God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

“E pluribus unum is surely an ironic motto to inscribe on the currency of this Utopia gone bust, for every grotesquely rich American represents property, privileges, and pleasures that have been denied the many.”

Mushari reads this line in Eliot’s letters to his potential successor. Although his mental fitness to run the Rosewater Foundation is in question, Eliot thinks deeply about the inequality in America. The country was founded on a motto—E pluribus unum (“out of many, one”)—that stands at odds with the reality of financial equality among its people. In America, Eliot finds the gap between the most wealthy and the most impoverished obscene and hypocritical. The Rosewater fortune symbolizes this socioeconomic gap.

“Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed.”

Eliot’s attitude of the wealthy toward the working class develops the theme of American Capitalism and Socioeconomic Inequality. The country incentivizes the accumulation of wealth by granting the affluent greater power and influence in society. The rich have little incentive to behave well or avoid crime because they are never prosecuted. They continue to exploit whatever and whomever they can to grow their own fortunes.

“Mushari didn’t see anything funny in that. He never saw anything funny in anything so deeply immured was he by the utterly unplayful spirit of the law.”

Mushari embodies the joyless letter of the law. As the novel proceeds, he reveals himself to be a man of purely mercenary interests. He does not see the point in humor because humor does not make him money. When the law is mentioned in the novel, it is typically as a weapon, not as a protection for American citizens. Mushari’s character furthers the depiction of American capitalism as a broken system and supports the theme of American Capitalism and Socioeconomic Inequality.

“I look at these people, these Americans […] and I realize that they can’t even care about themselves anymore—because they have no use. The factory, the farms, the mines across the river—they’re almost completely automatic now. And America doesn’t even need these people for war.”

Eliot ruminates on the plight of the Rosewater County citizens, realizing that America’s focus on productivity as a measure of value has left them unable to respect themselves. Their lives have little meaning because they don’t fulfill necessary functions. As automation creeps into agriculture and mining, and the country experiences a post-war period of peace, no one needs them to do anything. This develops the theme of The Fear of Uselessness and Obsolescence.

“All else was shithouses, shacks, alcoholism, ignorance, idiocy, and perversion, for all that was healthy and busy and intelligent in Rosewater County shunned the county seat.”

Vonnegut contrasts the affluent and impoverished parts of Rosewater County. The citizens of Eliot’s city do not have lofty aspirations. Rather, they survive in a neglected infrastructure, in the middle of a country and county that largely ignore them. Few of the functional structures are useful for the community. The “country seat” refers to Avondale, where the wealthy reside. However, Vonnegut ironically depicts the upper echelon as unhealthy, idle, and unperceptive.

“Enlightened Self-interest gives them a flag, which they adore on sight. It is essentially the black and white Jolly Roger, with these words written beneath the skull and crossbones, ‘The hell with you, Jack, I’ve got mine!’”

This excerpt is from Dr. Brown’s paper on samaritrophia. The paper reinforces the concept of capitalism versus the common good and develops the theme of American Capitalism and Socioeconomic Inequality. Vonnegut equates the self-interest shown by the rich in the novel to pirates gleefully flying the black flag as they plunder other ships. The self-interest of the rich makes it harder for other people to raise their status.

“At least let me make that clear: Eliot is right to do what he’s doing. It’s beautiful what he’s doing. I’m simply not strong enough or good enough to be by his side anymore. The fault is mine.”

Sylvia cannot be with Eliot anymore, but she refuses to admit that she thinks he has a mental health condition. She tells the Senator and McAllister not to fool themselves into thinking that Eliot’s plan has no merit. She wants them to see the purity in Eliot’s generous, philanthropic outlook on the impoverished. Although Sylvia empathizes with Eliot, she is characterized by the inability to act on her emotions.

“The secret is that they’re human.”

The Senator presses Sylvia to name one good thing about the impoverished people who come to Eliot for help. That he thinks she must know a “secret” about humanity characterizes him as one without compassion. Sylvia’s response is similar to Eliot’s view: Human life is sacred enough to protect for its own sake, and kindness toward one another is a goal worth pursuing.

“If Eliot is going to love everybody, no matter what they are, no matter what they do, then those of us who love particular people for particular reasons had better find ourselves a new word.”

