So one thing we never really got around to talking about from the novel was the phrase goodbye blue monday. Vonnegut explains the phrase in the novel, what do you think is the purpose of the phrase within the social context of the novel?
So one thing we never really got around to talking about from the novel was the phrase goodbye blue monday. Vonnegut explains the phrase in the novel, what do you think is the purpose of the phrase within the social context of the novel?
goodbye blue monday…
In the novel the explanation is about how housewives wouldn’t have to do laundry anymore..and so there “mondays of being blue over laundry were over”.
I think this can be seen as a phrase that is allowing the characters to “let go” of their sorrows…
In other words, laundry is dirty, then we clean it, and there are no traces of the filth that used to be. This can be applied to Hoover, Hoobler, Trout and Bunny, his mom. etc..
We all have dirty laundry, that we should learn to simply say goodbye to, and let go.
Hoover in the book seems ruined by his son’s sexuality and wife’s suicide. Yet, the ppl of midland city pretend like he is normal, doing ok…
I agree with what li’l Naweezy said. We all have dirty laundry to take care of, and we do it in different ways. The book seems to be obsessed with the introduction of new medicines or ‘chemicals’ to treat our different ailments. Maybe Vonnegut is commenting on the way we’re getting past our ‘Blue Mondays.’ Maybe instead of turning to these new drugs, we should be looking at each other to make sure we spot the Dwaynes or others having a Blue Monday.
Goodbye Blue Monday seems to represent a form of Chaos. The phrase was written on a nuclear bomb.
The entire book seems to be written in a manner which can be summed up best by Vonnegut’s own words “if the accident will”.
Vonnegut had the idea of satirizing all of america including himself and his writings and the best way to do that was to just start throwing ideas onto paper.
Vonnegut denounced books that “make people believe that life had leading characters, minor characters, significant details, that it has lessons to be learned, tests to be passed, and a beginning, a middle, and an end,” But chaos is not only the way in which Vonnegut writes, it is also what Vonnegut writes about.
I interpreted the goodbye blue Monday phrase as being a way of acknowledging that while every one has days when they are feeling blue, there will always be other days of the week. It is the understanding that there will always be transitions from ones current state to another, and that the moment you’re in is bound to change. I think the fact that it was written on the nuclear bomb speaks to it as being a type of transition. Those types of bombs have the ability to completely disintegrate everything within several kilometers, allowing for a complete reset. It completely eliminates all the good and bad from the area and make for the beginning of a brand new day.
Quite obviously, Breakfast of Champions has strong themes about mental disorder. I agree with Alex and Nawell, that Goodbye Blue Monday is Vonnegut’s commentary on society’s dependence on chemical fixes for mental disorders. Almost every person I know is or at one time has been on some form of perscription medication for common curable(without medication) mental disorders like insomnia and depression. I think we have too many drug pushing doctors these days, because first and foremost as a treatment for depression especially is a healthy diet and exercise. However, as a society we have become lazy, and prefer chemical fixes for our problems, rather than getting off our asses and doing something about it ourselves. Vonnegut touches on this with the idea of robots that would do all the “nigger” work. Before machines, white people were so lazy that they made black people do their work, and in the future they will make robots do it.
I agree with most of what is said above… especially Juval’s point about chaos. It is such a massive part of all of Vonnegut’s books… the whole rejection of this stereotypical story where readers have the chance to believe in something beyond reality.
Through the chaos, we don’t feel comfortable. We don’t really have the room to draw parallels between our own lives and the novel because things just seem so unfamiliar. It makes the reader more focused on what Vonnegut is trying to say.