Welcome to the Monkey House

Content Warning: The story discusses suicide and contains depictions of rape and group violence against a single person.

The satire in “Welcome to the Monkey House” creates a distinction between the elements of the dystopian future and of Vonnegut’s present, allowing for social commentary without becoming too obvious or controversial. The story’s humor, instead, radicalizes the moral ideas and make them seem more absurd than they would in a conventional story or a news article. This allows the narration to make bold statements—“The pills were ethical because they didn’t interfere with a person’s ability to reproduce, which would have been unnatural and immoral. All the pills did was take every bit of pleasure out of sex. Thus, did science and morals go hand in hand” (31)—without directly preaching the morals of the author.

The humor also ameliorates the acts of violence throughout the story. For example, after Nancy is beaten by Billy’s gang when she enters the museum, she wonders why they are acting in such a way, commenting that “Nothingheadedness alone couldn’t begin to explain it. They had to be drugged besides” (42) with one of the most powerful and vile drugs known to modern pharmaceuticals: “gin” (43).