it of some key boundaries or separations, and we kind of have, like, these, what we would think of as really respectable, and, like, very formal people of the president, and they talk about how the current president has a, like, has a poster in her office that's a, like, like, all these really goofy little signs to, like, make fun of. Right, like, it's kind of a satire thing, where they're, like, okay, like, no politician is actually, like, supposed to be taken so seriously. And isn't she also, well, she names herself Kennedy, but she's not actually a Kennedy. Yeah, is this, like, a whole thing on how they're all Kennedys? Like, there's a line of, like, 50 Kennedys. Yeah. Aren't they, like, the 14 Kennedys or something that comes in, like, like, how many are there? It's, like, there's a number for, like, the 14. She's so titchy. Maybe I'm crazy. I've heard this too many times, unfortunately. I think the Kennedys just take over the entire world, and I was like, okay, it's a little scary. Yeah. Her office is the Taj Mahal. Yeah. And I was like, what? What? Excuse me. Here it is, on page 42? 13 CDF. Talking about... Oh, they presume it was also an ex-suicide hostess. But don't worry, her statue would never join this particular touch football game, because everyone else's statue's in a touch football game. But everyone's upset with her, because all of her signs say things like, very, very middle-aged mom core right now, actually. You don't have to be crazy to work here, but sure helps. Another one that said, dimk. Another one that said, someday we're going to have to get organized around here. So it's already, beyond even the sexuality part that pervades this whole story, there's a lot of big government and globalization too, especially with the little comments on them not working as well, because they're like, all the ex-hosts, or the suicide hostesses are said to be lucky for having a job. Everyone else just sits in their room and watches the TV and the commercials that are Go kill yourself with this suicide nurse, or work, or go visit a church you like. And it requires a lot to be a hostess too. Like, don't they need, like, master's degrees, and they have to be trained in the martial arts? These hostesses are trained in judo and stuff, and she was like, oh you've been practicing your karate moves, and I was like, wait, what? This is really funny, I took some clips from that on, they're on page like two and three of the PDF, where their uniforms are white lipstick, heavy eye makeup, purple body stockings with nothing underneath, and black leather boots. So while I get, clearly known, people want to be stepped on by top of it. They're all over six foot as well. They're all virgins, they also had to hold advanced degrees in psychology and nursing. They had to be plump and rosy, they had to be six feet tall, and they were all experts in judo and karate. This is like, the epitome of white girl loss. Honestly, one of the things I found most interesting was that, it's almost like, or he makes them like, literally the epitome of feminine sexuality, to like, a ridiculous point, almost like to make it absurd, of like, highlighting how, like, this is crazy, why are these our ideal sexual things? It makes it so, um, like it simplifies it so much as to show how ridiculous our own ideas are. It feels like he's trying to go for like a subversive moment here. He definitely is. I think that's the point of why it was published in Playboy, just because it's like, I don't know, that was just such an interesting, I, like, knowing that fact is like, makes everything different for the story. But, um, like the whole, like, Strawberry Blonde, and like how Mary is a glossy brunette, I was like, are you, like, serious right now? Like, every man's fantasy is just like, in this one story where, yeah, I was just, yeah, like, holding on to that. Um, what else did we want to say, other than like, do we want to bring in, we sort of like, meandered into like the quote world, do we have any other, like, parts of the story that stuck out to us, or we wanted to discuss more in depth? I mean, I was probably most interested in whether or not the text actually ends up being subversive. Like, I was, um, like, it was almost like it was Vonnegut was trying to do so, because it seems like something he'd be a proponent for, being like an anti-war writer, and a counter-cultural writer. It seems like he'd be trying to get somewhere, but it kind of fell apart for me. Where, like, he starts off strong with these, like, ridiculous ideas of the nurses, and there's, like, a lot of victim blaming going on. It seems like he's trying to make that out to be ridiculous. Yeah. Which, I'd agree. Um, because, like, when the hostesses, Nancy and her friend Mary, talk about the other nurses in the past who have been seduced, raped by, um, seduced or raped by Billy the Poet, they're like, oh, well, clearly she has not been practicing her judo. So they, um, like, victim blame a lot. It's almost like Kurt Vonnegut's trying to be like, oh, no, this is bad. But it really falls apart for me in that scene where they, the ex-suicide nurses give her the truth serum, and they're like, oh, how's it feel to be a virgin? And she's like, pointless. I don't even know. So it kind of falls back into this narrative of, like, oh, well, actually, you shouldn't you shouldn't have raped all the women. And it's fixed. Yeah. I mean, even if they are 63 years old, like. That's true. We do have the, like, continuing age plot. Right. On point, too. Um, yeah, I mean, I think Vonnegut maybe tries to redeem that on the bottom of PDF page 19, where she says that afterwards, after he's raped Nancy, Nancy's understandably very upset. So I think Vonnegut tries to keep with that subversive messaging when Nancy says that, because Billy the poet the entire time sets it up as like, oh, well, this is how women in the past did it. It's like, this is how it historically was done and should continue to be done. And so he's also trying to problematize history, because he says that Nancy understood the tale that Billy was telling her, but, quote, it frightened her to understand so easily that from gruesome beginnings, sexual enthusiasm could grow and grow. So