In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Galapagos, the story is being narrated by a ghost, Leon Trout. Leon Trout, is a damaged, guilt ridden spirit, aboard the Bahia de la Darwin cruise ship whose psyche allows him to create a story which mirrors his life. Leon Trout, a broken soul uses his psyche to create characters based on his childhood and adulthood traumas. His feels guilty for being a “co-conspirator in driving my mother away forever” (279). Through Leon’s psyche, we get his disgust of the human “great big brain” (9), his love for his mother and guilt ridden mind about crimes he deems himself guilty of committing.
“When I was too young to know any better, my father had made me his co-conspirator in driving my mother away forever (279). This powerful statement gives us a glance into the essence of how Leon Trout felt about his mother. Like Jimmy/snowman in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, Leon Trout’s mother became a great influence as he got older. When Leon was sixteen, he ran away from home in search of his mother because he was ashamed that he and his father had driven his mother away. We get a glimpse of Leon Trout’s guilt when he states “Like James Wait, incidentally, I, too, was once a teenage runaway” (15). Leon seemed to have repressed his emotions about driving his mother …show more content…
“What source was there back then, save for the evils we were seeing or hearing about simply everywhere”? My answer: There was no other source. This was a very innocent planet, except for those great big brains (9). The big brains were the reason for Mary Hepburn’s attempted suicide, for him and his father driving his mother away. Leon saw the brain the cause for all humanities problems. Leon repeats the quote “Oh well- he wasn’t going to write Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony anyway” (266). Ironically, the symphony which Leon makes so important was created by a human who had a big
“When I was too young to know any better, my father had made me his co-conspirator in driving my mother away forever (279). This powerful statement gives us a glance into the essence of how Leon Trout felt about his mother. Like Jimmy/snowman in Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, Leon Trout’s mother became a great influence as he got older. When Leon was sixteen, he ran away from home in search of his mother because he was ashamed that he and his father had driven his mother away. We get a glimpse of Leon Trout’s guilt when he states “Like James Wait, incidentally, I, too, was once a teenage runaway” (15). Leon seemed to have repressed his emotions about driving his mother …show more content…
“What source was there back then, save for the evils we were seeing or hearing about simply everywhere”? My answer: There was no other source. This was a very innocent planet, except for those great big brains (9). The big brains were the reason for Mary Hepburn’s attempted suicide, for him and his father driving his mother away. Leon saw the brain the cause for all humanities problems. Leon repeats the quote “Oh well- he wasn’t going to write Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony anyway” (266). Ironically, the symphony which Leon makes so important was created by a human who had a big