Mother Night
Encyclopedia
Mother Night is a novel by American author Kurt Vonnegut
, first published in 1961. The title of the book is taken from Goethe's
Faust
.
It is the fictional story of Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American, who moved to Germany
directly after World War I
and then later became alternately a well-known playwright and a Nazi
propagandist
. The action of the novel is narrated (through the use of metafiction
) by Campbell himself. The premise is that he is writing his memoirs while awaiting trial for war crime
s in an Israel
i prison. Howard W. Campbell also appears briefly in Vonnegut's later novel Slaughterhouse-Five
.
seized power in 1933, Campbell decides to stay on in Germany despite his parents' decision to leave. He continues to write plays, his only associations being with members of the ruling Nazi party as his social contacts. Being of sufficiently Aryan
parentage, Campbell becomes a member of the Nazis in name only. He is politically apathetic, caring only for his art and his wife Helga, who is also the starring actress in all of his plays.
The first part of the book ends after Campbell has an encounter on a park bench in the Berlin Zoo. While sitting on the bench he is approached by a man calling himself Frank Wirtanen, an agent of the U.S. War Department. Wirtanen wants Campbell to spy
for the U.S. in the upcoming war. Campbell immediately rejects the offer, but Wirtanen quickly adds that he wants Campbell to think about it. He tells him that Campbell's answer will come in the form of how he acts and what positions he assumes once the U.S. and Germany declare war on each other.
starts, Campbell begins to make his way up through Joseph Goebbels
' propaganda
organization, eventually becoming the "voice" of broadcasts aimed at converting Americans to the Nazi cause. The spy part of the job comes in when he is transmitting his vitriolic messages; unbeknownst to the Nazis, all of the idiosyncrasies of his speech (deliberate pauses, coughing, etc.) are part of the coded information he is passing to the American Office of Strategic Services
(the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency
). Campbell never discovers, nor is he ever told (except in one notable instance), the information that he is sending.
About halfway through the war his wife goes to the eastern front to entertain the German troops. Campbell is extremely distraught when he hears that the camp where she had been entertaining in Crimea
had been overrun and she was presumed dead. (In a much later exchange, Wirtanen reveals the sad truth; Campbell's wife's probable death was included in one of his own coded messages about a week before Campbell was told). Right before the Soviet Army
invades Berlin, Campbell visits his in-laws one last time. Helga's father had been chief of police in Berlin and tells Campbell that he never liked him, and had always thought that Campbell was a spy. He goes on to say though that even if he had been a spy, he had been so good at the propaganda business that he never could have served the other side better than he had served Nazi Germany. Campbell then has an exchange with Helga's younger sister, Resi, that will resonate with him years later.
Eventually, he is captured by U.S. forces. Wirtanen works a deal in which Campbell is set free and then given passage to New York City
, whence the rest of the action of the book takes place.
by publicizing the fact that Campbell has been living in New York since the end of the war.
A white supremacist organization learns of his existence and makes him a cause celebre
, inviting him to speak to new recruits as a "true American patriot." The group's leader, a dentist named Lionel Jones, shows up at Campbell's apartment with a surprise: a woman claiming to be Helga, alive and well and professing her undying love. Campbell's will
to live returns for the first time in years, and remains even after he finds out that she is not Helga, but rather her younger sister Resi. They plan to escape to Mexico City
after attending one of Jones' fascist meetings.
There, Wirtanen makes an appearance to warn Campbell of Kraft's plot, and of Resi's complicity in it. Heartbroken, Campbell decides to go along with the charade. He confronts Kraft and Resi, the latter swearing her feelings for him are genuine. The FBI
then raids the meeting and takes Campbell into custody, while Resi commits suicide
by taking a cyanide
capsule. As before, Wirtanen uses his influence to get Campbell set free. Once Campbell returns to his apartment, however, he realizes that he has no real reason to continue living, and decides to turn himself in to the Israelis to stand trial.
and gives him advice on how to write an autobiography. He then is transferred to a different holding cell where he further awaits his trial. At the very end of the book Campbell inserts a letter that he has just received from Wirtanen. The corroborating evidence that he was indeed an American spy during World War II has finally arrived, and Wirtanen writes that he will testify to Campbell's true loyalties in court. Rather than being relieved, Campbell feels "nauseated" by the idea that he will be saved from death and granted freedom when he is no longer able to take pleasure in anything life has to offer. In the last lines Campbell tells us that he will hang himself not for crimes against humanity, but rather for "crimes against himself."
