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| "The Fight Between Carnival and Lent" (1559) by Pieter Bruegel (1525-1569). |
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Chapter 27: What's Szombathy doing in there?
Chapter 27, “Finders Keepers,” offers a brief account of the life of Lazlo Szombathy, a character who is not integral to the plot. What does the inclusion of this chapter say about the worldview endorsed by Mother Night?
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The brief account of Lazlo Szombathy exhibits that "Mother Night" endorses a larger view of the world. By this story being incorporated into the novel, the reader can see that Vonnegut believes every action has some sort of reaction in this world. Even the smallest of things to people, such as throwing a rope away can lead to major effects. This small side story exemplifies the truth that the world is much larger than we realize and it is not all about our own life.
ReplyDeleteInjecting the story of Lazlo Szombathy into the storyline of “Mother Night” gives the story dimension. Similar to what Virginia said, every action has some sort of reaction in the world, is the worldview that everything is connected. The things we do and the decisions we make have an impact on what other people do and the decisions they make, whether we have good intentions or not. Campbell threw the rope away that was intended for his death and thought nothing of it. Lazlo Szombathy found the rope and might have considered it a sign that he should end his life. We will never know whether Lazlo had already made the decision to end his life before or after he came across the rope. However, the fact that he used the rope connects Szombathy to Campbell and vice versa. In the chaos of this world comes the idea that everything we do matters.
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