Paul Proteus Of Player Piano Compare And Contrast

The rapid evolution of technology and its overarching influence in the lives of the great majority of those who access it has inspired a plethora of texts that contemplate the possible future of our mechanically-saturated world. Two such texts are the classic Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut and the more contemporary The Circle by Dave Eggers. Player Piano follows the story of Paul Proteus, who struggles to understand the new hierarchy that the age of machines has installed as he observes the declining quality of life for all those who are not wealthy and intelligent. The Circle follows a young woman, Mae Holland, who becomes increasingly dependent on technology as she rises through the ranks of an influential computer-based company. These

Proteus grows troubled by this divide, growing unhappy and questioning, “do you agree things are a mess?” (Vonnegut 184); he opens his eyes to the social inequality caused by the technology and becomes frustrated when his wife and others fail to acknowledge why it bothers him so. Fear and anger propagates, condemning the other side of the social classes, those sides represented by a river cutting right through town. Proteus tries to isolate himself from the machines that condemned him and everyone around him to such a fate, beginning with smaller measures like purchasing an older house with no electronic modifications before becoming the figurehead of the Ghost Shirt Society who aim to return all of humanity to a time before machines ruled them with an iron fist. He fails, however, his personal life and the very city he resided in crumbling, representing the fact that resisting the change that technology brings and its subsequent clout is impossible and only serves to damage what has been established; at the end, Proteus attempts to make a toast “To a better world,” but decides simply to make toast “To the record,” (Vonnegut 340), because a blip on the record was all

She gains a job at the highly prestigious company, The Circle, and fails to grasp the clout that technology holds, failing to implement it as squarely as the company expected her to. However, once threatened with the loss of her job, she quickly becomes accustomed to using more technology faster, imitating the technological boom in our own society. As the story progresses, more and more invasive forms of technology are introduced into her life at an alarmingly rapid pace, and they are introduced in such nonchalant ways that Holland thinks little of their true impact. Those who oppose the growth of technology, such as her ex-boyfriend Mercer, are painted as unsavory characters designed to make the reader empathize with Holland’s growing support of increased monitoring; technology is always introduced as “a positive thing...an act of community...an act of reaching out” (Eggers 95). Holland ends up being monitored nearly constantly by cameras with the intent of making information more available to everyone, but all shreds of her privacy are completely robbed from her. What makes Holland’s transformation so haunting is the parallels that can be drawn to the society people live in today; privacy is often being exchanged for information or for supposed safety. In the end, one of her most loved albeit mysterious companions, Ty, the