I don't know if he's trying to, like, fix it there. Like, oh, all, like, most women's sexuality is after a rape. But it didn't work for me. Yeah, I think what I got from that, and I definitely, like, I can see where you'd be getting that sort of message. Um, I took a lot of it as, like, where was it? He was saying, like, the whole idea is that, like, nobody really has sex for pleasure anymore. Getting to that point where we're trying to, like, women are, like, wanting, like, the pill is kind of a good thing, so to speak, in real life, because it's, you know, a contraceptive, and why would you need a contraceptive if you were just going to have kids when you're married? The point is, like, he was trying to defy the whole, um, like, conventionality of it. You know, it kind of ties in Jameson's post-modernism, just how, like, you know, everybody's getting married in the 60s, having kids, like, settling down, and Monica's, like, why, like, so unseriously to, like, where is it? She says the world can't afford sex anymore, which is, like, just interesting, and then Billy replies with, of course it can afford sex, all it can't afford is reproduction, and that's sort of, like, the culture war going on in real life, like, why, why can't women just, like, have sex? Like, it's a double standard. Men have sex before marriage, but women can't, like, just because they might get pregnant, and then, oh, wait, abortion's not legal yet, so they, like, it's just, I thought that, um, uh, was interesting. When we think of Billy as a character, because he was, like, I don't know, he's a little bit, like, I don't know if that's the right word, like, arbitrary to me, you know? Like, I don't know if that's the right word, but I don't, is he supposed to be, like, a bad guy, or a good guy? I think that is the issue I'm finding, of, like, does Vonnegut kind of portray him as a bad guy as a good guy, and I think he leans a little bit too hard into sympathy for Billy as a poet. But, I mean, we definitely get these moments where, like, it's obviously, it's pretty clearly bad, like, where on the page. The fact that he rapes a ton of women justifies it. No, no, no, no. But they're grateful. Don't worry. They call him a poet that they're quote grateful for. Right, right. They understand. Yeah. It's actually for the, they're good. They're all good. Yeah. Um, well, as Billy tells us, a woman's not a woman until the pill wears off, so. No, don't worry, actually. Until you're fuckable, you're not a woman. So it's fine. That's my issue. Like, he's, like, Vonnegut seems to be like, ah, yeah, he's a bad guy, but then has these weird moments, where, like, where Billy the poet is like, oh, no, no, no, I'm going to read you a poem. It's actually meant to be tender. It's like, you kind of get a weird sympathy. Like, is he supposed to be, like, very intuitive and very, like, individualistic, or is it just, like, he's just this creep that has a ton of knowledge and he's trying to, like, brainwash all the women. Successfully, too. Yeah. They're helping him now. Yeah. I think he's a creep. Yeah. I'm inclined to agree. It's, like, one of those things where, you know, the whole, like, but daddy, I love him trope. I can see that, Billy. I can. I promise. And he's just, like, like, yeah, Vonnegut offers, like, all these moments of sympathy for him, but at the end of the day, he rapes all these women. Right. And that's not forgettable to me. He's sensitive. No. Yeah. He's really not sensitive. He's just a dick. It's really funny. He tries to tell Nancy afterwards, because she's like, I didn't like that. And he's like, no, no, no. Well, that's what he did in history. And he says, you're a typical nothing head. So we tell her, like, you're not special. You're fine. Because if you dare to think about it now, you'll realize that you're angry, because I'm such a bad lover and a funny-looking shrimp besides. And what you can't help dreaming about from now on is a really suitable mate for a Juno like yourself. So he has this, like, weird nickname of calling her a goddess, which kind of is in line with that weird, like, uniform description we heard earlier. But he's just like, bitch, you aren't special. You're fine. He kind of gets into a class point, too. And I don't know what the point of that is. Because he gets into a sort of class point on that same page later on, where they start talking about the laws and specifically the relation of the laws of sexuality, which seems to be a returning point. Because Nancy says, oh, then why the laws? And he says, oh, they're bad laws. If you go back through history, you'll find that people who have been the most eager to make laws, to enforce the laws, and tell everyone exactly how God Almighty wants things here on Earth, those people have forgiven themselves and their friends for anything and everything. But they've been absolutely disgusted and terrified by the natural sexuality of common men and women. Seems to be kind of pointing at, like, a class thing and a class relation to sexuality, and almost blaming that for the laws. Which I don't hear a whole lot about, because I don't know how class would function in a society if most people don't have jobs. I think he's coming at it from, like, not necessarily a Marxist point of view, but, like, he's not an elitist, you know? He's part of the working class. And the fact that it's set in, like, Barnstable? Barnstable? That's, like, where he's from, too. Like, that's, like, I think where he grew up or was raised. And so I feel like that in itself and, like, his background sort of ties into the point of view he's writing from. Like, I can see where the flaws and all the loopholes are in, like, the government. And so, yeah, in the class sense, I definitely think he's coming from a more modest point of view. And just the fact that he grew up so troubled, like, his... He went at the yards and his father was like, no, don't do that. But, you know, his mom committed suicide. He just went through all this trauma. And not that, like, elite people can't go through trauma, but, like, he came out with so many different works that are, like, extremely renowned today. So I just say that that says a lot about his character and his class