Wirtanen makes it clear that he knows precisely who Howard is, and the favor his plays enjoy by members of the Nazi party and asks Howard to become an American agent during the coming war. He marries a German actress, Helga, and works relatively successfully as a dramatist when he is confronted by an agent of the U.S. However, once the Nazis begin their rise to political power in the late 1930’s Howard’s parents decide to leave Germany, while he decides to remain.
He was born in Schenectady New York, on February 16, 1912, and his father worked as a technician for General Electric at first solely within the United States, but eventually moved the family to Germany when Howard was 11. He refers to Goebbels specifically as his boss, and casually mentions the many connections he had to high-ranking Nazi officials who were the main patrons of his art.įollowing a brief description of the newness of the prison he’s being held in, and of the various guards meant to look after him, Howard launches into his personal autobiography. It is revealed that Howard was first a playwright and later began composing Nazi radio propaganda while living in Germany.
MOTHER NIGHT KURT VONNEGUT ARCHIVE
He appears to be composing his memoirs at the request of the Director of the Haifa Institute for the Documentation of War Criminals who is eager to add to the archive instances of “Nazi villainy” and has given Howard a typewriter and various other resources in order to aid him in this pursuit.
MOTHER NIGHT KURT VONNEGUT TRIAL
The novel opens as Howard languishes in a prison in Israel, awaiting a fair trial for the war crimes he is accused of committing during the Second World War.
Vonnegut uses metafiction to slip between the “present day” Howard in which he’s telling his story, and the “past” Howard where he’s living the events as they unfold.
It is a first-person account narrated by Howard of his life prior, during and immediately following World War II, which is the major set piece of Howard’s life and what gives him the occasion to write his story down in the first place. Campbell Jr., who also appears briefly in one of Vonnegut’s other novels, Slaughterhouse-5. Mother Night, a Kurt Vonnegut novel published and set in 1961, presents itself as a fictionalized memoir of Howard W.
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