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Chapter 8
Themes
and Colors
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
Finnerty comes to Paul’s office later in the day and asks if he wants to go for a drink. When Paul calls Anita to tell her they’ll be late for dinner, she asks if he’s thought about what he’ll say if Kroner asks him about Pittsburgh, but he dodges the question. Once in the car, Finnerty directs Paul to a bar on the other side of the river, not wanting anyone to hear their conversation. On the way, Paul says he has to stop at the police station to report his missing pistol, but Finnerty tells him to keep driving because he’s the one who took the pistol. When Paul asks why, Finnerty casually says he was considering killing himself earlier that day. Instead, he decided to throw the gun into the river.
Again, Anita is more concerned with Paul’s career advancement than Paul himself is. Instead of focusing on what he’ll say if Kroner talks to him about the Pittsburgh job, Paul just wants to go to a bar with his good friend, showing that he cares much more about his relationships than his job. To that end, his friendship with Finnerty seems likely to thoroughly interfere with his work life, especially since Finnerty is on what appears to be a destructive streak, as evidenced by his drunken display at the Country Club, his decision to quit his job, his appearance at Ilium Works, and his suicidal behavior. All of this contrasts with the uptight, strait-laced environment of Ilium, so it makes sense that Paul is enticed by Finnerty.
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Paul is used to hearing Finnerty say morbid things, but he still suggests that his friend see a psychiatrist. Finnerty refuses, saying that a psychiatrist would try to bring him back to “the center,” when what he really wants is to live life on “the edge.” From this vantage point, he insists, it’s possible to see life anew.
After years of unhappiness in a boring job, Finnerty welcomes the idea of a chaotic life. Instead of conforming to society’s expectations by acting mild-mannered and polite, he wants to live life on his own terms—an idea that surely impresses Paul, who also feels unsatisfied by the corporate lifestyle, though he hasn’t yet reached the breaking point that Finnerty clearly has.
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Paul and Finnerty go to the same bar that Paul visited the day before. Over a drink, Finnerty admits that he’s been a little disappointed by his reunion with Paul. He had thought that seeing Paul would make him feel better and solve his problems, but it hasn’t. Paul says he, too, was hoping for a feeling of “rebirth” upon seeing his old friend.
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Paul and Finnerty start drinking, and Finnerty explains that he felt deeply lonely at his job in Washington. He used to be lonely in Ilium, too, but he thought getting a better job would solve that. But it was worse because everyone in Washington was even more obsessed with their self-image and the importance of their jobs.
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A ruckus in the street interrupts Paul and Finnerty, as people march to the sound of loud music. Finnerty asks the man with thick glasses who these people are, but he cryptically says that the group doesn’t want anyone to know who they are. The people are dressed in lavish, vaguely Arabian clothing. The man with glasses cheers them on, though he doesn’t know what they represent. He explains that he’s mainly cheering Luke Lubbock, the apparent leader of the procession. Luke is carrying a large tusk, and the three men—Paul, Finnerty, and the man with glasses—watch him pass. Then, down the street, another group makes its way toward them, and the man with thick glasses explains that this is all part of a parade competition.
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Paul and Finnerty decide to have a drink with the man with glasses. Paul asks him about his son, and the man seems surprised for a moment before matter-of-factly saying that his son doesn’t have any problems anymore because he took his own life that morning. This sends Paul into hysterics, as he fervently apologizes to the man. Seeing this reaction, the man apologizes to Paul, admitting that he’s lying—he never even had a son, he just made that up because he wanted to see what Paul would do.
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The man with the glasses asks Paul his IQ, and Paul bitterly responds by telling him to look it up, since it’s public knowledge. This is true: everyone’s IQ is available to look up at the police station. Finnerty tells the man with glasses that Paul isn’t the best person from Ilium Works to “experiment” with, since he’s different than most of the managers and engineers. He also adds that he, too, was an engineer before he quit. This surprises the man, who’s startled to hear that there are “malcontents” on the other side of the river. He also admits that he’d almost rather not know that some managers and engineers have consciences; it makes it easier to dislike everyone on the other side of the river if he doesn’t have to make any exceptions.
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The man in the glasses introduces himself as the Reverend James J. Lasher, giving his employment identification number (everyone has one). This number indicates not only that Lasher is a minister, but also that he’s an anthropologist with a master’s degree. When Paul asks him why he sees people on the other side of the river so negatively, Lasher explains that he used to tell his congregation (when he had one before the war) that the most important thing in their lives was their relationship to God. But now, the people on the other side of the river have forced everyone to realize that, without their jobs and sense of purpose in the economy, they’re left with pretty much nothing.
Lasher argues that most people haven’t felt like they play a meaningful part in the world for a long time. During the war, the country sang the praises of engineers and managers so much that now anyone working in those positions has an inflated sense of importance, while everyone else is left without anything to latch onto. Given the state of things, Lasher believes it’s only a matter of time before a “phony Messiah” comes along.
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Literary Devices
Paul and Finnerty ask Lasher what he means when he says that a Messiah will someday entice all of the jaded people toward rebellion. He explains that somebody is bound to capture the general public’s interest by promising to give them back a sense of importance and participation in the world at large. What people want, Lasher implies, is to feel “needed on earth.” They want, in other words, “dignity.”
Lasher points out that things are perfectly poised for a class war, especially since everyone’s IQ has been publicly recorded. He can imagine a reality in which revolutionaries decide to kill anyone with an IQ of over 110. Finnerty agrees that the system of assigning worth to people based on their IQs is a terrible practice, since it’s virtually impossible for people to improve their IQ.
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When Lasher turns to go, Finnerty eagerly asks where he can find him. Lasher writes down an address and then tells Finnerty that he’d make a good Messiah if only he washed his face—a comment that startles Finnerty. When Lasher is gone, Finnerty says, “Magnificent, wasn’t he?” Paul realizes that his friend has finally found somebody who really excites him.
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A man sitting at the bar named Alfy asks Finnerty if he wants to bet what song they’re playing on the television, which is currently muted. When Finnerty makes his guess, Alfy makes his own, then tells the bartender to turn it up. Alfy wins. They play this game several times, and Finnerty loses $20. This, Alfy explains, is how he makes his living. After watching this, Paul drunkenly stumbles to the phone to call Anita, having forgotten that they were supposed to be home for dinner. But Anita tells him not to worry. Shepherd came by the house to apologize for the previous night, and he mentioned seeing Paul and Finnerty at the bar. Anita then tells Paul to enjoy himself, thinking it might do him some good to get drunk.
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Returning from the phone, Paul finds Finnerty with two young women. Paul tries to flirt with one of them, but she’s clearly uninterested in him. Before long, he drunkenly falls asleep, and when he wakes up, the young women have left. Inspired by Lasher’s ideas about the arrival of a Messiah, Paul stands on a table and calls for everyone’s attention. He shouts that the two sides of Ilium should come together in the middle of the bridge, and then the table breaks.
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Paul wakes up hours later to a mostly empty bar. Finnerty is working his way through a song on the player piano while Lasher sits in a shadow nearby. When Paul tries to get Finnerty to go, Finnerty tells him he’s going to stay with Lasher, so Paul stumbles onto the street and drives home by himself.
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