The Senator asks Sylvia to use a word other than “love” to rationalize Eliot’s actions. Eliot’s love does not discriminate, and the Senator does not want to hold himself to the standard of love that Eliot affords everyone. Like wealth, the Senator believes that even love does not inherently warrant equality. The Senator, as an affluent politician, embodies the theme of American Capitalism and Socioeconomic Inequality.

“The most exquisite pleasure in the practice of medicine comes from nudging a layman in the direction of terror, then bringing him back to safety again.”

Dr. Brown tells the Senator about his own motivations for practicing medicine. The doctor enjoys helping and healing people, but he also enjoys the power that arises from being able to assuage their terror. The doctor wields power over his patients because he helps mitigate their fear, which makes them grateful to him. Dr. Brown’s character represents a corrupt healthcare infrastructure that covertly elevates private interests over public well-being.

“I think it’s terrible the way people don’t share things in this country. I think it’s a heartless government that will let one baby be born owning a big piece of the country, the way I was born, and let another baby be born without owning anything. The least a government could do, it seems to me, is to divide things up fairly among the babies.”

Eliot explains the hypocrisy of the American government to his father. Eliot’s father believes that their fortune is their righteous reward for the lives they lead, despite not providing value to the community. Eliot is uncomfortable about having so much more than most of his fellow citizens. He doesn’t understand how a country founded on the notion of equality fails to balance the scales of financial well-being to such an extreme degree. Eliot’s worldview brings the theme of American Capitalism and Socioeconomic Inequality to the fore.

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winters. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—: God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

This quote from Eliot has become a famous, oft-shared Vonnegut quote that embodies one of his central philosophies: the inherent need for kindness as the core motivator of behavior. In many ways, the philosophical issues at the core of this novel are representative of Vonnegut’s own struggles to understand what humanity should prioritize after his own experience witnessing great violence and suffering in World War II. For Eliot and for Vonnegut, kindness is the only useful metric.

“Sons of suicides seldom do well. Characteristically, they find life lacking a certain zing. They tend to feel more rootless than most, even in a notoriously rootless nation. They are squeamishly incurious about the past and numbly certain about the future to this grisly extent: they suspect that they, too, will kill themselves.”

Suicide is a recurring motif in the novel. Vonnegut describes the plights of sons whose fathers die by suicide. Their fathers’ deaths haunt them with the foreknowledge that they might also attempt suicide, as if suicidal ideation is an inheritable trait that hangs over their entire lives. A son that admires his father might see his father’s death by suicide as proof that life is, in fact, not worth living, and that family might not be worth living for. Eliot ironically quells others’ suicidal ideations by providing them with money or purpose.

“He could afford to be affectionate. He was one of the few men in Pisquontuit whose manhood was not in question.”

Pena puts his arm around Fred’s shoulders without insecurity or fear of judgment. Pena is a rugged fisherman with a formidable physical presence and an asset to the community—in many ways, he is the opposite of Fred, as he fits into the community’s concept of masculinity. The quote emphasizes that Pisquontuit is inhabited by men whose demeanors, occupations, and temperaments are always subject to ongoing interrogation by the townspeople. In this way, Vonnegut portrays Pena as a caricature of socially acceptable masculinity.

“This world is full of suffering, and money can do a lot to relieve that suffering, and I have far more money than I can use”

Stewart knows that his money can make a difference in the world. However, McAllister tries to convince him that his ideals are not naive. For McAllister, Senator Lister, and other wealthy people in the novel, giving away a fortune—even part of it—is an idealistic act out of touch with reality. What Stewart considers good intentions and generosity, McAllister sees as irrational and self-defeating. McAllister’s worldview develops the theme of The Abstraction of Sanity.

“History tells us this, my dear young Mr. Buntline, if it tells us nothing else: Giving away a fortune is a futile and destructive thing. It makes whiners of the poor, without making them rich or even comfortable. And the donor and his descendants become undistinguished members of the whining poor.”

McAllister tries to talk Stewart out of philanthropy. He and the Senator view the lower classes as “freeloaders” and believe that giving them charity only exacerbates their problems. He appeals to history itself as proof that generosity always goes unrewarded and creates more problems than it solved. For McAllister, access to wealth is a marker of good character, and those without wealth “deserve” their poverty. McAllister’s character supports the theme of American Capitalism and Socioeconomic Inequality.

