Those Jolly British Blokes

We talked a lot in class about the way that Vonnegut portrays the two extreme types of soldiers, which are either miserable and not "heroes," and the violent soldier following the true war novel hero archetype.

However, Vonnegut seems to portray the British soldiers somewhere in between. Vonnegut tells us that these soldiers are officers from who fought at the very beginning of the war. They are experience soldiers who, I would assume are the best soldiers that Britain had to offer since they were the part of the first wave of British soldiers. Despite this, they aren't portrayed as warmongers or violent like we see with Weary and Lazaro. On the other hand, they don't follow the same model as the Americans. They are very well off, they have an abundance of food and have been treated as well as you could expect by the Germans, who see them as the ideal British soldiers.

While Vonnegut uses some irony to describe the British POWs, he uses it more to contrast how upbeat and happy they are with the Americans, rather than to mock them like he does with the other Americans. You wouldn't think that they were POWs in the middle of a war based on Vonnegut's description of them.

One quote that I found interesting says that, "They were adored by the Germans, who thought that they were exactly what Englishmen ought to be. They made war look stylish and reasonable, and fun." I think that this quote aptly sums up Vonnegut's purpose of making an anti-war novel. These ideas of what the Germans think that war should look like are the same ideas of a "glorious war" that gets engrained in the minds of the young children and convinces them to fight for glory. This is the exact idea that Vonnegut wants to disprove, that war is not at all like the war stories that glamorize war, rather, these soldiers end up like Billy and the rest of the Americans. These British soldiers are the type that would write a war novel about how "honorable" it is to fight when they were captured early on in the war lived out the rest of the war in luxury compared to the Russian POWs who are dying meters away from them from malnutrition. The British show a stark contrast between the expectation and reality of the war for the young soldiers convinced to fight for glory.

Agriculture and the Osiris story

As we discussed the Papa LaBas' flashback story to Ancient Egypt, the connection between Jes Grew and agriculture was brought up. After doing some research on both Egypt and agriculture at the time, I found many connections to this part of Mumbo Jumbo. This is probably going to turn into a long rant, so I apologize in advance. 

First off, the general premise of the Osiris storyline matches up with Egyptian mythology if you take away the Jes Grew aspects. Since Osiris is the god of agriculture, among other things, it makes sense that he was the creator of Jes Grew. On the other hand, Set is the god of disorder and chaos and is described as following primitive aspects, such as cannibalism and against agriculture, where Osiris represents progress with agriculture and growth. I also researched the history of dance in Ancient Egypt. Dance in Ancient Egypt was something limited to peasants and lower status people, which I found interesting. These people were probably the ones involved in most of the agriculture at the time, following the idea of Jes Grew. Its very similar to what it described about Jes Grew in the 1920s, as the rich were mostly against the spread of Jes Grew, whereas it thrived in the poorer areas. 

The thing that I found most interesting was the connection between agriculture in the places that were mentioned in the flashback story. In Ancient Egypt, agriculture was based on the reliability of the Nile's seasonal flooding. Like most cultures at the time, sacrifices or different rituals were made to the gods to ensure that they had successful harvests, and, in the case of Egypt, seasonal flooding. This can also be connected to the "outbreak" of Jes Grew in New Orleans. While in Egypt agriculture is centered around the Nile delta, in New Orleans it was centered around the Mississippi River delta. These deltas are extremely fertile areas and perfect for agriculture. In addition it is a spiritual center as well. I don't think that it is a coincidence that Reed had the two "outbreaks" of Jes Grew in Egypt and New Orleans. 

I also wanted to relate the agricultural ideas of Jes Grew to South and Mesoamerica, where Osiris visited in the story. I was trying to figure when exactly the story was set, and I found a couple of small hints that lead me to believe that its set around the 1300s BCE. First off, Osiris is said to have traveled to Olmeca. The Olmec civilization lasted from around 1500 BCE until 400 BCE, which narrows it down, but still leaves a thousand year period for the story to take place. I will admit that there are some historical discrepancies. For example Osiris travels to Teotihuacán. The pyramids (which would have been a great connection to Egypt) weren't built until around 200s BCE, and while it's possible Reed is just talking about the area, but I find this unlikely. Osiris also travels to the Inca Empire which doesn't rise until the 1400s CE, which is after Von Vampton comes across the Book of Thoth. Despite the time periods not matching. There are definitely agricultural similarities which could symbolize the spread of Jes Grew ideas without basis in historical fact. All of the civilizations mentioned are polytheistic and have gods related to agriculture who they would pray to for good harvests. Since Mumbo Jumbo is a criticism of Atonism and monotheism, mentioning Osiris going to these civilizations makes sense. Osiris also teaches these cultures to make beer and wine, utilizing the environment and agriculture. All of these civilizations had some sort of beverage similar to beer or wine, so there is some historical basis for that too.

Having digressed from my hypothesis of the date of the story, the main reason I have for dating it at 1300s BCE is from the origins of Atonism. In one of his blog posts, Sasha described the origin of Atonism coming from the pharaoh Akhenaten in 1336 BCE. Akhenaten changed the primary religion of Egypt from polytheistic worship to worshiping a single god, Aten (Hence Akhen-Aten). With this rises the monotheistic idea of Atonism that Reed describes (Aton-ism coming from Aten). Given Reed's criticism of Atonism, I think it would make sense for Set to be representative of Akhenaten since in the story Set gets rid of all temples of Osiris and worships Aten. For that reason, I think that 

Set killing Osiris in the story is representative of Akhenaten changing Egyptian religion. 

While the story of Osiris does not completely follow the Egyptian mythology, Reed still emphasizes the connections between polytheistic societies and describe their connection with their gods through agriculture meanwhile denouncing monotheism.