2 B R 0 2 B

The genre of utopian fiction has existed at least since Thomas More published Utopia in 1516. Dystopian fiction can be traced as far back as the French Revolution in the late 18th century. Both genres flourished and evolved in the 20th century, largely in response to the growing complexity of technology and its role in society. Kurt Vonnegut’s “2 B R 0 2 B” can be classified either as utopian fiction or dystopian fiction, in part because the lines between utopia and dystopia are often blurry. Vonnegut emphasizes that blurriness by making most of the characters in “2 B R 0 2 B” compliant with their control and by imagining euthanasia as a reasonable response to overpopulation. However, Vonnegut ultimately satirizes this solution and points to its absurdity.

Although today utopia is taken to mean “a good place,” when More invented the word, he combined two Greek words—“ou” meaning “not” and “topos” meaning place—that together mean “not place” or non-place. Thus, a utopia is a place that is nowhere. It is a place that is conceptual and allows for experimentation within it. Vonnegut draws on this original meaning by setting the story in a hospital waiting room that has a “disorderly” and “demoralized air” with only two people in it. One is the “still and colorless” (Paragraph 9) Young Wehling, and the other is an old man painting a mural of a “neat” garden with faceless figures whose faces are to be filled in with various important people. Contrary to the joyful, expecting parents that the reader would expect to be present, Wehling is, like his environment, in an emotional non-place: “He was so rumpled, so still and colorless as to be virtually invisible” (Paragraph 9). He knows he must choose which two of his children to have killed, and he also must drive his grandfather to a gas chamber to be killed, just so he can experience fatherhood. The theme of Dystopia/Utopia and Societies of Control first becomes apparent through the circumstances Wehling is experiencing. Wehling is blank, sad—and, later, vengeful—in a situation that, in a utopian society, would be joyful.

The description of the garden foreshadows the explanation of the world that Dr. Hitz later gives to Wehling, and it also starkly contrasts the reality Wehling is facing. Vonnegut describes the garden: “Never, never, never—not even in medieval Holland nor old Japan—had a garden been better tended. Every plant had all the loam, light, water, air, and nourishment it could use” (Paragraph 13). The repetition of never emphasizes the impossibility and placelessness of the garden. At the same time, the description of the ample resources that each plant has underscores the benefits of the garden while minimizing the cost, which is that the old and sickly plants refuse to be destroyed in trash-burners. The “perfect” garden parallels the “perfect” society, but society is far more difficult to control. In this case, the idea of “perfection” comes at the cost of Wehling’s dilemma, which wouldn’t occur in a truly perfect world.

As Dr. Hitz explains, prior to the invention of publicly accessible euthanasia and a population cap, everyone wanted to both live forever and continue to have children—this led to a scarcity of resources. The population cap, managed by voluntary suicide, allows for the “perfectly swell” society that Vonnegut describes. However, this solution depends on the idea that any one person can replace any other, which removes all context of a person’s life and makes all people interchangeable—just a number that contributes to the “perfect” society.

Vonnegut highlights this point with irony when Wehling kills Dr. Hitz, who is idolized by Leora Duncan and begrudgingly immortalized by the painter. Wehling even says “There’s room for one—a great big one” (Paragraph 106) when he shoots Dr. Hitz. Presumably, his death should mean something. At the very least, he is an established doctor and an important social figure, and finding a replacement for his roles in society may be more difficult. However, in this world, all his death means is that there is room for one of Wehling’s children. Though people might have expressions of individuality in this world through conversation and even through action, individuality has no value in this utopia. Thus, this world can be thought of as a dystopia for anyone who values individuality as Vonnegut does.

At the same time, Vonnegut does not suggest that there is a better alternative. At the end of the story, the painter considers alternatives to the system in place and he imagines war, plague, and starvation—prospects that he deems worse. Vonnegut’s story, unlike some works within the dystopian fiction genre, is pessimistic. He doesn’t create a world as a warning of what might come, but instead creates a world that simply would be if humanity’s wish of eternal life and good health was granted.

Importantly, however, characters still have Agency within this world, even if it is limited. The painter demonstrates limited agency when he argues with the orderly about whether the mural is representative of real life or not. Wehling demonstrates agency when he murders Dr. Hitz and Leora Duncan and sacrifices himself, and the painter demonstrates agency when he chooses to schedule his suicide appointment. There is agency in Vonnegut’s imagined world, but the only meaningful choice that anyone can make within it is who lives and who dies.

The Sacrifice that Wehling makes is not necessary. If he and his wife did not have children, then there would be no need for sacrifice. He could continue to live. Ultimately, he is driven by desire, or the demand to multiply and live forever. By framing the sacrifice as unnecessary, Vonnegut raises the question of the value of life. In this world, Wehling must either sacrifice his and his wife’s desire for children or he must sacrifice a life for each child that is born. In proceeding with the pregnancy, knowing the cost, Wehling defines “living” as something more than just existence in a perfect world. 

Individuality and desire are both necessarily at odds with such a system, and this puts the burden of that contradiction on the individual, on Wehling who must make impossible choices. In the end, the painter sees the impossible situation that he is in as well as the difficulty of having agency in such a world. If before witnessing the suicide murders he was able to find some meaning in painting and the expression of art, even sardonically, after, he recognizes the meaninglessness of expression when the future depends on his death. Significantly, he is unable to kill himself like Wehling and the story ends with his choice to use the “2 B R 0 2 B” number. The hostess gets the last word. By giving the hostess the last word, Vonnegut ends the story with a question of whether the “2 B R 0 2 B” number is such a bad invention in a world in which one must constantly decide between utopia for oneself or utopia for future generations and thus be suspended by the choice in a perpetual dystopia.