Love and Charity: A Biblical Humanistic Study of Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You Mr. Rosewater

Abstract

This paper attempts to see how Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater offers biblical humanism as an antidote to the self-centred attitude that plagues human society. Here Vonnegut is suggesting that a combination of the biblical tenets of charity and love together is the hope for the future. While humanism emphasised individualism, the Gospels insists on individual acts of charity and love. So, a biblical humanism demonstrated through individualised acts of love and charity can counteract the sufferings caused by greed-driven selfish behaviours that are responsible for most of the private and social ills. Vonnegut in this novel through two opposite characters Eliot Rosewater and Norman Mushari demonstrates how love and greed are always antithetical to each other and how the former needs to prevail. Here Vonnegut covertly and at times, explicitly seeks to underpin this theme with the help of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount.