Despite being written and published decades apart, Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions and Shena McAuliffe’s The Good Echo bear similarities in how each novel breaks the fourth wall in order to engross the reader. While the novels also have differences in this approach (Vonnegut’s work utilizes drawings while McAuliffe’s novel utilizes a father’s dentistry notes where his story is told in his journal’s footnotes), the most notable similarity is that each novel utilizes a first-person narrator who at first seems disassociated from the story but slowly becomes more and more involved. In the case of Breakfast of Champions, the first-person narrator can be interpreted as the author; in The Good Echo, the first-person narrator is 12-year old Ben, the deceased son of Cliff and Frances Bell, who died from a botched root canal performed by his father. Both first-person narrators in Breakfast of Champions and The Good Echo take on Christ-like attributes in that they are all-knowing, involved but separated from their creations and relations, and both sometimes speak with a martyr-like tone to tell their stories.
Breakfast of Champions

            The reader first encounters first-person point-of-view in the preface of Breakfast of Champions. However, one of the most provocative passages appears on page five: “I think I am trying to make my head as empty as it was when I was born into this damaged planet fifty years ago” (Vonnegut). The narrator argues that making one’s head empty is something most “white Americans and nonwhite Americans who imitate white Americans should do” (Vonnegut 5). The narrator continues: “I have no culture, no humane harmony in my brains. I can’t live without a culture anymore” (Vonnegut 5). These stark comments about race and culture, and the lack of culture, resonate with the modern reader because of current political, racial, and cultural conversations in America. At this point in the preface, the reader has still freewill to insert himself or herself into the “I” and claim it as their own, thus making passages like the aforementioned one even more personal. However, the preface is signed “Philboyd Studge,” which adds a fictional element to the preface, but the reader can also interpret that signature as Vonnegut. The signature adds another level, a level that says “The Creator has spoken.” This idea of “The Creator” continues throughout the novel, and by the novel’s end, the “I” of the novel becomes a Christ-like figure conveniently disguised as “I.”

            Throughout the novel, the narrator acknowledges “The Creator of the Universe,” and the narrator comments on The Creator of the Universe’s various creations, destructions, quirks, hiccups. In between the preface and page 107, the narrator distances itself from the reader; however, the novel’s tone and the pages filled with small doodles remind us that the narrator is still present. This present-but-not “feel” is secondary to the acknowledgment of the “The Creator of the Universe,” and, therefore, the narrator becomes almost Christ-like, since traditionally Christ is portrayed as second only to God, and believers understand that Christ is present even though they cannot see or touch him, and believers anticipate Christ’s return during The Second Coming.

            The Second Coming for the narrator of Breakfast of Champions subtly arrives on page 107: “Trout had a mental defect which I, too, used to suffer from” (Vonnegut). The Christ-like “I” portrays itself as human-like by relating to the same mental defect it shares with one of the novel’s main characters. For the reader, this technique of using “I” to relate to a character allows the reader to—again, via freewill—choose whether or not the reader participates in the work as the “I.” The narrator utilizes the same technique on page 148: “I only found out about it day before yesterday. I was reading a magazine, and I also had the television on” (Vonnegut). This time, however, common activities like reading magazines and watching television make the narrator more human.

            The Christian tradition portrays Christ as devoted to not only His disciples, but also to His mother, Mary. On page 185 of Breakfast of Champions, while discussing the Celia Hoover’s suicide, the narrator states “My mother was, too” after the statement “Celia Hoover was crazy as a bedbug” (Vonnegut). This invocation of two mothers, and the placement of “My mother was, too” as a stand-alone statement to place emphasis upon that concept, forces the reader to think about motherhood, mothering, etc. The narrator once again relates itself to one of the novel’s characters (Bunny Hoover, in this case) in order to make itself more human. This parallels Christ in the Christian tradition, since many Christians focus on and revere Mary for not only bearing the Christ-child, but because mothers should be revered for their role in procreation and child-bearing.

            As the novel progresses, we see the narrator interject itself more and more into the novel, and in the novel’s final quarter we see a complete involvement of the narrator with the characters. Thus, the narrator becomes even more Christ-like, because via its direct involvement with the main characters, the narrator goes about his father’s business, and the narrator at one points even acknowledges to the characters that it created them. One of the most thought-provoking lines in regards to the narrator’s Christ-like nature is “His bared shins were rococo with varicose veins and scars. So were the shins of my father when he was an old, old man. Kilgore Trout had my father’s shins. They were a present from me” (Vonnegut 229). The word “shins” is one letter away from the word “sins,” and the reader has freewill to interpret this as a satirical play on the “sins of the father” concept as it appears in Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers. Though the reader has freewill to insert or remove himself or herself from the novel, in the statement “They were a present from me” that the characters do not have freewill, because the characters are under the control of the narrator’s will.

 The Good Echo

            Shena McAuliffe’s novel The Good Echo is structured so that the novel’s five parts weave the narrative of the dead 12-year old, Ben Bell, and his mother, Frances, with the dentistry and scientific notes of Cliff Bell, Ben’s father. The only aberration appears in the chapter “The Temple of Mut,” which is told by Curtis Wheeler, Frances Bell’s fleeting lover whom she meets at random in Egypt. Ben establishes his authority from the novel’s very beginning, stating in the prologue that “death has made a storyteller of me” (1). Thus, Ben is Christ-like in that it was not until his death that his story could be told or understood, and by establish his authority with such a statement, Ben not only confides in the reader, but allows the reader a sort of discipleship, where the reader has freewill to choose whether or not to follow Ben through the story’s remainder.

