The Lessons of Malachi Constant: Kurt Vonnegut’s Therapy of Disillusion
“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.”
-Malachi Constant
“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”
-Kurt Vonnegut, Sirens of Titan
The hero of Kurt Vonnegut’s 1959 novel, The Sirens of Titan, is named Malachi Constant, a Hebrew/English mash-up of a name which means “faithful messenger.”
Malachi has gained everything he has essentially by luck, but thinks “I guess somebody up there likes me.” He thinks he is in control of his life, and that he has a right to enjoy what belongs to him. What he yearns for is an explanation of life and a revelation of grand purpose for himself. To that end, he puts on his personal seal the motto, “the messenger awaits.”
Malachi is like us, but more so. In 1959 Malachi was probably a particular symbol of the American ego, but with the spreading of Western capitalism and its co-adaptive memeplexes of secular humanism and subconscious (or explicit) Christianity, Malachi seems to symbolize many a modern person with the luxury to step back and ask the kinds of questions Malachi asks.
If Malachi’s self-conception smacks of the post WW2 first-world self-conception, I…