I know. I don't think it's a marvelous moral, I just happen to know what it is..."
Vonnegut's "So-it-goes" nonchalance announces on the first page of the Introduction. "The moral of the story" appears again and throughout Mother Night from this point on, and Vonnegut continuously revises upon it, after saying, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
Variant to this moral, Vonnegut later resumes, "When you're dead, you're dead." Vonnegut then pauses in the prose, and reflects the last moral in his Introduction, which is; "And yet another moral occurs to me now; Make love when you can. It's good for you."
Throughout the novel Vonnegut uses meta-fiction devices to call attention to the text itself. Most notably is Vonnegut's framing of the novel as a historical document. The editor's note at the beginning of the novel suggests Campbell's writings, the text of the novel itself, are a manuscript that Vonnegut received and is editing for public view.
These devices of meta-fiction can also be expanded to include Vonnegut's
approach to character introductions, and character development. In opposition to the common Show, don't tell
rule in literature
, Vonnegut observes his characters from an almost omniscient perspective; for example, "His name is Andor Gutman. Andor is a sleepy, not very bright Estonia
n Jew. He spent two years in the extermination camp
at Auschwitz. According to his own reluctant account, he came this close to going up a smokestack of a crematorium there."
While this style of character deconstructionism is less prevalent in Mother Night than it is in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
, or Breakfast of Champions
, the pervading-style of prose
throughout the book is largely intertwined with, as previously mentioned, meta-fiction techniques. Vonnegut's innovated, literary omniscience
is one of these techniques through which Vonnegut's
trademark "so it goes..." attitude achieves a certain degree of meta-morality
by virtue of its omniscient, dissociative and detached tone
within the prose
.
was released in 1996, starring Nick Nolte
as Campbell, Sheryl Lee
as Helga/Resi, Alan Arkin
as Kraft and John Goodman
as Wirtanen.
In 2009, Audible.com
produced an audio version of Mother Night, narrated by Victor Bevine, as part of its Modern Vanguard line of audiobooks.
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
, first published in 1961. The title of the book is taken from Goethe's
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath. He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature. His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long...
Faust
Goethe's Faust
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust is a tragic play in two parts: and . Although written as a closet drama, it is the play with the largest audience numbers on German-language stages...
.
It is the fictional story of Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American, who moved to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
directly after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and then later became alternately a well-known playwright and a Nazi
National Socialist German Workers Party
The National Socialist German Workers' Party , commonly known in English as the Nazi Party, was a political party in Germany between 1920 and 1945. Its predecessor, the German Workers' Party , existed from 1919 to 1920...
propagandist
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
. The action of the novel is narrated (through the use of metafiction
Metafiction
Metafiction, also known as Romantic irony in the context of Romantic works of literature, is a type of fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction, exposing the fictional illusion...
) by Campbell himself. The premise is that he is writing his memoirs while awaiting trial for war crime
War crime
War crimes are serious violations of the laws applicable in armed conflict giving rise to individual criminal responsibility...
s in an Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i prison. Howard W. Campbell also appears briefly in Vonnegut's later novel Slaughterhouse-Five
Slaughterhouse-Five
Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is a satirical novel by Kurt Vonnegut about World War II experiences and journeys through time of a soldier called Billy Pilgrim...
.
Germany before World War II
During the Nazi build-up after Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
seized power in 1933, Campbell decides to stay on in Germany despite his parents' decision to leave. He continues to write plays, his only associations being with members of the ruling Nazi party as his social contacts. Being of sufficiently Aryan
Aryan
Aryan is an English language loanword derived from Sanskrit ārya and denoting variously*In scholarly usage:**Indo-Iranian languages *in dated usage:**the Indo-European languages more generally and their speakers...
parentage, Campbell becomes a member of the Nazis in name only. He is politically apathetic, caring only for his art and his wife Helga, who is also the starring actress in all of his plays.
The first part of the book ends after Campbell has an encounter on a park bench in the Berlin Zoo. While sitting on the bench he is approached by a man calling himself Frank Wirtanen, an agent of the U.S. War Department. Wirtanen wants Campbell to spy
Espionage
Espionage or spying involves an individual obtaining information that is considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage is inherently clandestine, lest the legitimate holder of the information change plans or take other countermeasures once it...
for the U.S. in the upcoming war. Campbell immediately rejects the offer, but Wirtanen quickly adds that he wants Campbell to think about it. He tells him that Campbell's answer will come in the form of how he acts and what positions he assumes once the U.S. and Germany declare war on each other.
