“Player Piano” by Kurt Vonnegut (post 2): Multiple personality theme suggested by name of protagonist and city; dual society and identification.

The plot of Vonnegut’s first novel is about a technologically advanced dystopia. The idea was suggested to Vonnegut by his job at General Electric and the novel Brave New World.

But his plot did not require all of the following:

First of all, it did not require that Vonnegut name his protagonist “Paul Proteus” and the city “Ilium.”

The name of the Greek god Proteus gives us the adjective “protean,” which means exceedingly variable; readily assuming different shapes or forms. A person who switches from one personality to another may be said to have a protean personality.

Two identical initials—like Poe’s “William Wilson”—suggest the theme of the double and a dual personality.

The name “Paul”: In The New Testament, Paul (a Christian) is also known as Saul (a Jew), a dual identity.

The novel’s city is named “Ilium,” Latin name of the ancient city of Troy, known for the Trojan Horse, which, like a person with multiple personality, had multiple people hidden inside.

The people of Ilium are strictly divided into two segregated classes, the elite manager/engineers and the low-class rest of society.

Paul Proteus is one of the head manager/engineers, but he sometimes gets into a jalopy and visits the other side of town. And when the lower class plans a rebellion, Paul has feelings of identification with both sides. This might be interpreted as his having two personalities.

Does Proteus have any unexplained memory gaps, a cardinal symptom of multiple personality (search “memory gaps” in this blog)? No. The only time he has a memory gap is when he is drugged; for example, when he is given truth serum to assess his loyalty. But since others in the novel assess his truthfulness with a polygraph (which does not cause a memory gap), it is not clear why tactics that involved a memory gap had to be employed. Are memory gaps in this novel only because the author experienced them? In my previous post, I quoted Vonnegut as saying he had a memory gap for the bombing of Dresden.

1. Kurt Vonnegut. Player Piano [1952]. New York, Dial Press/Random House, 2006.