The main character in Kilgore Trout’s novel, Now It Can Be Told. The Man, a test subject of the Creator of the Universe, is the only creature in a universe of “fully programmable robots” with free will and the “ability to make up his own mind.” The Man represents Adam from the biblical story of creation, and because he has free will, the Creator never knows what he is going to say next. The Man’s tombstone claims that “perhaps the Man was a better universe in its infancy,” and this implies that Vonnegut believes the idea of humankind is better than the reality, which he views as destructive and greedy.
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The Man Character Timeline in Breakfast of Champions
The timeline below shows where the character The Man appears in Breakfast of Champions. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 16
...the Universe wants to test a creature with free will, so he creates one man— The Man —who has “the ability to make up his own mind.” The book is in the...
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The Creator of the Universe brings The Man to a “virgin planet” with a large and “soupy sea.” On the planet, “The Man...
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At the end of Now It Can Be Told is a picture of The Man ’s tombstone as it stands on the virgin planet. Vonnegut includes a drawing of the...
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