Chapter Twenty-Five: Absolutely!

In Chapter 25, “The Answer to Communism,” a “barfly” describes the “Moral Rearmamament movement” which “believes in absolute honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness, and absolute love” (141). Why might Vonnegut have included this minor character in the novel? What attitude does Mother Night encourage readers to take toward this alignment of beliefs? How might an articulate supporter of the Moral Rearmament movement criticize Mother Night?

In a Moral Re-Armament play, Marion Clayton Anderson plays Miss Trust, whispering doubts and seeds of dissension into the ears of labor leaders played by Vic Kitchen (on the left) and Norman Schwab.

The Moral Re-Armament movement produced "Up with People;" a movement that is depicted in the 2009 documentary Smile 'Til it Hurts (see trailer below):