Mother Night

Vonnegut’s declaration at the outset of his 1966 Introduction—“This is the only story of mine whose moral I know” (v)—positions Mother Night as an exploration of morals, and in particular as Vonnegut’s most pointed look at the question of moral responsibility. At the heart of the novel lies Campbell’s decision to broadcast antisemitic propaganda for the Nazis as a cover for the spy work he was doing for the US government. Campbell’s relatively quick decision to broadcast for the Nazis appears both flippant and deeply embedded within his character. He maintains a psychic distance from his actions, convincing himself that he is merely an actor playing a role. In this way he keeps his “true” self remote from the consequences of his “performance.” This coping method leads him to develop what he calls “schizophrenia”—not an actual mental health diagnosis in this case, but his way of describing the compartmentalization that allows him to live with himself. Campbell views himself as composed of several selves, and he is able to separate the self he thinks of as primary—the writer of the autobiography—from the other selves who created and disseminated such vitriolic hate, thus distancing himself from moral evaluation. Campbell’s major