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Chapter 5: Letter From an Unknown Hero
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Sirens of Titan, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Free Will vs. External Control
Religion and the Search for Meaning
Wealth, Power, and Inequality
Human Intelligence, Foolishness, and Hubris
Summary
Analysis
In order to get to the location where the fleet of army spaceships are waiting, the Martian Army must march six miles, crossing the northwest border of Phoebe. Eighty-seven thousand people live in the city, and everyone who lives there is in some way employed in the war effort. Unk is marching in front of Boaz. Unk is distracted; he is holding a live grenade. The pin has been pulled, and as soon as Unk lets go of it, it will explode. Boaz reminds Unk that he has arranged it so that they will both be placed onboard the company mother ship, meaning they will avoid combat. Unk throws the grenade into a nearby sewer, and all the soldiers immediately dive for cover.
Unlike the increasingly courageous Unk, Boaz is cowardly. He doesn’t feel any real sense of loyalty to his fellow men or to the army, but instead just wants to keep himself safe. At the same time, a person can hardly be fully blamed for possessing this survival instinct in such dystopian and hopeless circumstances.
Themes
Boaz forces all the soldiers to stand, but at this moment, Unk disappears on a mission to find his family and best friend. Unk’s son, Chrono, is eight Earth years old. There 21 months in the Martian year, and Chrono was named after the month in which he was born. Other months are named things like “Winston,” “Rumfoord,” “Kazak,” “Infundibulum,” and “Salo.” The month Salo is named after a “creature” whom Rumfoord knows from Titan. Salo has been stranded on Titan for 200,000 years, waiting for a replacement part for his spaceship. The ship is fueled by the most powerful force in the universe, the Universal Will to Become (UWTB).
Although Salo is only mentioned in passing here, he will become a key character later in the novel. Indeed, this is one of several instances when future events of the novel are briefly alluded to. This helps create the impression that, as Rumfoord puts it, linear time is an illusion and everything is happening at once. This, in turn, implies that everything that happens is predetermined and that free will is an illusion.
Themes
Chrono is a talented German batball player. He is one of only 52 children on Mars, where there is only one school. No child has been conceived on Mars; Chrono himself was conceived on a spaceship which was bringing new recruits from Earth. German batball is a little like baseball, with key differences. Like everything on Mars, the game is Rumfoord’s doing. Unk, now “the only deserter in the history of the Army of Mars,” watches a group of schoolchildren playing batball. He doesn’t know which one is Chrono, but at that moment, someone shouts Chrono’s name. Unk watches as a small, black-haired boy comes up to bat.
It is becoming increasingly clear that everything about the Martian Army—and Martian civilization itself—has been designed by Rumfoord in what appears to be a sick, megalomaniacal experiment over which he exercises total control.
Themes
The children’s teacher, a 73-year-old woman named Isabel Fernstermaker, is acting as umpire. Before having her memory wiped on Mars, she was a Jehovah’s Witness. While he plays, Chrono kisses his “good-luck piece,” a little strip of metal he keeps in his pocket. Chrono plays spectacularly. He acquired his good-luck piece during a school trip to the flamethrower factory. While the manager was giving the children a tour of the factory, his leg was wounded by a metal spiral, which tore his trousers. Annoyed, the manager stamped on the spiral, but it managed to scratch him again, at which point he vengefully chopped it into pieces using metal shears. The children were dazzled by this, and Chrono picked up one of the shards, which became his good-luck piece.
The story of the good-luck piece might seem insignificant, but the fact that its origin is described in so much detail serves as a hint to the reader that it will come to play an important role later in the novel. Indeed, the good-luck piece symbolizes how a seemingly accidental or insignificant turn of events can be far more pivotal than anyone could possibly foresee.