Germany in World War II and afterward
Once World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
starts, Campbell begins to make his way up through Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
' propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
organization, eventually becoming the "voice" of broadcasts aimed at converting Americans to the Nazi cause. The spy part of the job comes in when he is transmitting his vitriolic messages; unbeknownst to the Nazis, all of the idiosyncrasies of his speech (deliberate pauses, coughing, etc.) are part of the coded information he is passing to the American Office of Strategic Services
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services was a United States intelligence agency formed during World War II. It was the wartime intelligence agency, and it was a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency...
(the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
). Campbell never discovers, nor is he ever told (except in one notable instance), the information that he is sending.
About halfway through the war his wife goes to the eastern front to entertain the German troops. Campbell is extremely distraught when he hears that the camp where she had been entertaining in Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
had been overrun and she was presumed dead. (In a much later exchange, Wirtanen reveals the sad truth; Campbell's wife's probable death was included in one of his own coded messages about a week before Campbell was told). Right before the Soviet Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
invades Berlin, Campbell visits his in-laws one last time. Helga's father had been chief of police in Berlin and tells Campbell that he never liked him, and had always thought that Campbell was a spy. He goes on to say though that even if he had been a spy, he had been so good at the propaganda business that he never could have served the other side better than he had served Nazi Germany. Campbell then has an exchange with Helga's younger sister, Resi, that will resonate with him years later.
Eventually, he is captured by U.S. forces. Wirtanen works a deal in which Campbell is set free and then given passage to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, whence the rest of the action of the book takes place.
New York City
In New York City, Campbell lives a lonely, anonymous life, sustained only by memories of his wife and an indifferent curiosity about his eventual fate. His only friend is George Kraft, a similarly lonely neighbor—who, through an extraordinary coincidence, also happens to be a Soviet intelligence agent. He tries to trick Campbell into fleeing to MoscowMoscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
by publicizing the fact that Campbell has been living in New York since the end of the war.
A white supremacist organization learns of his existence and makes him a cause celebre
Cause célèbre
A is an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning and heated public debate. The term is particularly used in connection with celebrated legal cases. It is a French phrase in common English use...
, inviting him to speak to new recruits as a "true American patriot." The group's leader, a dentist named Lionel Jones, shows up at Campbell's apartment with a surprise: a woman claiming to be Helga, alive and well and professing her undying love. Campbell's will
Will (philosophy)
Will, in philosophical discussions, consonant with a common English usage, refers to a property of the mind, and an attribute of acts intentionally performed. Actions made according to a person's will are called "willing" or "voluntary" and sometimes pejoratively "willful"...
to live returns for the first time in years, and remains even after he finds out that she is not Helga, but rather her younger sister Resi. They plan to escape to Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
after attending one of Jones' fascist meetings.
There, Wirtanen makes an appearance to warn Campbell of Kraft's plot, and of Resi's complicity in it. Heartbroken, Campbell decides to go along with the charade. He confronts Kraft and Resi, the latter swearing her feelings for him are genuine. The FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
then raids the meeting and takes Campbell into custody, while Resi commits suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
by taking a cyanide
Cyanide
A cyanide is a chemical compound that contains the cyano group, -C≡N, which consists of a carbon atom triple-bonded to a nitrogen atom. Cyanides most commonly refer to salts of the anion CN−. Most cyanides are highly toxic....
capsule. As before, Wirtanen uses his influence to get Campbell set free. Once Campbell returns to his apartment, however, he realizes that he has no real reason to continue living, and decides to turn himself in to the Israelis to stand trial.
Israel
The book ends as it began, with Campbell sitting in his Israeli jail cell waiting for his trial. Coincidentally, he meets Adolf EichmannAdolf Eichmann
Adolf Otto Eichmann was a German Nazi and SS-Obersturmbannführer and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust...
and gives him advice on how to write an autobiography. He then is transferred to a different holding cell where he further awaits his trial. At the very end of the book Campbell inserts a letter that he has just received from Wirtanen. The corroborating evidence that he was indeed an American spy during World War II has finally arrived, and Wirtanen writes that he will testify to Campbell's true loyalties in court. Rather than being relieved, Campbell feels "nauseated" by the idea that he will be saved from death and granted freedom when he is no longer able to take pleasure in anything life has to offer. In the last lines Campbell tells us that he will hang himself not for crimes against humanity, but rather for "crimes against himself."
"The Moral of the Story"
"This is the only story of mine whose moralMoral
A moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim...
I know. I don't think it's a marvelous moral, I just happen to know what it is..."
