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Chapter 29
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
Most of the people at Paul’s first Ghost Shirt Society meeting are from Homestead, but he recognizes a few people like Bud Calhoun and Katharine Finch. There is also Professor von Neumann, who used to teach political science at Union College until the social sciences building was replaced by a laboratory. The Society is based in Ilium but has factions all over the United States.
Paul has yet again found himself in a high position without really trying. He used to be the most powerful employee at the Ilium Works, despite the fact that he didn’t care about the job and had a rather effortless rise to power. Similarly, he now finds himself in a position of leadership in the Ghost Shirt Society, and even though this role is largely meaningless (the Society just wants people to recognize his name), it still illustrates his passive way of moving through life. In other words, he has yet to make a real decision about what he stands for: he became an informer for Kroner simply because he never objected, and now he has become the leader of the Ghost Shirt Society without doing anything to obtain the position.
Themes
Lasher runs the meeting, asking other members about the progress they’ve made on their respective tasks—all of which are intended to prepare the Society for an imminent revolution against the entire system of business and government that runs the country. Someday soon, all of the Ghost Shirt members in each state will march into the streets and destroy the factories. This will include destroying EPICAC—a task given to Bud Calhoun, who has been busy designing a way to blow up the important machine.
This scene reveals that the Ghost Shirt Society is planning a true revolution. All of Lasher’s talk about class war is finally going to come to fruition, as people like Bud Calhoun devote themselves to destroying society’s overreliance on machines. Given that EPICAC is responsible for calculating how many people the workforce needs, it’s especially fitting that Bud is tasked with blowing it up—after all, he lost his job because EPICAC no longer considered him useful or necessary.
Themes
At one point in the meeting, von Neumann reads a “warning letter” that has been sent out to a number of managers and engineers. The letter outlines the Society’s belief that machines have negatively impacted society, despite their efficiency. It also strongly upholds that people should return to their jobs “as controllers of machines,” and that any new forms of technological advancement should be considered in terms of how they will affect actual people. After all, the letter states, there is something to be admired about “imperfection,” since all humans are inevitably flawed. The letter is signed with Paul’s name.
The Ghost Shirt Society uses this letter as a way of announcing their main goal, which is to spotlight—and solve—the many societal problems that have arisen with automation. Perhaps the most important part of the letter comes when the society suggests that people are inherently prone to “imperfection.” Rather than trying to create a flawlessly streamlined country in which human error never interferes with productivity, the Ghost Shirts argue, the nation ought to embrace the fact that “imperfection” is simply part of life. This clearly goes against the nation’s obsession with efficiency, but allowing people to be flawed, the Ghost Shirts hope, would at least create a more humane, forgiving cultural environment.
Themes
The meeting comes to an abrupt end when somebody screams “Cops!” Suddenly, the sound of gunfire fills the air, and everyone frantically runs, grabbing important documents as they go. But Paul isn’t fast enough, and the police pin him to the floor. Thinking he must be an insignificant member of the Ghost Shirt Society, the officers tell him he’s crazy for sacrificing himself in an effort to protect someone like Paul Proteus, who is crazy. “Hell,” one of the officers says, “he’s got it in his head he’s gonna be king.”
The police officer’s comment about Paul shows that the Ghost Shirts’ letter has already made its way throughout society. Everyone now thinks Paul is the leader of this revolutionary movement. This is exactly what the Ghost Shirts wanted, but it’s also—ironically enough—what Kroner and Gelhorne wanted. Indeed, the whole point of fake-firing Paul was to enable him to infiltrate the Ghost Shirt Society and rise to the top, collecting secretive information as he went. And though it’s unlikely that Paul would actually inform on the Society, it’s still the case that he didn’t truly decide to join the Ghost Shirts—it just happened. This is yet another illustration of how infrequently he asserts himself when it comes to making decisions about his life.
Themes
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