Today Kurt Vonnegut is regarded as one of the foremost authors of American science fiction. His writing spans a wide array of works, including seminal novels such as Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat’s Cradle. In addition to his longer work, Vonnegut is recognized for an array of short fiction. His work D.P. is one of the most notable of his shorter works. This work, like much of Vonnegut’s writing, is set in World War II. The story traces a black German orphan searching for his father. D.P. contains an array of literary techniques. This essay specifically examines Vonnegut’s implementation of the themes of belonging, place, and identity.
From the very outset, identity is established as a prominent theme. In this way, the story’s setting is a German World War II orphanage. This is a significant setting as it allows Vonnegut to explore the lives of individuals with conflicting identities, most prominently Joe. Vonnegut writes, “The village carpenter…always came out of his shop to…speculate, with idlers his shop attracted, the nationalities of the passing kid’s parents” and “See the little French girl…look at the flash of those eyes” (Vonnegut 132). In this way, the setting is highly unique. While it is a German orphanage, it is contained in a zone of American occupation. Additionally, the children contained in the orphanage have traits of differing nationalities, such as skin color, accents, or unique hair, however many of them speak German. In this context, Vonnegut greatly complicates traditional notions of identity, as the children in this orphanage exhibit conflicting backgrounds. There is further consideration of the time of the story occurring in World War II. As such, the atrocities of war can be viewed as creating an existential crisis that demands traditional boundaries of identity be reimagined.
The themes of belonging and place are further advanced in Vonnegut’s characterization of Joe. In fact, it is clear that Joe is a highly complex character. Vonnegut writes, “His name, chosen arbitrarily by the nuns was Karl Heinz. But the carpenter had given him a name that stuck, the name of the only colored man who had ever made an impression of the villager’s minds, the former heavyweight champion of the world Joe Louis” (Vonnegut 132). Clearly, Joe embodies a highly conflicted identity. While he has been given a notably German name – Karl Heinz – his skin color places him at odds with typical German culture. Additionally, Joe’s position as an outsider has led to his being imbued with a characteristic black American name – Joe Louis. Ultimately, in this characterization, Vonnegut is deconstructing notions of identity and forces the reader and Joe alike to consider exactly what constitutes a ‘self’.
The themes of place and belonging are prominently implemented in terms of Joe’s own questioning of his background. While Joe is told by the nuns that his parental lineage is unknown, his suspicions are aroused when a boy Peter tells him that his mother was German and his father was American; notably, this multi-ethnic lineage – American and German – further complicates Joe’s identity. In terms of the theme of place, Joe begins to question the very nature of America and being an American. Vonnegut clarifies, “’ What is an American?’ Joe said. ‘It is a person from another country.’ ‘Near here?’ ‘There are some near here, but their homes are far, far away – across a great deal of water.’ ‘Like the river?’ ‘More water than that Joe. More water than you could ever see” (Vonnegut 133). This dialogue allows Vonnegut the opportunity to construct a meditation on the notion of place. While Joe asks a simple question, one recognizes the nun’s difficulty in providing an objective answer; rather, the nun must resort to a location, rather than an intrinsic form of being ‘American’. Again there is the consideration of the story’s context being World War II. This war featured the deaths of millions of people based largely on the arbitrary bounds of place. One considers Jews were placed in concentration camps for their ethnicity and mass combat occurred, based on divisions of the country. Through Joe and these thematic meditations on place, identity, and belonging Vonnegut is then able to trivialize these dividing barriers that had been used as a justification of global war.
As the story’s narrative advances, it seems that Vonnegut considers more instinctual notions of belonging and identity. While Joe has been told that his parents are unknown he has a pervasive belief that he can locate them. When a Black American soldier comes near the camp, he determines that this person is his father. The main linkage between Joe and this soldier is their skin color, but perhaps more prominently is Joe’s strong search for belonging through finding his parent. While the story had previously considered notions of identity and place in terms of location, hair type, accent, and eyes, for Joe the most overarching concern is locating his actual parents. At the story’s conclusion Joe attempts to convince Peter that the soldier actually is his father; Joe states, “’ Because he cried when he left me,’ said Joe. ‘And he promised to bring me back home across the water as fast as he could.’ He smiled airily. ‘Not like the river – Peter. Across more water, than you’ve ever seen” (Vonnegut 139). While it is difficult to determine if the soldier is actually Joe’s father, at the least, he appears to have sympathized with Joe. Ultimately then it seems that Vonnegut is indicating that the most primal determinant of identity and belonging is love and the parental bond.
Conclusively, this essay has examined Kurt Vonnegut’s short story D.P. in terms of its implementation of the themes of identity, place, and belonging. Specifically, the story presents a thematic meditation on these themes through the displaced orphan Joe. Ultimately, the story’s deconstruction of these notions sheds light upon the arbitrary nature of much global conflict. Additionally, it attests to the powerful and consuming search for personal identity and place.
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