and, like, his upbringing as an author. Like, his involvement in the military. He, like, had to go serve, right? Like, he didn't really have a choice. I think so. I feel like when it was Vietnam, I do know they did a thing, and we're kind of veering off topic, but they did, like, they would call, like, a date. And if that was your birthday, you were, like, automatically, like, enlisted in the war because they needed people. Yeah. Or at least that's, like, all I know. But I do know he was drafted to serve in World War II. Yeah. He was studying, like, something with chemicals, I think. He was drafted, which is why he was in the bombing in Dresden. Right. And you can't necessarily, like, you can be a draft author, but he wasn't going to do that. Yeah. And he's patriotic. Right. Very much so. Yeah. All for the people. All for America. Woo! I'd also like to talk about how, like, faith is brought into this and, like, religion and God because it's only mentioned, like, a few times, so it's not, like, very present. I don't even know if Bonnick gets, like, religious background, if he has any at all. But just when he says, like, terrified by the natural sexuality of common men and women, it brings me back to Adam and Eve and how they were, like, ashamed of themselves after they had done the deed. So I'm just, like, like, I think, like, his whole point in the end is, like, why be ashamed of sex? It's natural. Everybody's human. Like, what's the issue here? Yeah. And one more note on the class thing. Yeah. Bonnick himself also had, I don't think he was ever rolling in money because he also had, like, was a guardian for eight kids. Mm. That's a lot of kids. Yeah. I don't know if he's the population. But there's a lot of kids to, like, attend to and care for. All of his own, too? I don't know. Some of them might have been his siblings. Oh. But there were eight in total that he was, like, caring for. He was just one of the kids regardless. Because I know he had more than one wife. He divorced one wife, minimum. She was nothing him. I can't see. There was a religion question. I didn't focus a lot on, like, the religion part of it. I know, like I said during the commercials where it talks about, like, oh, the hostess were lucky to have jobs. Everyone else just, like, watched TV. And one of the TV things they'd watch is, like, pray to whatever church you want to. It doesn't seem like there's a central religion. But it seems like religion as an abstract is important to this society. I also, oh, I just, like, thought of this. But the Kennedys were Catholic. So that might have been a big reason why he used them. Because they, I don't know if you know, the Kennedys, JFK had, like, ten brothers and sisters. His poor mother. I mean, the fact, I think it also goes down in history. He was the first Catholic president. And he's the only Catholic president. So that was, like, I don't know. I feel like that's just knowing that, like, Catholic people are, how religious views take contraception, like, how they view that. And, like, I mean, not necessarily, like, ban premarital sex. But it's, like, you just end up having a lot of kids anyway. So, like, why not? Not always how it works, but the fact that the Kennedys were quite literally an empire of their own just, like, kept breeding. And I was like, jeez, guys, stop. And, like, the Catholic Church itself is, like, there's a lot of sexual assault cases in there of, like, higher ups. Yeah. Of, like, priests, like, abusing and, like, molesting kids. Yeah. So we could definitely say that could be included here. Not that it was really known that that was happening, but it was always, it's always been happening. Yeah, I mean, I think it kind of ties into all this moralizing around birth control we have going on. There's a lot of statements about, like, birth control and how it ought to be and how the law to engage that between Billy the Poet saying, oh, those are bad laws, to early on we get this section about the birth control in general on our PDF page 2. Yeah. On our PDF page 2, talking about, like, what taking out birth control means, feeling like your bottom half is cold iron or balsa wood, the pills are so effective that you could bindfold a man who had taken one, tell him to recite the Gettysburg Address, kick him in the balls while he was doing it, and he wouldn't miss a syllable. And then it goes into this weird, like, ethical moment where it says the pills were ethical because they didn't interfere with a person's ability to reproduce, which would have been unnatural and immoral. All the pills did was take every bit of pleasure out of sex. Thus did science and morals go hand in hand. Like, breaking down that sort of last statement, it's what the law decided then, because it talks about, like, experts in morals and experts in science later on too, but a little more in detail. But what it's kind of saying here is that you cannot interfere with making babies, because women should be making babies. But you can interfere with getting any sort of enjoyment out of doing so. It's like this weird, like, anti-pleasure, pro-people-as-little-baby-factories moment, which I'm not a huge fan of. I don't know if you guys have any thoughts on it. It's kind of contradictory, I would say, because you're taking away the pleasure part of it, right? But you're also, like, you're not stopping repopulation, and the more people there are, the more people that you have to, like, prevent from having, like, desires. So I just, like, thought that was interesting, and probably that's, that was probably, like, Kurt, like, Vonnegut's, um, like, irony there. Like, why, why are we so caught up in, like, overpopulation and pleasure? I feel like both are kind of inevitable. You can't really just, like, interrupt, like, human lust, is the right word? Um, and that, the fact that women should reproduce, like, come on, get real. Um, it's just, like, like, should they, or does society just think that women, like, all they do is have babies? Like, we're sort of in that era where women were kind of coming into their own, like, more in the workforce, like, are we respecting them yet, or are they just, you know, keep them in the kitchen and bedroom, you know? I think this