Okay, But What Does it Mean?: The Creation of Communicative Art as a Function of Ethics in Vonnegut’s Bluebeard

Kurt Vonnegut’s work calls into question communication usually in the form of its futility. Sometimes it is a function of the action of the novel, as at the end of Slaughterhouse-Five or throughout Slapstick where birds asks “Poo-tee-weet?” (Slaughterhouse-Five 215) and “Whip poor will?” (Slapstick 217) mocking the absurdity of our own attempt to communicate. Other times it is a function of the narrator or the authorial persona who hovers over the vast majority of Vonnegut’s work, daring his readers to attempt to understand what he is saying. But at the heart of the parodies, the ironies, the unreliability, lies something that is communicative. Vonnegut’s 1987 novel, Bluebeard, addresses the question of meaning in art and develops an ethics of art creation. The novel questions the line between the autotelic and the communicative function of art and uses the blurred distinction as a symbol for not only the ability of human beings to create meaning within the unexplainable but their ethical responsibility to do so.

The novel takes the form of an autobiography written by an Abstract Expressionist. The writing of the autobiography, however, also takes place as part of the time and plot of the novel. The narrator, Rabo Karabekian, can be described as a changing narrator. He gives the reader flashbacks about his life amidst the telling of what is happening as he is writing the autobiography. He begins the novel believing that, as Oscar Wilde writes in the preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray, “All art is quite useless,” (2) meaning that it is autotelic—it is an end in itself. Karabekian begins his autobiography not just with the first moments of his life but also with the first moments of the “life” of the book itself. He points to his life story as artistic creation: “I was born of immigrant parents in San Ignacio, California, in 1916. I begin this autobiography seventy-one years later” (Vonnegut 1). Karabekian spends the first chapter giving a brief overview of his entire life up to the point that he is writing his autobiography. He keeps “the most important collection of Abstract Expressionist paintings still in private hands” inside his house, and tells the reader

Since I have done no useful work for decades, what else am I, really, but a paid museum guard? And, just as a paid museum guard would have to do, I answer as best I can the question put to me by visitor after visitor, stated in various ways, of course: ‘What are these pictures supposed to mean?’ These paintings, which are about absolutely nothing but themselves, were my own property long before I married Edith. (8-9)

Karabekian’s view of his own art, when he begins writing his autobiography, is that it is completely autotelic. Within much of Vonnegut’s work, however, it is often difficult to pin down the narrator—to decide whether or not he is reliable and at what times he is offering the reader parody or irony or treating a subject with sincerity. I argue that Karabekian does parody himself and his art at times, but ultimately this parody serves to transform him from believing his art is meaningless to creating communicative art as a function of ethical responsibility.

I use the term “ethical responsibility” in the Levinasian sense. Levinas argues that ethical responsibility must precede the search for knowledge; it is “first philosophy” (Totality and Infinity). He writes in Alterity and Transcendence that, “To address someone expresses the ethical disturbance produced in me, in the tranquility of the perseverance of my being, in my egotism as a necessary state, by the interruption of the ‘conatus essendi’ [effort to be] (Levinas’ translation) (97). This “someone,” or Other, is what constitutes ethical behavior. Without addressing the Other, one becomes self-absorbed, egotistical. For Levinas, the Other is not knowable. That is, we cannot know the quality of otherness of someone else (Totality and Infinity). In Levinasian ethics, the subject’s responsibility is to the Other—not to himself as in Kantian ethics. Ethics is something outside of subjectivity just as the Other is. Based on this explanation, I will examine art as a form of addressing the Other—that it must always address the Other lest it cease to be. That is, when the viewer encounters art, he or she is addressed by the piece. If there is no one to encounter a piece, it can never be in the sense that no one will ever see it or have knowledge of its existence. This, of course, can bring into question the piece of art that is hidden, with its replications still visible. Seeing the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is certainly a much different experience than seeing a printed copy of it, scaled to a manageable size. However, both address the viewer but perhaps in different ways. I am not concerned, therefore, with Walter Benjamin’s discussion of the mechanical replication of art and the diminished value that those replications have (1167). Those replications still address their viewers. There is a reciprocal element to this as well. The viewer is Other to the artist and his art, while those two must also be Other to the viewer. Therefore, we can understand interpretation as communication with the Other as well. It is also part of ethical responsibility because the viewer must address the art as Other—it is not fully knowable.

