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Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Player Piano, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Technology and Progress
Happiness, Self-Worth, and Passion
Class Division and Competition
Corporate Life vs. Human Connection
Summary
Analysis
The Shah of Bratpuhr—who is the “spiritual leader” of the “Kolhouri sect”—sits in a limousine with his translator, Khashdrahr Miasma. The two men are on a tour of the United States led by Doctor Ewing J. Halyard. The Shah has come to see what he might learn from the United States, and as the limousine slides through Ilium, New York, he asks where they are. Halyard explains that they’re about to go by the Ilium Works. While crossing the bridge over the Iroquois River, though, they slow to a stop as a group of workers fill a hole in the road. The Shah studies the workers and then asks (through Khashdrahr) who “owns these slaves.” Halyard explains that they’re not slaves, but citizens who controlled the machines at the Ilium Works before the war.
The Shah is an interesting character in Player Piano because both he and Khashdrahr provide readers with an alternate lens through which to examine this futuristic version of the United States. Neither the region of Bratpuhr nor the “Kolhouri sect” exist in real life, but the mere fact that the Shah is unfamiliar with this highly streamlined, mechanized American society makes it possible for the book to provide an outside perspective on the things that all the other characters in the book more or less take for granted. This, for example, is what happens when Khashdrahr assumes that the men working on the road are enslaved people. The implication is that this kind of difficult physical labor isn’t something anyone would ever choose to do. And, to a certain extent, this is actually true—the people working on the road used to have presumably easier jobs at the Ilium Works. Now that machines have taken over those positions, though, these workers have been forced into a harsher kind of physical labor. Their options for supporting themselves have become quite limited, suggesting that they don’t have as much freedom as Doctor Halyard might like to think.
Themes
These workers are no longer needed at the Ilium Works because the machines can control themselves. This creates “less waste” and “much better products.” Any laborer who can’t earn a living by doing a better job than a machine is hired by the government and placed into either the army or a public works organization called the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps. Their wages come from taxes on personal income and taxes on the machines. “Then the Army and the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps people put their money back into the system for more products for better living,” Halyard says.
What’s unique about the country’s economic structure is that the system has taken jobs away from people but also furnished them with new ones. This might seem like a good system, but it ultimately means that the workers aren’t actually invested in their jobs. Rudy Hertz, for example, took pride in his work as a machinist, so it’s unlikely he would feel fulfilled in a position that required him to do roadwork. Although this government-run system of employment might seem supportive, then, it still robs people of their sense of purpose in life.
Themes
Disgusted, the Shah calls this economic structure “Communism,” but Halyard fervently refutes this. He believes the country has greatly improved the lives of the “average man” by getting rid of human error and unnecessary competition. Khashdrahr asks Halyard what he means by “average man,” since there’s no translation for it. Halyard offers an explanation, but the Shah thinks he’s talking about “Takaru,” which in his language is the word for an enslaved person. Halyard insists that he’s referring to citizens, not enslaved people, but the Shah takes this to mean that the word “citizen” is English for “Takaru.” Intervening, Khashdrahr explains that, where they’re from, there are only two classes: the “Elite and the Takaru.”
Halyard believes that the United States has a very egalitarian power structure. The system of government, he thinks, makes it possible for everyone to lead a good life. What he ignores, though, is that the people serving in the army or working in the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps have been stripped of their passions, since machines have replaced them and forced them into undesirable jobs. Since these people don’t actually have many options available to them, they aren’t necessarily as free as Halyard would like to think—a fact that the Shah helps reveal when he refers to the workers as enslaved people, inadvertently highlighting the flawed social and economic structure in the United States.
Themes
The limousine encounters another Reclamation and Reconstruction crew doing roadwork. Their wheelbarrows are in the only open lane, so Halyard yells at them to clean up. When they finally listen to him, he chides them for taking too long, so one of them spits in his face as the limousine passes. As Halyard cleans himself off, assuring the Shah that this is an “isolated incident,” the Shah commiserates with him, saying that it’s “the same with Takaru everywhere.”
When the frustrated worker spits in Halyard’s face, the class division in this society becomes glaringly clear: Halyard is a member of the elite, and the man who spits in his face hates him because of this. Although Halyard has just tried to convince the Shah that the United States operates with an egalitarian social structure, this incident has revealed the deep-seated tensions between the disempowered physical laborers and the upper class. And this, in turn, suggests that the Shah isn’t so far off when he assumes that the entirety of the United States is separated into just two classes: those who are fortunate and those who are not.
Themes
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