also goes into your, the whole thing on religion, and how, like, how much can the government sort of play God, you know? Because if you're interrupting, like, natural, human, whatever. What word am I looking for, like? Um, just, like, I don't know, sensuality? Yeah, and what we're naturally, like, able to do, then, like, where, where does any of this go, you know? Yeah, I don't know if, I don't know if this is, like, again, Vonnegut trying to, like, make fun of what people think the, like, countercultural agenda was of, like, this is what you think we're doing, this is goofy, what do we mean? So he gets a little more in detail when we're talking to Billy the Poet, who we think is just a foxy grandpa at this point. It just sparked a wild guess, naturally. Just a grandpa. For real, just a grandpa. Non-foxy. And he says that, in giving a story of, like, how the pelts came to be in the monkey house, when he got, I think that's what the scientist who dismissed it, when he got through the monkey house, you couldn't tell it from the Michigan Supreme Court. Meanwhile, there was a crisis going on in the United Nations. The people who understood science said people had to quit reproducing so much, and the people who understood morals, which, understanding morals, kind of a, kind of dubious, kind of a dubious claim. Who understood morals said society would collapse if people used nothing for pleasure. So we have kind of, like, whomever is apparently understanding morals kind of set up this whole issue. And they said society would collapse if people used sex for nothing but pleasure. Kind of like the exact opposite birth control pill from what we have now, which doesn't stop you from wanting to have sex, usually. That'd be kind of an outside effect. It stops you from getting pregnant, by and large. So this, like, who, who understands morals? Is that people in the Supreme Court? Is that, like, the church? What's going on? I, that's like, um, that's an interesting point to pick up. Just because I never, like, considered it that way, like, who was controlling the morality part. Society's just going to fall apart if people be. But that, I mean, that's, like, so contradictory. Like, morality says that, like, you should have sex for pleasure. You shouldn't just have sex to get pregnant. Like, I mean, no, we're not in one giant orgy, like, at, you know, the Playboy Money House. But, um, it's, like, not wrong to engage in, like, sex. Like, it's just a human thing to do. So, uh, people who understand morals seem like robots. Um, I don't know. It's just, like, why would you not want to feel anything, but also make the population of a person worse and worse? Like, what, are you just trying to fill space and not have any purpose with it? Like, I don't know. I don't get it. Like, creating all these little people, all these new lives, what are you going to do with it, you know? Like, I feel like, I don't know. It was before the abortion, um, landmark case in, like, 1973. So I don't really know how Bonnegat would have seen this if he had written it after that. It's like you're, there's, like, clearly an issue, but then people, the way that people decide to go about solving that issue is they're looking at it, like, wrong. And, like, the, the guy, the scientist that, like, made the, the pill, like, when Billy or the foxy grandpa says the story, he says that the scientist that made it had 11 kids. And then they went to the zoo on Easter. And the reason why he made the pill was because the monkey was playing with his private parts and you don't want to see that on Easter. But you're the one that has 11 kids. So, clearly, you're the issue. Yeah, it's interesting, especially with, like, the context of being called Welcome to the Monkey House and the whole origin story of, like, it seems like it's really complex because generally you're not going to be wanting to liken people to monkeys, like, that's just not, like, no one wants to be called a monkey. That's not a good moment. Monkeys are usually also racially charged, which you don't really see any race notes in this story, but there is, like, civil. Civil rights. Thank you. That's what I'm saying. Civil war. Not civil war. I'm not a civil war. They did mention the Gettysburg Address, though. So. It's true. So, it's in the history. It did occur. Okay. No, but we do see, like, the civil rights movement going on at this point. But it's interesting to have Welcome to the Monkey House being, like, potentially a positive sort of moment because generally you want to be, like, this rational human person. I don't know if this is, like, critiquing me in points of rationalism of, like, oh no, you should be this, like, perfectly empirical thinking person who doesn't do sex and isn't bothered by these, like, irrational urges. I don't know if this is also trying to be a critique of that, like, rationalism point of, like, anti-pleasure, anti-non-strictly-efficiency things. Because we also have Billy the Poet trying to blame, like, his actions on the pill and, like, his immorality on the pill. Like, I alluded to this before, but Nancy's like, wow, you certainly managed to make a woman feel like an object rather than a person. And Billy says thank the pills for that, which is, like, a weird reversal because you'd expect objectification to be from people who want to have sex and want to, like, use female bodies for their own power or gain. Is it trying to, like, reverse that? Yeah. If he's, like, still, if he's aware that's why he is the way he's acting that way, does that make sense? If he's aware of that, then why does he still go on to rape all these women? Because it's good for them. Right. Of course. Duh. There's also, like, a bunch of weird moments of, like, random humor going on. And I think that kind of tries to point to the fact of Vonnegut trying to do, like, a satirical sort of critique story. Did you guys catch the little comment on gin? Quickly? Oh, I saw that. It's on 40, it's on page 14 of the, it's on page 43 of the text. Okay. It's really funny because there's, like, little bits of humor. Yeah. That kind of add, there's little bits of humor to the story of, like, about America. America changed in many ways but had yet to adopt the metric