Rabo Karabekian is altered throughout the novel both as character within his autobiography and also outside that story in the moments of “the present” (though told in past tense)—while he is writing the autobiography. Primarily, two characters are responsible for Karabekian’s change: Circe Berman and Dan Gregory. Berman is a stranger at the beginning—someone Karabekian meets on the beach outside his home. She becomes a houseguest indefinitely and wants to question everything Karabekian thinks he knows about art. He tells her that the titles of his paintings such as “ ‘Opus Nine’ and ‘Blue and Burnt Orange’ [. . .] ‘are meant to be uncommunicative’” (Vonnegut, Bluebeard 38). Berman then asks him a very important question: “ ‘What’s the point of being alive,’ [. . .] ‘if you’re not going to communicate?’” (39). It isn’t that she thinks Karabekian’s painting is utterly worthless because she sees it as meaningless; rather, it bothers her that Karabekian thinks he can attempt to create something that does not communicate. Her question, in its own simply way, echoes Levinas’ claim above. The confrontation with the Other—the artist’s expression in the form of painting which addresses the Other—demands communication.

Karabekian is affected by his first mentor Dan Gregory as well. Gregory instructs him to paint a picture of his studio “ ‘the way it really is’ ” (148). Karabekian tells the reader: “Did I make a painting of his studio which was virtually indistinguishable from a photograph? Yes, I did, yes I did” (154). But when Gregory examines it, he tells Karabekian that it has “ ‘No soul’” (163). The “present” Karabekian, as narrator, admits that if his paintings were hung posthumously and the people he was closest to were to come see them, “not one of them would find any reason to think about [him] except randomly. There would not be a trace of their dear departed Rabo Karabekian” (164). Gregory’s use of the word soul does not necessarily imply something transcendent, but rather that Karabekian failed to attempt to put some part of himself inside the painting—he failed to try to make his painting say something. This does not mean, however, that his painting communicates nothing at all; rather, Karabekian failed to attempt communication, which is incumbent upon him in his interaction with the Other. It is a part of his ethical responsibility. Also, it is important to note that this does not mean that whatever Karabekian (or Vonnegut or any artist for that matter) intends to communicate becomes what it does communicate. As Foucault points out, “[Writing] only refers to itself, yet it is not restricted to the confines of interiority. On the contrary, we recognize it in its exterior deployment. This reversal transforms writing into an interplay of signs, regulated less by the content it signifies than by the very nature of the signifier” (116). Foucault’s explanation can easily be extended to visual art. He is reminding us of the free play of the signifier—that signified meanings cannot be attached to signifiers concretely or permanently. Therefore, the emphasis is not on what Karabekian should try to communicate but that he merely try to communicate something. It is then incumbent upon the viewer to communicate back meaning—to create meaning.

Karabekian continues to deny this responsibility to attempt communication, however. Gregory tells him: “ ‘Painters—and storytellers, including poets and playwrights and historians. [. . .] They are the justices of the Supreme Court of Good and Evil, of which I am now a member, and to which you may belong someday!’” (Vonnegut 150). Karabekian despises such a sentiment. He addresses the reader directly, saying: “How was that for delusions of moral grandeur! Yes, and now that I think about it: maybe the most admirable thing about the Abstract Expressionist painters, since so much senseless bloodshed had been caused by cockeyed history lessons, was their refusal to serve on such a court” (150). Based on a Levinasian conception of ethics, Karabekian’s statement is somewhat problematic. But there is a balance struck here between two parodies. Gregory’s conclusion about the responsibility of artists is a bit overstated, but it is not completely inaccurate. Because he recognizes that communication with the Other is part of ethical responsibility, he feels artists are the ones who get to communicate messages of good and evil in accessible ways to the Other. Karabekian sees this as a bit morally presumptuous and rightfully so. However, in his denunciation, he also praises himself and the Abstract Expressionists for not communicating at all and thus averting more “senseless bloodshed,” which also can be read as morally presumptuous.