            Ben continues to establish his authority as an all-knowing entity when he states, “I know all the details. The trouble, sometimes, is choosing which to tell, which to stitch together” (4). To the reader, this message communicates that Ben is the ultimate authority: the reader must rely on the details Ben provides, in the order he provides them, in order to understand Frances and Cliff’s story. This, for the reader, forms trust in Ben. This thrust becomes even more solidified as the reader progresses through the chapter “Once Upon a Time” because Ben provides historical information regarding his parents that he may not have even known during his life: “My father was a farm boy and my mother was a tomboy. My father had eight brothers and my mother had one sister. My father was a dentist and my mother was a teacher. My father was ambitions and my mother was bored” (45). He also establish that for his parents, he was “a beginning, a middle, and an end. But the strands of my story are so tightly woven with my parents’, and their strands braid every which way, like a river, still flowing” (46). Ben becomes even more Christ-like with these statements because he conveys martyrdom intertwined with authority, similarly to Christ in Revelations 22:12-13: “Behold I am coming quickly, and my reward is with Me, to give each one according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” (New King Hames Version). And, like Christ, Ben knows what each of his parents has done.

            In the chapter “The Woodlouse,” Ben observes his mother with brutal honesty: “At this point in their journey, Frances, my dear mother, is 52 years old. More than anything, she resembles a scoop of vanilla ice cream” (187). Ben communicates to the reader that his mother was “never particularly beautiful” (187). Ben also observes his mother’s spontaneous sex act with Curtis Wheeler, an Egyptologist she met at random as she and Cliff travel in Egypt: “She has been married to my father for such a long time. She blamed it on the heat—the sun was so blindingly hot. Or perhaps it was the ancient magic she had heard so much about” (190). However, Ben refrains from judging his mother: “Press you ear to the rock at Lake Mazinaw and deep within you will hear voices singing, shouting, murmuring. Brags and laments, pride and shame. Frances tells her part quietly, but deep within the buzzing hive, there is also honey” (190). Without a judgmental tone, Ben seems sympathetic and understanding of his mother, compassionate to a point, and forgiving. Thus, despite having witnessed his mother’s infidelity, Ben forgives her, thus weaving two sides of his Christ-like nature—that which would judge, and that which forgives.

            Though Ben observes his mother in scrutinous detail, he refrains from telling his father’s story. Instead, Cliff’s story is portrayed via his detailed dentistry notes. The fact that Ben focuses on his mother establishes the attachment he felt to his mother, though the attachment was brief. Ben’s relationship with his mother parallels that of Christ’s relationship with his mother. Christ’s followers understand that Mary, Jesus’ mother, held an important role in Christ’s life, so much so that Mary appears at Christ’s crucifixion, and Jesus—who at this point as the oldest son is responsible for his mother—appoints a disciple (most likely John) to care for Mary after his death (“Jesus and Mary: It’s Complicated”). There is no one Ben can appoint to take care of his mother, so his acute observations about his mother, in a sense, are the best that he can do to take care of his mother after his death.

            By The Good Echo’s epilogue, the reader has a firm discipleship, and Ben begins his transfiguration. He becomes more and more separated from the reader, and the frequency of the first-person address lessens. His final establishment of his authority appears near the epilogue’s end as he observes his mother returning to Lake Mazinaw in Ontario: “She dreams of summer, and of me, her lost boy” (255). At this point, Ben also portrays an interaction that leads the reader to believe that Frances may have died: “I put my hand out and she takes it, and I lead her through the summer forest, sun luffing through leaves, and we walk along the edge of the rock together, looking down at the dark blue surface of the lake” (255). The simple action of Ben walking with his mother may conjure images of the famous Christian poem “Footprints,” but more importantly it parallels the idea that many believers have regarding the Holy Spirit: though believers cannot see the Holy Spirit, many believe that the Holy Spirit walks with them, guiding them each step of their literal or figurative journey.

Conclusion

            In conclusion, Vonnegut interjects himself into Breakfast of Champions via the first-person pronoun “I.” The “I” not only allows the reader to cast himself or herself as the narrator, but the “I” also establishes the narrator as a secondary, Christ-like figure carrying out the commands of The Creator of the Universe. Most importantly, by shrouding the “I” and The Creator of the Universe in vagueness, Vonnegut allows the reader to employ one’s own freewill, faith, racial and cultural designations, and religious affiliations to the novel. In McAuliffe’s The Good Echo, the deceased 12-year old narrator Ben becomes not only a narrator and guide, but a Christ-like figure that possesses intimate knowledge about his parents. Ben’s guidance of the reader throughout the novel allows the reader to place trust in Ben, which makes Ben a parallel to Christ, because the reader must rely on and trust in Ben for the journey (in this case the narrative), and believers in Christ do the same throughout their walk with the Lord. By The Good Echo’s end, however, Ben’s works are finished, and his infrequent usage of “I” leads the reader to believe that perhaps Ben, just as believers interpret that Christ did, has ascended into a higher realm, perhaps even with his mother at his side.

Works Cited

The Holy Bible, New King James Version. Thomas Nelson, 1982.

McAuliffe, Shena. The Good Echo. Black Lawrence Press: 2018.

Parini, Jay. “Jesus and Mary: It’s Complicated.” 24 December 2013. 
https://www.cnn.com/2013/12/24/opinion/parini-jesus-mary-
christmas/index.html

Vonnegut, Kurt. Breakfast of Champions. The Dial Press: 2006.

– Nicole Yurcaba