Mother Night

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1961

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Introduction-Editor’s Note

Chapters 1-9

Chapters 10-19

Chapters 20-29

Chapters 30-39

Chapters 40-45

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Hiding

The motif of hiding runs throughout Mother Night, beginning with Vonnegut’s stated moral “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be” (v). The act of pretending to be something suggests a denial of a ‘true’ self elsewhere, so as often as the motif of hiding arises in the novel, so does that of wanting to be free. The image of Campbell perpetually waiting for the absolving call of “Olly-olly-ox-in-free” (24) is an enduring one for his character, and one he returns to throughout the work, almost clinging to the hope that should he hear the call, his ‘true’ self will emerge, and he can cast aside the Nazi he is pretending to be.

Campbell is not alone, however; virtually all the novel’s characters are hiding aspects of themselves. In order to understand these characters, the reader must reflect not on the outward clues they offer, but also on the inner motivations they hide. Campbell, of course, rejects such peering, and presents his motivations as shallow, though in writing his Confessions, he acknowledges that he has spent his life hiding, and though the life he leads is a sham, it is also the only truth he has. The eventual call he receives comes from an unexpected source: The White Christian Minuteman, a racist publication that, in its admiration for him, strips him of his anonymity and forces him to face punishment for the identity he hides behind. It is only when Campbell finally realizes the depth of his responsibility that the hidden part of himself, Kham-Boo, is finally named and revealed.

Uniforms

Every time a character is wearing a uniform, Campbell takes pains to describe it. This is not out of place in a military setting, particularly as several different characters in several different uniforms appear, but Campbell’s attention to the details of each is significant to his character. Campbell mentions that O’Hare wears an American Legion uniform (245), while detailing a conversation about Krapptauer’s Iron Guard, who have special buttonholes sewn-in by their mothers (173). As uniforms are straightforward representations of who people are, they may be comforting to a man who traffics in such slippery identities. However, while uniforms suggest the public selves that people pretend to be, they also smack of outright patriotism, something Campbell is deeply suspicious of throughout the work.

In contrast to this, Campbell’s self-designed uniform is uniquely suited to him alone. When given the chance to describe it to Werner Noth, Campbell focuses on its tiniest details, including the mistaken stars of David in the place of American stars (98). Campbell’s uniform is a mishmash of beliefs, contradictory, suggesting the inner turmoil of the self perhaps more clearly than he would like. Campbell’s rootlessness is revealed in the uniform, which, with its swirl of symbols and allegiances, is more like the performance of a uniform, rather than one dedicated to a certain identity.

Campbell’s Trunk

The trunk Bodoskov recovers from a theatre in Berlin, containing all of Campbell’s pre-war writing, stands as a useful symbol for Campbell himself. At first, it appears to be an overflowing treasure chest, filled with the productions of his idealistic youth and brimming with the potential of that age. Campbell and Helga’s entire erotic lives are contained within, as are all the plays that made his name and the poems that charted his course from idealism to hopelessness in the face of Nazi rule. It is even inscribed with Campbell’s last poem, which paints him as empty, wandering across the earth while the trunk, his heart, remains firmly in place (124). But when Resi brings the manuscripts to him in New York, the trunk comes to suggest the distance Campbell has placed between his past, before becoming a propaganda agent, and his present self. Thinking of the trunk, he can only compare it to “a coffin” (123).

The trunk also becomes an analog for Campbell when Bodoskov presents Campbell’s writing as his own, performing Campbell’s identity for years, only failing when Bodoskov attempts to speak for himself. Bodoskov’s fate even seems to hint at Campbell’s own, in which one finally faces consequences for the work they have done. As Campbell’s trunk molders in a Moscow basement, Campbell’s heart and full representation once again rest in the hands of an enemy government who have his words to use as they please.