system. Like, little things like that, like poking fun at American ideals, or the drug was so powerful, talking about the ex-suicide nurses, the drug was so powerful Nancy's teachers had told her that even a person numb from a wee sandwich would copulate reputedly and enthusiastically for just one glass. That had to be the answer. The women, and probably the men too, had been drinking gin. So there's lots of, like, little poke fun stuff going on. I think it's, again, trying to point to, like, Vonnegut trying to make this seem like a silly, ridiculous thing. Like, trying to be subversive. I don't know if you guys noticed any other humor, like, any other points where you guys were laughing. Not one of the 63 million people living there was a relative of Nancy's. There's so many people, but they're not related to Nancy. True. There's a lot of, like, little absurd moments between, like, the blue urine, like, just, like, pee in blue. I was using poop wet. I was so taken aback by that. I know I'm going to have to ask this, but since I have to bring in a couple articles. Oh, my God. Listen to your time. I love it. I'm sorry. This little New York Times article. Just, like, very briefly. It doesn't say who it's by. No author. But it says, let's see. Our hero is Billy the Puppet, whose special pleasure is deflowering the Juno-esque virgins, administering the program, and who has a coeducational underground, whose members favor birth control and, of course, and aim to revive the hardy sex of their ancestors. Among these forefathers, presumably, is Hugh Hefner, a playboy, author of a relentlessly documented philosophy, quote, unquote, that rests on pillars of thought similar to Billy's. With this in mind, how uncharacteristically unkind of Angit to have written on another earlier occasion, quote, the scientific fiction magazine that pays the most and seems to have the poorest judgment is playboy, unquote. It's actually a character insert. Right. It's actually really funny. This is a guy. Right. So, I don't know. Hugh Hefner, a forefather. I never saw him as a forefather. That kind of makes sense going back into how Billy talks about this historical event of, like, oh, this is how, hold on, on, like, towards the end of the thing. Billy's talking about how it was done in history. I feel like this insert was, I guess, potentially could be like, well, obviously, but like a future of our current world where Billy is kind of like a mirror of that playboy guy. Because he really is trying to stage a historical account. Because we have him putting her in the bed of the Kennedy Museum. Like, he literally cut, like, the little chain or whatever, barring the bed, they put her in this historic bed of, like, old, like, 100 years ago or whatever. And that's where they get her ready and doll her up or whatever. And Billy Kelter, on our page 19 of the PDF, What you've been through, Nancy, is a typical wedding night for a straight-laced girl of 100 years ago when everybody was a nothing-head. The groom did it without helpers because the bride was uncustomarily ready to kill him. Otherwise, the spirit of the occasion, spirit, love the spirit going on here, spirit of the occasion was much the same. These were the pajamas my great-great-grandfather wore on his wedding night in Niagara Falls. According to his diary, his bride cried all night and threw up twice. The girl's going through it. I don't know what I'd do trying to model this. Like, that doesn't sound like a great time. The bride cried all night and threw up twice. But with the passage of time, she became a sexual enthusiast. Me, when I can't get a credit card, so I have to have sex with my husband if I want to, like, survive. Billy, real shit. Yeah, it talks about how he's wearing, like, the pajamas of his great-grandfather and how it's, like, a historical account that, like, we should do this again. And kind of, like, trying to uphold these ideas of history in a really negative way. So it's almost like he's modeling this as, like, a porn, not porn, sorry guys, as a playboy, a playboy guy in the future. That's pretty intense, for sure. And then, I couldn't really get a quote from this one I found on JSTOR, but the title, and I think it says a lot, it says, Demo Dystopia's Prospects of Demographic Hell. And, I mean, he sort of just inserts all kinds of monkey holes real quickly, but it's sort of just, like, a quick summary. He talks about other, like, a lot more famous Vonnegut works, too, but I was just interested in the title, Prospects of Demographic Hell. And how it's sort of, like, ironic because it's a hell, but, you know, it has its prospects. Yeah, I mean, demo means, like, population or body in the same way you'd have, like, democracy or demagogue, like, ruling of the people. So that's probably talking a lot about, like, the population and exclusion specific things. A lot of these sort of dystopias feature, like, a really, really packed, like, inner city kind of vibe. Which is presumably what that's getting at, because it seems to be a pretty common thing. Because we do be having a lot of little mammals, as Robbie said. We do be having a lot of little mammals on the show. So it's pretty cool. There's too many mammals here. 17 million. So it's really focusing on, like, the overpopulation specifically. I think the overpopulation seems to be getting at more, like, the sexuality point here. Not to, like, disavow it as its own separate point. But it seems to be more as, like, maybe the concern at what overpopulation can justify. Because, like, it's obviously, ideally, this world wouldn't occur at the same time. Like, at the same time, like, it does kind of make sense. Like, it's not great, and I think there are better options we could probably go to. Like, it makes sense with overpopulation and what they're trying to do with this pronged effect of the birth control. And the, not enforced, the, like, suggested suicide. What do you think? There's a lot going on in the story about, like, sex being equal to death, too. Which I don't know if it's, like, a post-modernism sort of thing. Of, like, this weird blurring of boundaries that seem very contradictory. Like, Jameson focuses mostly on high art versus low art. But I think we