Kurt Vonnegut’s Early Works

Posted by Terry Bailey on November 4th, 2022

However, it was unfortunate to the United States that the Soviet Union had launched the Sputnik satellite into the orbit. It is something that became a visible public reminder that the US was not in charge after all (Farrell 34). This event resulted in the Moon landing of 20 July 1969 after the American’s had been shocked out of the complacent delusion of being technological superiors. Vonnegut’s stories The Manned Missiles and All the King’s Horses reinforce this phenomenon. They were published and discussed in powerpoint presentations examples for students during this time and in this environment in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Manned Missiles is about an exchange of letters between the fathers of a pair of an American and a Russian, they are both the astronauts. The sons, however, are all dead and somehow the circumstances leading to their deaths were related in a way. Vonnegut does not give readers the liberty to immediately know exactly what has happened. Both the Russian and American were the first men in space. Bryant Ashland was only sent there after Stephan Ivankov in a sort of reckless technological one-upmanship between these countries. These two ones are both killed in an accident. These letters exchanged between bereaved fathers seemed to convince them that their sons were good men and were not the villains like the government and the media were trying to portray them (Vonnegut 21). This story shows Russia as a communist adversary of America through the visible blind hate exhibited by Americans while pushing for boundaries and showing radical differences between the two nations.

In All the King’s Horses, Vonnegut writes about how the people in a team are willing to go ahead and wage wars without putting into consideration the soldiers that would fight under them. An American officer, Colonel Brian Kelly, lands in an Asian land just in the middle of a communist territory ruled by the guerilla chief Pi Ying. This chief, against their will, makes Kelly, his family, and his crew being held as prisoners play a deadly chess game. With every piece that is lost one prisoner is killed. The Colonel plays against their captor with a Russian officer acting as a game observer but on Ying’s side (Farrell 34). Ying’s pieces are wooden and large unlike Kelly’s. It means that when Ying loses, no one will be killed. In such a way, this story reflects the exact situation that usually was happening during the Cold war. The fight between the two chess players is not different from what they philosophically had experienced in a battle. Kelly’s authoritative troops are compared to the chess game, which is programmed to kill and make players agonized. It implies an express way, in which soldiers are treated like chess pieces that could be sacrificed to gain an advantage (Vonnegut 21). The only way for officers that had gone in the battle to win was to put emotions aside and depend on their instincts, even if it meant sacrificing their soldiers in the process. As the game goes on, one of Kelly’s soldiers has to put his life in his hands because Kelly employs a move that could probably result in Jerry’s death. It shows the kind of trust soldiers had to place on their commanders on the battlefield going ahead to obey every order given if it meant they would be putting their lives at risk. Through this story, еру communist American adversaries are portrayed as еру agents of war since the game had been designed to execute the new American officer landing in Asia.

These two stories are connected in their addressing of the cold war between the Russians and the Americans during that time. Therefore, there is no significant difference between the two portrayals. In both stories, the characters are used by their commanders and their governments to start a war that they did not want to participate in. The two astronauts are forced into a situation that finally portrays them as the villains. They were the right men that were only out to explore science and live out their dreams (Farrell 34). The recurring theme of the cold war is what makes them the same ones to some extent.

It should be noted that The Manned Missiles has a criticism of the Cold War and the use of Science for military purposes. There is the anti-Cold War sentiment throughout the stories; and the characters wish that everyone could agree and live in peace instead of using their people for selfish reasons. The two governments condemn each other showing criticism of Cold war paranoia. They fear that their opponent has developed a better war to end with them. However, the truth is that the weapons are not meant for aggressive means, just a science venture of discovery. The narrators want that the war could be over and the two nations could make peace and gain trust once again. In All the Kings Horses, however, the American protagonist is calculating silently and willing to put the lives of his own family on the line. The one is too eager to answer to a dangerous challenge (Vonnegut 89). He apparently does not want to lose and hold any sentiment of ending the fight but completing it to the death.

Vonnegut’s outlook that does not support the war is apparent from his writings. However, it is hard to define the exact nature of this viewpoint. He at times seems to accept the truth that a conflict is unavoidable but then again attacks the militarism and ponders on the relationship between war and free will. In conclusion, these two stories portray the writer’s perception that the war might be inherent to the human nature, but it should not be something that is celebrated through the media or any other means to glorify warfare.