Themes
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Unk marches over to Miss Fernstermaker and tells her that he needs to speak to Chrono on “official business.” Speaking alone with Chrono in his classroom, Unk tells him about what he knows, but Chrono dismisses this as “baloney.” Chrono mentions that when he is 14, he will have an antenna installed in his head and then his choices won’t matter anyway. Chrono claims to be the only person he knows who isn’t “full of baloney.” Unk dramatically reveals that he is Chrono’s father, but Chrono doesn’t care. He tells Unk to “go to hell” and asks if he can return to the batball game.
Chrono’s cold and unsympathetic reaction to Unk’s revelation shows the devastating impact that living in a totalitarian society can have on people, including children. It is not that Chrono doesn’t know about the horrible future that awaits him—he just seems numbed by its inevitability. The only source of joy he has is batball, and thus this is the only thing he wants to do.
Themes
Unk says he wants to take Chrono in a spaceship and fly away to “some place good.” Chrono remains unconvinced and Unk begins to cry, but Chrono simply runs back to the game of batball. Chrono’s mother, Bee, is a teacher at the Schliemann Breathing School for Recruits. Schliemann breathing lets humans survive in low-oxygen environments. It involves taking oxygen pills, which on Mars are nicknamed “goofballs.” Bee teaches inside a windowless room. Her class has just taken their goofballs. They are listening to a pirated version of a popular Earth song called “God Is Our Interior Decorator.”
Again, Chrono seems to have resigned himself to his fate and is skeptical that Unk can offer him an escape. Given Rumfoord’s prophecy about Constant and Beatrice having a child together, it’s clear that Chronos’s mother, Bee, is actually Beatrice. This further confirms the inevitably of fate in the novel, as it seems that Constant and Beatrice were predestined. On another note, It is perhaps important that many of the names in the novel—Helmholtz, Fernstermaker, Schliemann—are German. Vonnegut himself was descended from German immigrants, but he also ended up fighting against the Germans and being captured and imprisoned by them. In this sense, Vonnegut seems to be aligning the Martians’ cruelty with that of the Germans during World War II.
Themes
The 17 recruits in Bee’s classroom have just had their memories wiped and antennae fitted, and their “eyes [are] as empty as the windows of abandoned textile mills.” Bee’s eyes are similarly empty, as she has also just had her memory wiped. The only memory she was allowed to keep was the knowledge that she has a son, whom she is allowed to visit on Tuesday evenings. Presently, she conducts the exercise for her recruits. Bee was originally sent to the hospital because she showed her supervisor a sonnet she wrote about Schliemann breathing.
The fact that Bee wrote a sonnet—even one about her banal job—indicates that her personality has not been entirely erased, as she was a poet on Earth. Like Unk’s recollection of MoonMist Cigarettes, the sonnet Bee wrote suggests that there is potential for her to override the controls that have been placed on her.
Themes
There is a knock at the classroom dor. A man announces himself as a “Messenger” with a “Message for Bee.” The man, Unk, asks her if she recognizes him, and she says she doesn’t. However, she confirms that she is Chrono’s mother. In a whisper, Unk says that he is Chrono’s father, and that he is going to get her and Chrono out. He hands over a hand grenade, telling her to conceal it so that she can use it when she needs to. The recruits start yelling that Unk is a “deserter” and try to apprehend Unk. However, he points a rifle at them and tells them to back away. Realizing that there is nowhere to hide, Unk strips off his uniform and disappears into the crowd of Bee’s students; he is now indistinguishable from them.
Unk’s rescue mission seems doomed to fail considering that every single person on Mars has been brainwashed into remaining loyal to the military regime. Indeed, like the real commanders who hide in plain sight among the soldiers, perhaps Unk’s only option is to pretend to obey while really attempting to execute his rebellion.
Themes
Bee places the grenade in the same spot where Unk put his rifle and tries to calmly resume teaching her class. She knows that if she doesn’t focus on her work she will be put in hospital again. However, as she watches Unk, she realizes that he has not ingested a goofball and that he will thus soon pass out from lack of oxygen. This will reveal Unk as the odd one out without Bee having to do anything. Calmly, Bee thinks about a little girl dressed in white and wearing a white pony. She is confused, wondering who the little girl is.