can kind of see that in the signs of the president anyway. Of, like, this weird informal-formal issue. He's talking a lot about sex being equal to death or being equated to death. Like, Billy goes into that on, towards the end, where he's talking about how they're disgusted by the common sexuality. He says, the only sexual beauty that an ordinary human being can see today is the woman who will kill him. Sex is death. There's a short and nasty equation for you. Sex is death. QED. Which is, like, a Latin term meaning, like, what is proven, or something like that. I didn't Google that. I don't read enough science. We see that a couple of times. Because earlier on, when we get the description of nothingheads, we get that it wasn't just Billy the Poet who was attracted to hostesses and ethical suicide parlors. All nothingheads were. Bombed out of their skulls with sex madness that came from taking nothing. They thought that white lips and big eyes and body-sucking and boots of hostesses spelled sex, sex, sex. So, that's also, that's also interesting. Because he, like, that's, unless you guys, I don't know, are taking birth control, that makes you not from the waist down. And are peeing glue. I imagine we're all nothingheads. So it's kind of a weird description going on there. Of almost like these hostesses are playing like a catch, like a bait. Like a little lure moment. Which we don't go into a lot. But it's kind of weird. They're designed simply in this way. Designed. They're like, you have to be a hostess nurse. You have to be this kind of person to be this sort of lure. You have to fit a stereotype. Yeah. Which is weird. We constantly get this idea that, like, the conflation of sex and death. Like the, yeah, we get the conflation of sex and death. Which is also interesting in relation to the overpopulation. Where the overpopulation came from sex. Just being sexed with this death-like sex. It's super weird. Yeah, it definitely is. I wanted to move into a quote that says, right after Billy responds, I spent this night, and so many others like it, attempting to restore a certain amount of innocent pleasure to the world, which is poorer in pleasure than it needs to be. So I think, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I'm making an obvious point here. But the pill, in the story, does the exact opposite of what the pill does in real life. It takes away the pleasure and gives you kids. Whereas in real life, you know, kills all the semen and gives you pleasure. And, like, you know, everybody's happy. Or, you know, you would think so. So, yeah. So I think Vonnegut's really speaking through Billy here in, like, what's so bad about pleasure, but also trying to not objectify women so much all the time. I don't know what he's, like, trying to do. Because he's sort of against the whole, like, use women just for sex, but also, I don't know, where's the line between sex is fine, but also, like, women are not objects. I feel like I couldn't really grasp the tension between that. Yeah, I mean, I was really interested, because in this world where there doesn't seem to be, like, any really lust going on, like, I don't know if this is, like, a side exploration to, like, would getting rid of the female or the feminine role in sex help with, like, gender, gender oppression or gender issues? Which we don't get a whole lot of, but I feel like it doesn't. So going back to the sex-death thing, binary going on, when it describes Nancy's role, it's almost, like, subservient and sexual. Yeah. Because when he talks about on our page six or seven, are the hostess expected to perform a similar function as sex in killing people? Because it talks about Nancy's art and the art of every hostess was to see that the volunteers didn't leave, to coax and tweedle, to coax and weedle and flutter impatiently every step of the way so Nancy had to sit down there in the booth to pretend to marvel at the freshness of the yarn of the old man told, a story everybody knew about how, oh, well. So it's almost like she's, even in this sort of, like, suicide role, while she's dressed up in these stockings, lipstick, naked with boots and everything, she's almost being forced to perform that kind of, like, subservient, like, stroking man's ego anyway, even as she's, like, trying to, like, euthanize him? Euthanize. Trying to euthanize him. Yeah. She has to, like, oh, no, ha-ha, you're so cool and on. To, like, get him. Yeah. So it's almost like death replaced sex in that function, too, where, like, these women, even if they aren't, even if they're virgins, they're fulfilling almost, like, a sexually subservient role in trying to, like, get people to commit suicide. They're still doing, like, a very, like, interpersonal manipulation and having to, like, attend to their every want, and, like, she's been talking to him for hours, and, like, oh, my God, what do you want for dinner? Like, this is really good. I'm, like, trying to, like, coddle him. Yeah, in a very similar way, but the end point instead of being sex is death. One thing that I was confused about is, like, when we first meet the foxy grandpa, it's, like, Vonnegut states that he's, like, older, and he's, like, it's, like, what's the point of committing ethical suicide if you have already lived your life? Yeah, I mean, presumably, they have, like, a lot of medical stuff to continue life, like, long past with now because they talk about how you can get, like, all these injections to look the same and feel the same. Lip color. It's such a cut, right? Yeah. We have our main character, who's 63, who still apparently looks, like, gorgeous, whatever. We have, like, she makes one comment when she looks at the old guy's face and is, like, oh, my God, I guess he was not, I guess he was already old when they started doing the actual good surgery, because he's talking that way. So it seems like they already have, like, extending life. It's interesting that, because I just read another sci-fi book, and even though they could extend life, they have the same issue of population, and instead of, like, extending life and stopping birth, they just slow down birth a little bit and just choose not to extend life to a crazy extent. Oh, you mentioned, like, there's