The Portrayal of Death

Step one in writing an anti-war novel is to remove any aspect of glory that one can associate with war. One of the most glorious things a soldier can do is die for the cause, so naturally, Kurt Vonnegut had to write Slaughterhouse-Five without any inkling that death was for a cause.

He does this in several ways, the first of which is by removing all cause from the war. There are only three characters in the whole book who appear to have any sense of what the war is about, and only two of them were shown in the war. Campbell, who is the least objectionable Nazi I've ever imagined could be in a book, and poor old Edgar Derby are the two men fighting for a cause. Both of them, however, are overshadowed completely by the senseless bombing that came right after their speeches, leaving the reader with the feeling of, "[So it goes, but] What was all that about?". Vonnegut further makes Derby's patriotism seem pointless by emphasizing at every possible opportunity that he will be shot for stealing a teapot in the ruins of Dresden [so it goes].

The second way Vonnegut removes the glory of death is in the line, "So it goes". This, of course, relates to the Tralfamadorian view of time that nothing can be changed; things that happen have happened and will always happen. This idea takes the glory not only out of death, but out of just about everything. There are no causes one can work towards, as the future is just as unchangeable as the past, and there is no death, because there are still plenty of moments the dead were alive. However, this is not the only way the repeated line removes glory from death. Vonnegut repeats it endlessly, throws it at everything regardless of the tragedy involved, even applying it to the death of bubbles in water [so it goes]. What this does is immunizes the reader to death, making sure we know every time there is one, and ensuring that we get not only used to it, but irritated with it, jovially thinking when we read about something that relates slightly to death, "oh boy, here it comes", and sure enough, there is meat hanging in a slaughterhouse. So it goes. The result is that we realize how common death really is and how little we are affected by it, just as Vonnegut appears to be under-sensitized to the deaths of over 100,000 people in Dresden. So it goes. In the light of this, one soldier laying down his life for his country seems rather insignificant. So it goes, and goes, and goes...

Finally, death is just violet light and humming, according to Billy Pilgrim. Sounds peaceful, and rather inglorious, doesn't it? So that goes too. If this idea were widely accepted, I'm sure tissue companies would go bankrupt and expire, as crying at funerals would be greatly reduced. So it goes. They might also cut down on the whole 21 gun salute thing for dead soldiers; it might disturb the humming, or even turn the light green or some other ghastly shade.

Abdul's Murder

Less than half-way through Mumbo Jumbo, Hinckle Von Vampton and Hubert "Safecracker" Gould kill Abdul in order to take the anthology of the Book of Thoth he had assembled, so they could burn it, but they find that the safe where he had kept it was empty. At the very end of the novel, we find out in a letter Abdul sent to PaPa LaBas that he had already burned it, making his murder essentially pointless. Just as everything else in Mumbo Jumbo, this murder pokes fun at just about everyone involved in it.

Abdul, of course, is most heavily satirized here, most of it originating in the letter he sends to LaBas. While for most of the novel, Abdul is depicted somewhat favourably, because he is the one taking the initiative to collect the pieces of the Text, therefore seeming to support Jes Grew, well after he is killed, the depiction of his character swings from a positive one to that of the unwitting villain. As and academic, Abdul would be considered successful if his work outlasted him, and, as we can see in his letter, it does. However, his work temporarily stifled Jes Grew, which LaBas explains never actually dies out and will be back, making Abdul's contribution to the world short-lived and decidedly negative. Yet, he has nobly laid down his life for the burning of the Text, despite having already burned it. This is clear satire of academics.

Next are Hinckle and "Safecracker". The description of them getting to Abdul's office and killing him is that of a failed pair of super-villains. They climb up to the office on "an invisible chord", seemingly a science-fiction burglary trick, but them this is undermined by the fact that they are climbing up the stairs, and don't need an invisible chord. Then, Hinckle tries to convince Abdul to give him the no-longer-existent anthology by being complimentary and sly, which requires complete intellectual control of the situation, which he plainly doesn't have, as he won't believe Abdul when he says he doesn't have the anthology. Then, "Safecracker" undermines his efforts by insisting upon taking the Text by force and pulling out a gun, which leads to Abdul's murder, and points out how uncoordinated their efforts are. When all this is viewed in the context of a thousand-year-old order trying to reclaim its dignity in the eyes of the Wallflower Order, it all looks rather pathetic, especially because the person they killed was apparently aligned with them; Abdul found the Text to be "lewd, nasty", and had done with it what Hinckle was planning to do.

Finally, PaPa LaBas's reaction to Abdul's letter is a clear satirization of LaBas. After having explained all of history since Ancient Egypt to convince people to let him take Hinckle and "Safecracker" to the Haitian authorities for the sake of Jes Grew, he finds out that its Text is in ashes, and he suddenly becomes passive, with the statement, "Better luck next time". This makes all of his work seem as pointless as Hinckle's, compounded by his subsequent revealing that Jes Grew was never in danger of dying out anyway.

This is just one example of a part of Mumbo Jumbo where Reed pokes fun not only at the villains and side-characters, but also the protagonist, showing that Jes Grew, not any character, is the real protagonist in Mumbo Jumbo, as it is the only entity that totally escapes satirization and an apparent pointlessness.