“Your fortune is the most important single determinant of what you think of yourself and of what others think of you. Because of the money, you are extraordinary. […] Cling to your miracle, Mr. Buntline. Money is dehydrated Utopia.”

In this metaphorical diatribe, McAllister persuades Stewart to adopt a conservative worldview by describing wealth and personal fortunes as miracles, the closest to “Utopia” that humans can achieve. A utopia is a place of complete and perfect harmony. In line with the theme of American Capitalism and Socioeconomic Inequality, McAllister contorts the idea of “Utopia.” Instead of America being a place of opportunity for all, only the wealthy have the freedom money affords to create their perfect, insular states.

“America is one place in this sorry world where people shouldn’t have to apologize for being poor. The question in America should be, ‘Is this guy a good citizen? Is he honest? Does he pull his own weight?’”

Fred argues with his wife about American values. He is tired of apologizing for the mere fact that he is not rich. For Fred, one’s integrity should say more about their Americanness than their bank account. Honesty should matter more than a foundation’s balance sheet. However, American capitalism does not support his view. Vonnegut develops the theme of American Capitalism and Socioeconomic Inequality through characters both wealthy and impoverished.

“The reason creatures wanted to use language instead of mental telepathy was that they found out they could get so much more done with language. Language made them so much more active. Mental telepathy, with everybody constantly telling everybody everything, produced a sort of generalized indifference to all information. But language, with its slow, narrow meanings, made it possible to think about one thing at a time—to start thinking in terms of projects.”

Eliot reads from Pan-Galactic Three-Day Pass, a Trout novel. The protagonist is an English teacher on an intergalactic expedition. In the story, telepathy is ill-suited to productivity because thoughts are random and do not befit project management. The mechanical, linear use of language forces people to codify their desires and think in systems to achieve them. For this reason, the English teacher finds a lot of work. In Eliot’s opinion, productivity that only enriches service is not meaningful. Vonnegut incorporates Trout’s metafiction to support Eliot’s worldview and develop the theme of The Fear of Useless and Obsolescence.

“Pretend to be good always and even God will be fooled.”

These words are etched into the rim of the fountain in the garden at the private psychiatric hospital. The directive encourages the patients to behave in a certain way, without defining what “good” behavior actually means. There is also a satirical hypocrisy in suggesting that deceiving God is a worthwhile endeavor. This motto reinforces that broader society does not care if people with mental health conditions are treated effectively, only that they learn to behave themselves. This hypocrisy develops the theme of The Abstraction of Sanity.

“The problem is this: How to love people who have no use?”

Trout’s question to Eliot at the psychiatric hospital develops the theme of The Fear of Uselessness and Obsolescence. He considers Eliot’s actions in Rosewater County to be a critical social experiment. Trout believes that Eliot’s actions were an attempt to answer the question of whether people without an obvious, practical use deserve love. Trout believes that, in order to deserve their continued existence, people have to love each other for reasons other than the services they can provide to society.

“Poverty is a relatively mild disease for even a very flimsy American soul, but uselessness will kill strong and weak souls alike, and kill every time.”

Thematically, The Fear of Uselessness and Obsolescence is at the fore for Trout. Trout tells the Senator that while poverty can be survived, a meaningless life cannot. Without a sense of usefulness—of being able to contribute to society—people find it hard to see meaning in their lives. Trout contends that uselessness is a more reliable precursor to a meaningless life than poverty.

“Americans have long been taught to hate all people who will not or cannot work, to hate even themselves for that. We can thank the vanished frontier for that piece of common-sense cruelty. The time is coming, if it isn’t here now, when it will no longer be common sense. It will simply be cruel.”

Trout explains one of the problems with American society and encapsulates the theme of The Fear of Uselessness and Obsolescence. Society espouses that people are only loveable if they are useful. However, in a society where increasing automation is a guarantee, it is cruel to penalize those who lose jobs or who are unable to work. A compassionate, long view would require a change in thinking that considers the question: How can society ensure that those who do not, or cannot work, still feel valued and accepted?