커트 보니거트의 《자동 피아노》에 나타난 풍자의 양상

Being his first novel, Kurt Vonnegut`s Player Piano can be seen as his bid for the literary world to test his success as a professional writer. In ti, he depicts the modern industrial world of a not―too―distant future. Based on his own experience as a public relations man for the General Electric Company, and following the literary tradition of Huxley`s Brave New World and Orwell`s 1984, Vonnegut poignantly satirizes the modern dystopia, where national holy trinity is Efficiency, Economy, and Quality, where human workers are replaced by machines, and where the ideal world of technophia turns out to be a nightmarish world. And, as a result, the mass of men lead lives of what Thoreau called `quiet desperation.` The target of Vonnegut`s satire is the dehumanization of the individual in a world dominated by science and technology. But as the novel progresses, the target shifts. Instead of the outer world humanity itself becomes a target of satire as being imperfect, frail, stupid, and dehumanized. Therefore, Vonnegut`s attitude is not wholly optimistic because he never fails to point out the absurdity and indiscretion of human life. It does not mean, however, that his attitude is wholly pessimistic, in spite of his own evaluation of himself as such. The accurate awareness of human absurdity prevents him from being a total optimist; the tolerance toward human absurdity, however, prevents him from being a total pessimist. As a satiric writer, Vonnegut writes in order to punish, and in order to heal at the same time; hie is thus both a grim executioner and a generous physician.