Karabekian continues to shun his ethical responsibility as an artist even until the very last few pages of the novel. The Karabekian as character in his life story has taken his old paintings, which have all peeled away to reveal the original white canvas, and hung them in a barn. They are supposed to become his masterpiece, but he decides to leave them white. He tells Edith, his wife at the time, that it is done. When she asks him what he will title it, he tells her he will call it “ ‘I Tried and Failed and Cleaned Up Afterwards, so It’s Your Turn Now’” (292). Even as an Abstract Expressionist, he could not convince others that his painting was autotelic. Earlier, in an exchange of letters with his friend the Countess Portomaggiore, she tells him that the Abstract Expressionists have “failed to paint pictures of nothing after all, that she easily identifies chaos in every canvas”; Karabekian brushes this off as “a pleasant joke” and writes back “ ‘NOT EVEN CHAOS IS SUPPOSED TO BE THERE [. . .] WE’LL COME OVER AND PAINT IT OUT’” (257). Karabekian tries to claim this as a joke, but the statement is ultimately unreliable because the communicative nature of art continues to consume him as demonstrated in his titling of the white canvases. The title of the white canvases illustrates how overwhelmed Karabekian feels with the task of trying to make his art autotelic—he is discovering that he cannot.

By the end of the novel, past and present time in the story have met, and Karabekian is ready to accept his responsibility. Circe Berman finally convinces him to show her his masterpiece in the barn. He did not leave it white. Rather, he has painted an impressive and detailed image of thousands of people in a valley. Karabekian tells Berman that it is a painting of where he was “ ‘when the sun came up the day the Second World War ended in Europe’” (298). He knows the story behind every person. Berman tells him that it is “ ‘a terribly important painting in someway’” (310). Neither Berman nor Karabekian feel as though he needs to know exactly what it means—what is important for Karabekian is that he has finally attempted to communicate through his art. This piece contains his soul.

Later, when people ask him what the painting means, he tells them “ ‘It isn’t a painting at all! It’s a tourist attraction! It’s a World’s Fair! It’s a Disneyland!’” (299). While this can be read as Karabekian parodying and disparaging his own work, that does not mean that he has not held up his ethical responsibility. He has recognized the responsibility of his art to communicate, but it is the viewer’s responsibility to communicate back—to interpret. Karabekian can say his painting means whatever he wants it to—but his interpretation, whether ridiculous or serious, has no weight. Therefore, Karabekian is not poking fun at his own work, but rather his inability to interpret his own work.

The novel itself can be seen as a communicative object which ironically contests its status as such. Karabekian continually inserts instances of coincidence. After relating these, he addresses the reader directly, writing: “What a coincidence! But that is all it is. One mustn’t take such things too seriously” (199) and later writes “One would soon go mad if one took such coincides too seriously. One might be led to suspect that there were all sorts of things going on in the Universe which he or she did not thoroughly understand” (229). Read as satire, these statements support art as communicative because they parody the belief that everything is meaningless. Karabekian comes to discover that the coincidences in his life make him who he is. He discusses some events of his life as fated. He writes: “I was obviously born to draw better than most people” (81). He writes about the “fateful truck trip” that he and Terry Kitchen take to see check on the potato barn that Karabekian eventually creates his masterpiece in. These events are coincidence just like the other ones which Karabekian says the reader cannot pay attention to. The novel becomes a metaphorical abstract expressionist painting, full of seemingly random brush strokes and splatters—on the surface, meaningless. Thus, the reader is prompted to attempt to uphold his ethical responsibility to the work and interpret.

Works Cited

Benjamin, Walter. “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leicht. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001. 1167-87.

Foucault, Michel. “What Is an Author?” Language, Counter Memory, Practice. Ed. Donald F. Bouchard. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1977.

Levinas, Emmanuel. Alterity and Transcendence. 1995. Trans. Michael B. Smith. New York: Columbia UP, 1999.
—. Totality and Infinity. Pittsburg: Duquense University Press, 1969.

Vonnegut, Kurt. Bluebeard. 1987. New York: Dial Press, 2006.
—. Slapstick. 1976. New York: Dial Press, 2006.
—. Slaughterhouse-Five. 1969. New York: Dell Publishing, 1991.

Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. 1890. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003.