Bee does not necessarily want to obey the commands of the army—however, her confusion and desire not to be put in the hospital again paralyzes her, such that she actively inhibits Unk’s plans. This again reiterates the difficulty of asserting free will in the face of external control.
Themes
Unk wakes up to find that he is on the bunk of a spaceship. Someone has put his uniform back on him. He throws up. Looking around, he reasons that he seems to still be on Mars. A dog barks, and he hears a man shout, “Kazak!” A man (Rumfoord) comes in and greets Unk, asking Unk who he is. Unk thinks it must be Stony, but when he guesses this, Rumfoord laughs and says that he wishes he could see Stony again. Rumfoord notes that Unk’s regiment are currently going into battle, and asks if Unk is embarrassed not to be among them. Rumfoord tells Unk that the military police brought him there, and Unk starts to cry, realizing that he has been “defeated.”
This passage confirms that Rumfoord has been in control all along. Yet the fact that he appears to have rescued Unk—or at least, has not let him be put back in the military hospital or die from lack of oxygen—indicates that he may have plans for Unk other than sending him to die in the war with Earth.
Themes
Rumfoord is “commander-in-chief of everything Martian.” He tells Unk that the most tragic love story of all time happened on Mars, and then proceeds to tell it. The story begins with an Earth man volunteering to be recruited as lieutenant-colonel in the Martian Army. Although the recruit does not yet have an antenna installed, he is so loyal to the army that he is afforded a lot of freedom on the spaceship as it headed to Mars. However, the crew of the ship explains that the recruit is not allowed to enter one particular room, which contains “the most beautiful woman ever taken to Mars,” insisting that he will not be able to prevent himself from falling in love with her.
One of the questions raised in this chapter is whether it is better to voluntarily pledge loyalty to a regime like the Martian Army or be forced to do so. Again, this hearkens back to Vonnegut’s own decision to voluntarily enlist in the military rather than be forced to do so. Of course, those who do voluntarily pledge loyalty in this case are often given extra benefits and freedoms. Yet if the price for this is one’s own dignity, is it really worth it?
Themes
The recruit wants to show off his own self-discipline, and thus he sneaks into the woman’s room while the rest of the officers are having a “drinking party” and forces himself on her while she is “weak with terror and sedatives.” The lieutenant-colonel feels bad, and his feelings become even worse when he realizes that he recognizes the woman as someone he knew back on Earth. Overwhelmed with guilt, and having learned that the woman is pregnant, the lieutenant-colonel attempts to make her love him. He tries over and over, but it never works.
It is heavily implied that the lieutenant-colonel is Unk and the woman is Beatrice. Rumfoord’s story indicates that Unk raped Beatrice, yet this isn’t really dwelled upon—perhaps because The Sirens of Titan was written in 1959. Such casual treatment of rape speaks to the era in which the book was written, when sexual violence against women was often framed in a dismissive, casual manner.
Themes
While Rumfoord is telling Unk this story, Boaz appears at the company mother ship, having been searching for Unk in Phoebe. There, Boaz spots Rumfoord and Unk. Boaz says that they must “catch up,” because the soldiers won’t want to go into battle without a mother ship. Rumfoord says that they should want to anyway “for the privilege of being the first army that ever died in a good cause,” but when Boaz asks Rumfoord to explain what he means, Rumfoord dismisses the question and tells Unk and Boaz to start up the ship. Rumfoord then tells Unk that the woman from the story had been married for many years on Earth, but that when the lieutenant-colonel met her on the spaceship, she was still a virgin.
Again, the dramatic revelation that Beatrice was still a virgin despite being married to Rumfoord is perhaps surprising to a contemporary reader, but would likely have different implications for someone reading in the 1950s. It's possible that Beatrice’s virginity may have cast doubts about Rumfoord’s manhood and dignity, since having sex with a woman is a stereotypical marker of masculinity.
Themes
