Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Player Piano, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Technology and Progress
Happiness, Self-Worth, and Passion
Class Division and Competition
Corporate Life vs. Human Connection
Summary
Analysis
Doctor Harold Roseberry—the football coach and head of physical education at Cornell University—goes to the bar to meet a promising doctoral student, Buck Young. Roseberry has seen Buck play football and, because he’s so good, hopes to convince him to join the Cornell team. The football team has an astounding record, mostly because the university pays big money for its players—none of whom are actually students, since they’re not allowed to study and play sports at the same time. Roseberry has to keep up the team’s perfect record, but the university hasn’t bought him any good players in several years, which is why he wants to convince Buck to stop studying and start playing football.
That athletes aren’t allowed to study—and vice versa—shows the extent to which society breaks people up according to their skillsets. Anyone who is a gifted student is expected to focus exclusively on school. Conversely, talented athletes have to completely devote themselves to their sport. This leaves no room for someone like Buck Young, who is both smart and athletic. This is a good representation of the overall lack of flexibility in this society, which forces people into boxes based on their intelligence, ignoring the fact that humans are complex, unpredictable beings.
Themes
At the bar, Roseberry tries to entice Buck with the prospect of a large salary. Buck asks if he could continue his studies if he played football, and Roseberry reminds him that there are “strict rules” against this. As Roseberry tries to convince Buck, a drunk young engineer stumbles over and says he has heard the entire conversation. His name is Ed Harrison, and he wants Buck to know the perils of working as an engineer: an injury on the football field will hurt less than becoming an engineer or manager. He adds that the corporate world is no place for anyone who can “recognize the ridiculous.” Roseberry sits back, realizing that Buck is only helping his case.
Harrison’s drunken ramblings warn Buck about the draining aspect of corporate life. This suggests that Paul got through to Harrison when he told him not to continue on the path of an engineer if he had any reservations about the corporate world. Now, Harrison passes similar advice along to Buck, trying to show him that a powerful job as an engineer won’t necessarily be more rewarding than playing a sport he loves and is good at—despite the fact that society holds engineers in such high esteem.
Themes
Harrison tells Buck that what managers and engineers are doing isn’t good for the rest of the world. The prestigious people who get invited to the Meadows are nothing but “ten-year-olds at heart.” Everyone except Paul Proteus, who was fired. For this reason, Harrison has decided to move to the Everglades and find a place to hole up without any machines. When Buck asks why Harrison dislikes machines, the young engineer replies that machines are “slaves” who force people to compete with them. And “anybody that competes with slaves becomes a slave.”
Harrison suggests that automation has had a terrible impact on society. To make this point, he highlights the dehumanizing nature of mechanization, which has forced people to “compete” with unbeatable opponents. This recalls Kroner’s point about how machines are able to do more work than the entire population of enslaved people at the time of the Civil War. Whereas Kroner saw this as a good thing, Harrison recognizes that this sets unrealistic standards for how productive people should be. It is, after all, impossible to compete with something designed to work around the clock—to do this, Harrison notes, would be to become a slave to productivity.
Themes
After Harrison leaves, Roseberry and Buck make their way out of the bar to speak privately. On their way out, though, Doctor Halyard stops them to introduce himself. He is at Cornell to take the physical education test. Acting very friendly, Roseberry assures Halyard the test won’t take long. But then he takes a letter from his pocket and suggests that Halyard read it before the test. The letter is five years old, and Halyard realizes that he wrote it himself—it’s addressed to Cornell’s president, and it’s about Roseberry. Halyard explains in the letter that he saw Roseberry one evening and that his behavior was so off-putting that he should resign as head coach because he’s a disgrace to all students and alumni.
Unfortunately for Halyard, it now seems very unlikely that he’ll pass the fitness test, since Roseberry clearly has it out for him. This means that he will lose his job over the absurd fact that he’s not in shape enough to pass a Physical Education class—something that has nothing to do with his actual career. This just shows the ridiculously bureaucratic, irrational nature of this society, which only cares about people based on their credentials, even when those credentials are basically meaningless.
Themes
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After Halyard skims the letter and awkwardly leaves, Roseberry turns to Buck and asks whether or not he’ll join the football team. When Buck hesitates, Roseberry throws out an even higher salary number, and Buck immediately accepts.
Harrison’s comments about the soul-killing nature of the corporate world seemed to have had an effect on Buck. At the same time, though, what really convinces him to leave behind his studies is a bit less complicated than Harrison’s long-winded ideas about the problems of the corporate world: Buck wants money. This shows that, at the end of the day, people have trouble resisting the allure of wealth and the impulse to make more money—the very same impulse that led to society’s obsession with productivity in the first place.
Themes