Vonnegut's "So-it-goes" nonchalance announces on the first page of the Introduction. "The moral of the story" appears again and throughout Mother Night from this point on, and Vonnegut continuously revises upon it, after saying, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."
Variant to this moral, Vonnegut later resumes, "When you're dead, you're dead." Vonnegut then pauses in the prose, and reflects the last moral in his Introduction, which is; "And yet another moral occurs to me now; Make love when you can. It's good for you."
Literary devices
These devices of meta-fiction can also be expanded to include Vonnegut's
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
approach to character introductions, and character development. In opposition to the common Show, don't tell
Show, don't tell
This page is about the composition principle. For the Rush song, see Show Don't Tell Show, don't tell is an admonition to fiction writers to write in a manner that allows the reader to experience the story through a character's action, words, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than through the...
rule in literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, Vonnegut observes his characters from an almost omniscient perspective; for example, "His name is Andor Gutman. Andor is a sleepy, not very bright Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
n Jew. He spent two years in the extermination camp
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
at Auschwitz. According to his own reluctant account, he came this close to going up a smokestack of a crematorium there."
While this style of character deconstructionism is less prevalent in Mother Night than it is in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine, is a novel written by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., published in 1965. The plot focuses on Eliot Rosewater, the primary trustee of the philanthropic Rosewater Foundation, whom one of the family lawyers, Norman Mushari, is attempting to have declared...
, or Breakfast of Champions
Breakfast of Champions
Breakfast of Champions, or Goodbye Blue Monday is a 1973 novel by the American author Kurt Vonnegut. Set in the fictional town of Midland City, it is the story of "two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast." One of these men, Dwayne Hoover, is a normal-looking but...
, the pervading-style of prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
throughout the book is largely intertwined with, as previously mentioned, meta-fiction techniques. Vonnegut's innovated, literary omniscience
Omniscience
Omniscience omniscient point-of-view in writing) is the capacity to know everything infinitely, or at least everything that can be known about a character including thoughts, feelings, life and the universe, etc. In Latin, omnis means "all" and sciens means "knowing"...
is one of these techniques through which Vonnegut's
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
trademark "so it goes..." attitude achieves a certain degree of meta-morality
Meta-ethics
In philosophy, meta-ethics is the branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties, statements, attitudes, and judgments. Meta-ethics is one of the three branches of ethics generally recognized by philosophers, the others being normative ethics and applied ethics. Ethical...
by virtue of its omniscient, dissociative and detached tone
Tone (literature)
Tone is a literary technique that is a part of composition, which encompasses the attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience implied in a literary work. Tone may be formal, informal, intimate, solemn, somber, playful, serious, ironic, guilty, condescending, or many other possible attitudes...
within the prose
Prose
Prose is the most typical form of written language, applying ordinary grammatical structure and natural flow of speech rather than rhythmic structure...
.
Adaptations
A film versionMother Night (film)
Mother Night is a 1996 film based on Kurt Vonnegut's 1961 book of the same name.Nick Nolte stars as Howard W. Campbell, Jr., an American who moves with his family to Germany after World War I and goes on to become a successful German language playwright...
was released in 1996, starring Nick Nolte
Nick Nolte
Nicholas King "Nick" Nolte is an American actor whose career has spanned over five decades, peaking in the 1990s when his commercial success made him one of the most popular celebrities of that decade.-Early life:...
as Campbell, Sheryl Lee
Sheryl Lee
Sheryl Lee is an American actress. She came to international attention for her performances as Laura Palmer and Maddy Ferguson on the 1990 cult TV series Twin Peaks and in the 1992 film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me...
as Helga/Resi, Alan Arkin
Alan Arkin
Alan Wolf Arkin is an American actor, director, musician and singer. He is known for starring in such films as Wait Until Dark, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Catch-22, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, Glengarry Glen Ross, Marley & Me, and...
as Kraft and John Goodman
John Goodman
John Stephen Goodman is an American film, television, and stage actor. He is best known for his role as Dan Conner on the television series Roseanne for which he won a Best Actor Golden Globe Award in 1993, and for appearances in the films of the Coen brothers, with prominent roles in Raising...
as Wirtanen.
In 2009, Audible.com
Audible.com
Audible.com is an Internet provider of spoken audio entertainment, information, and educational programming.Audible sells digital audiobooks, radio and TV programs, and audio versions of magazines and newspapers....
produced an audio version of Mother Night, narrated by Victor Bevine, as part of its Modern Vanguard line of audiobooks.