Disclaimer: this post gets morbid
For those of you who are new or don't remember, a few weeks ago, I discussed a short story by Kurt Vonnegut called 2BR02B. I said that I would point out the flaws in this otherwise brilliant narrative. Looking at this short story again, I realised that the only major flaw in it was the premise (which I discussed previously) and so I decided to discuss another part of it - the conclusion that two of the focal characters come to. If you haven't read it, or would like to refresh yourself, here is a link directly to it.
I want to discuss the painter and the father. Both have an interesting response to the idea proposed. First the father. He is the unhappy father of triplets due to the situation I described previously. He says that he would like to keep all of his kids but without finding anyone to die in their place - a natural response. The doctors (although whether they can be called that due to a complete abandonment of the Hippocratic Oath - a creed that doctors are supposed to follow. If you really want to check it out you can do it either here or a modern version here) are sympathetic but stick to the rules brutally while trying to sound nice about it. Here is where the father's response gets interesting. He pulls a revolver out and shoots the two doctors and himself in order that his children may survive. You can approach this response from two angles - either he was being imminently irresponsible and cruel, leaving his children to grow up with no father and with the knowledge that he killed himself and two others so that they could live, or it was an act of both incredible love and anger, love for his children that he didn't want any of them to die and was therefore willing to die in their stead and anger at the system that not only allows such actions, but requires them. My personal way of thinking about his actions is to say that it was an incredible self sacrifice that was ill conceived, but probably not wrong (despite not being right). The problem with it is that there is such a grey area when you start messing with these sorts of things, in the end you have to ask the question 'Are you justified in taking life to save life?' and the answer to that has to be your answer to his situation.
Secondly the painter. He is an old man aged about 200 but looking only 35. He has been commissioned to redecorate the maternity waiting room as a memorial to a man who volunteered to die. He also has a very cynical view on life but doesn't particularly want to die. His personal view is that the splattered dropsheet that he is using is a more accurate picture of the world than the garden that he is painting. His reaction is, in my opinion, more interesting. He despises the whole system and is quite happy to say so. He figures that someday soon he will end it, but he'll do it in his way and in his time. He watches the whole scenario and doesn't say a word. After thinking about it for a while and the only answer to life that he can think of is war, plague and starvation (as an aside, three of the four horse riders of the apocalypse, the fourth being death). He also decides to kill himself there and then using the pistol that has just recently ended the lives of the other people in the room. But he lacks the nerve and ends up calling to make an appointment that day at the 'Sheepdip'. This is really the only logical response to the situation in a strictly humanistic sense. If the only purpose of life is to setup for the next generation, then what is the real purpose of life? Answer in this situation, to have kids and then die.
I think I will have to leave it there before this gets more grim and morbid than it already is. I'll leave you with the final words of the short story. Ask yourself if this is the right response to death.
For those of you who are new or don't remember, a few weeks ago, I discussed a short story by Kurt Vonnegut called 2BR02B. I said that I would point out the flaws in this otherwise brilliant narrative. Looking at this short story again, I realised that the only major flaw in it was the premise (which I discussed previously) and so I decided to discuss another part of it - the conclusion that two of the focal characters come to. If you haven't read it, or would like to refresh yourself, here is a link directly to it.
I want to discuss the painter and the father. Both have an interesting response to the idea proposed. First the father. He is the unhappy father of triplets due to the situation I described previously. He says that he would like to keep all of his kids but without finding anyone to die in their place - a natural response. The doctors (although whether they can be called that due to a complete abandonment of the Hippocratic Oath - a creed that doctors are supposed to follow. If you really want to check it out you can do it either here or a modern version here) are sympathetic but stick to the rules brutally while trying to sound nice about it. Here is where the father's response gets interesting. He pulls a revolver out and shoots the two doctors and himself in order that his children may survive. You can approach this response from two angles - either he was being imminently irresponsible and cruel, leaving his children to grow up with no father and with the knowledge that he killed himself and two others so that they could live, or it was an act of both incredible love and anger, love for his children that he didn't want any of them to die and was therefore willing to die in their stead and anger at the system that not only allows such actions, but requires them. My personal way of thinking about his actions is to say that it was an incredible self sacrifice that was ill conceived, but probably not wrong (despite not being right). The problem with it is that there is such a grey area when you start messing with these sorts of things, in the end you have to ask the question 'Are you justified in taking life to save life?' and the answer to that has to be your answer to his situation.
Secondly the painter. He is an old man aged about 200 but looking only 35. He has been commissioned to redecorate the maternity waiting room as a memorial to a man who volunteered to die. He also has a very cynical view on life but doesn't particularly want to die. His personal view is that the splattered dropsheet that he is using is a more accurate picture of the world than the garden that he is painting. His reaction is, in my opinion, more interesting. He despises the whole system and is quite happy to say so. He figures that someday soon he will end it, but he'll do it in his way and in his time. He watches the whole scenario and doesn't say a word. After thinking about it for a while and the only answer to life that he can think of is war, plague and starvation (as an aside, three of the four horse riders of the apocalypse, the fourth being death). He also decides to kill himself there and then using the pistol that has just recently ended the lives of the other people in the room. But he lacks the nerve and ends up calling to make an appointment that day at the 'Sheepdip'. This is really the only logical response to the situation in a strictly humanistic sense. If the only purpose of life is to setup for the next generation, then what is the real purpose of life? Answer in this situation, to have kids and then die.
I think I will have to leave it there before this gets more grim and morbid than it already is. I'll leave you with the final words of the short story. Ask yourself if this is the right response to death.
"Your city thanks you; your country thanks you; your planet thanks you. But the deepest thanks of all is from future generations."
THE END
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