a little bit about race. I just want to point out the quote on page 40 of the actual thing, but page 11. It was these names he heard, a tape recording of the clashing of civil war and the laughter in Puerto Ricans. So, I mean, maybe just touching upon the fact that they were still seen as, like, people of servitude and not, I don't know. I just found that and remembered your point, but we can go back to it. You know, that's really good. I completely forgot about that one, to be honest. I haven't given up on that. But, yeah, no, that's a really great point, because even though almost the same thing of what I was saying earlier, where, like, trying to fix this issue with sex has not resolved the gender issues, it's almost the same thing going on here, right? Because we get the little allusion to, like, oh, we have kind of this worldwide government going on, so if we have a worldwide government, everything should be fought. No. No. I still think of people of color being the ones cooking the food, and, like, the comfort that people get from it. Some people wouldn't feel so lonesome eating there. They produce sound effects. They produce the sound effects for, like, a sort of comfort moment. Right. So it's, like, it's comforting for people to hear. People of color. Right. Having the stuff for them. Oh, it's, like, it must make you feel like you're at home if you have your servants in the background just, like, talking about anything. Yeah, I was just, like, interested by that. The only thing that I guess we want to cover is why is Billy a poet? He does a lot of, like, poetry and art. He puts a lot, yeah, he just spews a bunch of random verses, and I'm like, you're not a poet, you're just a creepy dude trying to do something. It's so weird, because he's always, like, trying to, or he's trying to get us through these sort of poems, which is, like, half of them he hasn't even written, it seems. Right. Half of them are just, like, they're not even, like, romantic poems, they're just bad. Like, also ugly. No, for real. He's shorter than Nancy. I don't know if there's poems about Nancy. He's 5'2". Literally, literally us. Literally us. Brown hair to my shoulders, a manly elf, so full of self, the ladies say he smolders. Like, yeah, and simultaneously, we also, like, it's said that nobody knows what he looks like. Like, everyone's really confused with his appearance, so that kind of points to his having, like, the mask, which is interesting. Is he, like, meant to represent all men? Like, is he, is that just a disguise? Or is it meant to be, like, oh, like, men as, like, the abstract, like, the average man will behave this way? But there's just a lot with poems. I mean, none of them are good. Like, if Sherman's horse can take it, so can you. Or, like, what about Soak Yourself in Jergen's Lotion? Here comes the plunderer's combination explosion. Like, begin with the pun statement, like, and stop ruining, like, lotion. They're lotioning my head. I was like, please, no. Some of these are, like, ones, or half of these don't seem to be ones that he's even written. No, he's just, like, citing random ones. He's not even, like, saying who wrote them. He's just, like, inserting little quotes everywhere. It's kind of annoying. Yeah, and the last thing, because he goes into, like, one of his sexual poems in the last poem he has, is, like, makes, like, no, please don't read it to me. I don't want to hear it. And continuing with the theme, he's like, no, ma'am, don't care. Because she's like, no, please don't read it. I don't want to hear it. He's like, no, isn't it violent? It's meant to be tender. She's like, maybe that's why I don't want to hear it, dummy. So we get that one last allusion back to religion of, like, no, no, no, no, God wants me to rape you. Sorry, girl. Oh, my God. Yeah, no, it's terrific. The reason why I want to do this is, like, it's really insidious. It really is. Like, the things it's pointing at. He calls himself, oh, my gosh, he knows he's bad at bed, and he says, I'm a funny-looking shrew. No, literally. Wait, just read that. I think, bro, she's, like, out here, like, not to be cruel, but she's out here, like, raping, like, literally dozens of women. How is bro, like, not better at it? Like, does he not care? Like, this is really, he's like, oh, that's my happiness, but bro's, like, not getting better at it? Since he's just, like, doing the act, there's no, like, chemistry or passion. Because, yeah, he's just doing it to do it and be, like, I don't know, like, contradictory about the world. And I think because he feels like he's in control. He's like, oh, then whatever. Right. Do we have any last points before we get to the overall rating? I mean, maybe just the one point that the other nurses, like, ex-nurses seem to have been, like, traumatized into following him. It's interesting to start off with Nancy being, like, how did the suicide nurses let him do that to them? That's so ridiculous. Because clearly they were practicing their karate, so there's a lot of, like, juggling going on. Right. And at the end point, we see, like, kind of what the trauma that has done to them, where they're now, like, feel grateful to him at, like, a response because he gaslights them afterwards, like, reads them a cute poem and tries to, like, get them on his side. Which kind of works because we see that where Nancy's kind of falling apart and Billy is almost, like, teaching her because she starts asking questions. It's almost like a teacher role. She's old and she's kind of falling apart. She's like, but. She's like, but. He's like, but what? She said, don't you see? She was pleading weakly. She asked him why the loss. He's almost, like, teaching her the right thing. It's also pretty interesting just, like, how the other nurses kind of play into this. But. Yeah. It's like look at all the roles that women have in the story and all Billy can do is say bad poems. And then you're actually doing stuff. Yeah. True. Okay. What would you, like, rate it in the end? Like, you know, not just strictly, like, on a literary value, but did you like it? Was it something that, like, kind of opened your eyes, gave you a different perspective? What was your take? When I first read