Mother Night

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1961

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Editor’s Note

Chapters 1-9

Chapters 10-19

Chapters 20-29

Chapters 30-39

Chapters 40-45

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Introduction-Editor’s NoteChapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction Summary

In an introduction written in 1966, five years after Mother Night’s initial publication, Vonnegut states the novel is the only one of his works whose moral he knows: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be” (v). Vonnegut, an American with strong German heritage, then goes on to list his experience with Nazis, beginning in his childhood with American Fascists in the thirties. He was given a copy of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (1903)—a fabricated text, purporting to be a Jewish plan for world domination, that has inspired antismetic conspiracy theories for over a century—and one of his aunts had to prove the purity of her German blood before her husband would agree to marry her. Vonnegut’s primary experience, however, is during his military service in World War II, when he was captured and, as a prisoner of war, witnessed the Allied bombing of Dresden. Had he been born in Germany instead, Vonnegut imagines, he would naturally have been a Nazi, too. He then offers two other morals: “When you’re dead you’re dead” and “Make love while you can” (viii).

Editor’s Note Summary

In the original beginning of the 1961 novel, Vonnegut positions himself as the American editor of The Confessions of Howard W. Campbell Jr., a purported manuscript written by a Nazi war criminal. Vonnegut doubts the veracity of the details of Campbell’s writings, as Campbell’s background as a writer of plays allows him “to lie without seeing any harm in it” (ix), but suggests his confessions, taken as a whole, might offer a higher truth. He goes on to mention that he has changed the names of those involved to protect their identities, and briefly explains his mode of translating Campbell’s poetry, and the editorial decisions he made. The title of the book, Mother Night, is drawn from a speech by Mephistopheles in Goethe’s Faust (1808), in which the Satanic figure describes his origins in darkness, a title chosen by Campbell. Vonnegut also includes Campbell’s brief explanation of why he dedicated his work to Mata Hari, a Dutch performer who worked as a spy for Germany in World War I.

Introduction-Editor’s Note Analysis

With his opening statement about the moral of the work, Vonnegut positions this lens over the entire work. Mother Night focuses on illusion masquerading as truth, with the implication that the illusion will become the truth. This mirrors Campbell’s arc through the narrative and resounds in almost every major character, who, in one way or another, are leading lives composed more of illusion (or delusion) than truth. The final two morals Vonnegut offers each touch on the transience of the world, suggesting at what can be lost if one spends too much time living an illusory life.

Vonnegut touches upon his childhood in the Introduction, growing up in the German immigrant community in the fraught times preceding both World Wars, while making light the Nazi concern with blood purity. His mention of the Protocols—allowing him to quickly contextualize a core belief of the Nazi system—is characteristic, in that it enables him to explain a complicated societal issue in a plainspoken tone of non-judgement. This is a mark of all Vonnegut’s work, a technique that he employs widely, partly evoking his experience in anthropological observation, giving the impression of a shrewd outsider observing facts rather than a polemical insider condemning faulty behavior. It allows for a humanistic consideration to arise before societal preconceptions cloud a reader’s understanding, giving Vonnegut the chance to reconceptualize even basic tenants of his reader’s beliefs.

The Introduction was not included in the first printings of the book, and it suggests a final synthesis of ideas that Vonnegut wasn’t able to achieve during his original composition. Written just before Vonnegut’s research trip to Dresden, which is recounted in the first chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), the introduction reads like a trial run at the same subject matter. This is Vonnegut getting his thoughts in order, trying to approach what he calls “the largest massacre in European history” (vii). It even includes his infamous refrain from Slaughterhouse-Five: “So it goes” (viii).

The Editor’s Note, while presenting itself as nonfiction, is fiction; Campbell is a fictional personage, his memoirs are Vonnegut’s fiction. This introduces a post-modern distance that indicates a suspicion of grand, overarching narratives such as patriotic mythologies, and the use of a fractured narrative to emulate the disconnected and fractious manner of post-war life. Vonnegut’s careful listing of cuts to a non-existent original document further complicates the layers of ‘truth’ the reader can discern, suggesting at the subjective nature of the truths presented within, particularly as they are ostensibly Campbell’s, who is “a man suspected of being a war criminal” (1). This fractiousness continues into Campbell’s vacillating dedication, first to Mata Hari, a distinct historical personage whose story resembles Campbell’s, then to himself. Campbell’s self-dedication reveals what Vonnegut saw as a wide-spread social ill at the time: those who serve “evil too openly and good too secretly” (xiii).