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.
Character Analysis
Paul Proteus
Paul Proteus is the central protagonist of the story. Proteus’s name itself, which is taken from classical Greek mythology, suggests that he will be liable to be changing throughout the story. He begins the story as the manager of Ilium andthe son of a famous industrialist, with a beautiful wife and an upper-class life that seems to be set up for him. As the story develops, he abandons that life in favor of a simpler one. He struggles, however, to ever really find any agency in the novel. Even as the head of a revolutionary organization, he finds that decisions are made for him. By the end of the novel, he realizes that there should be a middle ground achieved between progress and human values.
Anita Proteus
Wife of Paul Proteus, Anita’s origins are humble. She was born in the Homestead area with others in the lower social strata. Her marriage to Paul Proteus was her chance to rise out of those beginnings. Anita, however, seems unable to see a ceiling that will satisfy her insatiable need for climbing the socioeconomic ladder. Interestingly, Anita has artistic proclivities, which the current mechanized system cannot account for; though she is unable to see that in the world Paul envisions, her art would be able to thrive. By the end of the novel, she’s left Paul for Doctor Shepherd.
Ed Finnerty
Along with Paul, Ed Finnerty was one of the founding members of the engineering corps that established Ilium’s dominance. Finnerty, however, never fit in well to the bureaucratic mindset of Ilium. He finds himself drawn more toward the outskirts of existence in Homestead, where the lower classes enjoy life. Finnerty considers suicide but finds Lasher’s organization gives him a purpose in life.
Doctor Kronus
The quintessential corporate elite, Doctor Kronus is a stalwart believer in the mechanized system that Paul’s father brought about. Kronus believes in Paul Proteus, and spends his time in the novel trying to steer Paul toward the path of careerist and manager. What Kronus values in his spare time, however, are antique things, though he cannot see the irony in this.
Reverend James J. Lasher
Lasher meets Paul and Finnerty at the saloon. He is a reverend and a former Doctor of Sociology, which is useless in the new system. Finnerty is taken in by his intelligence and worldview. Lasher becomes the acting leader of the Ghost Shirt Society.
The Shah of Bratpuhr
The Shah is visiting the United States on a mission to see the new industrial system and its benefits, so that the United States can sell their system to his country. The Shah, however, still believes in the old way of doing things and in a more spiritual existence. The reader is given the opportunity to see the dystopia though the eyes of the Shah, who appraises what he sees honestly, at times being inadvertently critical.
Ewing J. Halyard
The escort for the Shah, Halyard tries to rectify his sense of the society with the Shah’s. He grows frustrated trying to explain things to the Shah that the Shah cannot place. Halyard loses his degree and finds himself losing his sense of his whole life.
Lawson Shepherd
Doctor Shepherd is Paul’s antagonist in the novel, though not in the way Shepherd wishes. Paul has almost no interest in Shepherd’s attempts to undermine him. Shepherd is fiercely competitive. His only goal in the novel is to beat Paul, which—at least from his point of view—he does.
Related Titles
By Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
