60 pages • 2 hours read
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.Player Piano
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1952A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Essay Topics
Why can the Shah of Bratpuhr not understand the difference betweenTakaru (slave) and the “averageman” in the United States? What does this suggest about the “averageman,” and American society?
What are three instances where Paul Proteus’s agency was stripped from him before he could act? Why does Paul have a hard time finding any agency?
Finnerty discusses how perfect the world be for an engineer, if not for “people always getting tangled up in the machinery.” What does he mean? In what ways do human beings mess things up for the engineer’s utopian vision?
At the saloon, the man who can determine the song being played by the marching band based solely on the way the instruments are played fascinates Paul. Why does this fascinate Paul? What aspect of being human does this suggest Paul has been missing?
The novel suggests humans may be fated to repeat the same mistakes again after the revolution. What evidence for this exists in the novel?
Anita is a character with very little agency in the novel. Do you feel sympathetic towards Anita? Why or why not?
Discuss the irony of Kroner and Anita’s fascination with antiques.
The Shah imagines the supercomputer, EPICAC XIV, as a deity. In what ways is the computer like a god? In what ways does the computer fall short of the status of a god?
There are very few moments of real human connection in the novel. What are some of those moments, and why are they significant?
Though the novel is set in the future, the novel reads as a commentary on our contemporary social, economic and political landscape. How can the novel be read as a contemporary critique? What else does the novel suggest about our current situation?
Related Titles
By Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
