The Sirens Of Titan Literary Analysis

Betty nguyen
December 2nd, 2009
The philosophy of “The Sirens of Titan”
Although The Sirens of Titan is a non-fiction book, it points out several of philosophies about life. The Sirens of Titan follows Malachi Constant, the richest and luckiest man in the 22nd century, whose bizarre and random journeys take him from Earth to Mars to Mercury, and finally to the Saturn moon of Titan, where he learns a painful and absurd truth about the history of humanity. In the book, Kurt Vonnegut employs characters’ lives to reflect his idea about a balance of humanism and existentialism that helps people create their own meaning of life. His book is a complex system of ideas and philosophies which relates to that in some political essays such as Lao-tzu’s
In The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut has some points of view about war and leadership that are similar to Lao-tzu’s philosophy in The Tao-te Ching. In the work, Rumfoord is built as a symbol of a leadership. He is considered as the “mastermind” of the Martian war and his attention is that “Mars should lose the war” (176). He questions the reasons why the Martian soldiers should be beaten. Vonnegut’s philosophy explains “ Any man who would change the world in a significant way must have showmanship, a genial willingness to shed other people’s blood, and a plausible new religion to introduce during the brief period of repentance and horror that usually follows bloodshed” (176). This philosophy is the similar to Lao-tzu’s. According to Lao-tzu, people must possess a morality even when they are in fight. He states, “ [people] [enter] a battle gravely, with sorrow and with great compassion, as if [they] [are] attending a funeral” (27). However,
Rousseau states, “ As soon as a mob has become united into a body politic, any attack upon one of its members is an attack upon itself” (69). The society exists if only the fundamental rights of the people are protected, and humanism and existentialism for a meaningful life are balanced. However, the Martians do not get that. Bee is sent to the hospital “after showing her supervisor [her] sonnet” (153). Unk gets “a tiny warning pain” when he “[hesitate] for just a second” (102) before he kills his best friend. On Mars, emotion of human is destroyed; the people get into trouble because of their good behaviors. Consequently, the war between Martian and Earthling people fail; and the Martian society ends. The failure of the Martians is the spirit of Jefferson’s “The Declaration of Independence” also. The spirit is that if the law is not just no longer, the government must be overthrown. Jefferson states, “It is the Right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government” (80). The Martian Government wants to control a soldier’s memory so much. They consider their soldiers as tools to get their private purpose that is the victory of the war. They do not care about the rights of the soldiers. The Government lays his “Might” on the people; whereas, “Might does not create Right” (Rouseau, 62). Humanism and existentialism are not balanced, which leads to a failure of the