the story, I was like, like, I don't really. Like, I've read Vonnegut's books, and, like, I don't really care for him. But after, I'd say specifically after this podcast and, like, talking about it in class, I see why their conversation is stirred up about this specific story. And so because of that, I'd give it a pretty high rating. I mean, I'll probably give, like, maybe a 4, 4.5 out of 5. Same thing. Like, I've read a couple of different versions of Vonnegut's stuff. Like, I read a couple of his short stories. This is probably my favorite of them. I just find that he was good to kind of try to interrogate what's going on, of, like, whether or not he ends up actually being subversive, which I personally don't think he is. But, like, trying to figure out where that line ends was really interesting because he had so many, like, back-and-forth things where, like, oh, this seems to support that he's actually trying to make fun of this type of sexuality, but this kind of points to him actually kind of playing into that narrative of, I don't know, just have sex with women to fix her. So it was really fun to kind of see, figure out where I felt he stood on that. And I was a little other to this. It was pretty funny. There were funny moments, like the white middle-aged mom core president to, like, the gym comment. For sure. For sure. It wasn't, like, totally, like, it wasn't boring. I think I would probably give it, like, a 4 out of 5. I mean, just, I feel like just bonding with language alone is a lot to, like, unpack, and just, like, his language is very difficult to decipher. For me, I have to read it, like, a million times, which I did. But I think, like, again, like Keisha said, after, like, talking about it in class and for the podcast here, it, I don't know, I didn't realize, like, how much it was trying to say. And it was, like, a short story, so no one really knows about this. But it's definitely under, or overlooked, I should say. It's not really appreciated as much as his other works. But, yeah, I mean, bonding is not my favorite, but it was good. Just, like, the context of when he wrote the story and it being published in Playboy also just adds on to the interest of it. Also, I give it a 4 out of 5. I just said high rating. I don't know. You're good. You're good. Not quite done yet. Yeah. So just a few more points just on Vonnegut's other works. Who Am I This Time, which we also did discuss in class, and Harrison Bergeron, which I don't really know that much about Harrison Bergeron, but I was intrigued by Who Am I This Time, which, like, brief summary is just, like, this guy in a small town can play all these roles in every single play. And he basically leads a very boring, uneventful life. He's a bachelor. And then he meets this girl through a role. No, it's not Romeo and Juliet. Oh, I forget what the play is. But he plays a violent husband or something, but he's not a violent person. And then he ends up falling in love with his female counterpart on stage. And then I looked into that, too, and apparently Who Am I This Time was supposed to be, like, Vonnegut's analysis of how he as an author, like, comes through in his work. And if he, like, if he's the guy that can play all these roles, like, is that how people see him? Like, he can just write all these novels, but who is he really? So, I mean, you guys don't have to talk about, like, that. We don't have to get too sidetracked. But I did like how it was more existential. It was simpler for me to read and understand. I was sort of confused on what the whole message was. I don't know if you wanted to jump in on that, but that's fine. Or just talk about Harrison Bergeron. I'm not really a big knowledgeable about that. Yeah, I mean, Who Am I This Time was a lot about, like, identity and how narratives kind of play into identity. And there's definitely some readings we could do of postmodernism in that of, like, how do we get out of certain kind of identities, like, through our historical narratives? What about when our narratives kind of fall apart? What's going on there? As for Harrison Bergeron, I read that weeks ago, and that one's also sort of dystopia going on. And that one, I think, was a lot more clearly, like, kind of a critique of how people saw, like, the communist, socialist sort of movement going on. Because it's about a society where they're trying to achieve, like, perfect equality. But the way they do that is, like, oh, if you're strong, we literally hang, like, weights and chains on you to make you as, like, hard to make moving for you as difficult. And if you're, like, the least mobile society, and if you're, like, slightly smarter than the average person in society, then you'll get, like, a little implant in your brain that'll play noises at random moments and make it hard for you to think at all. So it pretty much makes everybody stupid and slow. And from the reviews and analyses I've read on it, it seems to be him trying to, like, poke fun of, like, is this really what you guys think? Like, is this really what you guys think we're arguing for? Trying to, like, problematize the idea of, like, equality, or problematize what people think of when they think equality. It was quite the read, though. Because it ends up with, like, this ridiculously strong man who's wearing, like, 500 pounds who, like, rips off his chain. He's like, I'm going to be the strongest man ever. And the, like, equality force comes in and shoots him dead. And that's the end of the story. And the people, the protagonists watching this were his parents. The mother, like, is too stupid to understand what she watched. And the father's like, oh, no, our son. And the little implant in his brain plays, like, a weird train noise or a gunshot noise and he forgets. And the mother's like, what were we talking about? The dad's like, I don't know. That's also weird. Do you want another weird read? Yeah, I might need a break from going to Yale for a while, but one day. Okay. Again, nice job, guys. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for a great semester. You're the paper cut. You're right. We are the paper cut. Shout out Cameron Atwood. Shout out Cameron Atwood. Okay. Nice. And that's it. We're done. We're done.