Character Clues
Character Analysis
Occupation
The funny thing about asking most people what they do for work is that you get the answer, "I am a—"
Unfortunately, in Mother Night, the answer to that question is often, "I'm a Nazi."
Oh. Oh, dear. Ouch.
Yeah, in this novel, you can't just be a soldier taking orders in WWII Germany. To do so means a big ol' deal, ideologically and ethically. So it's no surprise that most of the characters identify themselves as something other than Nazis.
The first thing we tend to learn about characters in this text when we meet or hear about them is their jobs: Helga is an actress, her dad is a police chief, Campbell's dad is an engineer, and his mom was a housewife and amateur cellist. Sometimes, this is the only thing about them we ever really get to know.
In fact, even before we get to the events of the novel proper, we're keyed in to thinking about characters in light of their jobs. Just take Vonnegut's editorial note about Campbell, for instance:
To say that he was a writer is to say that the demands of art alone were enough to make him lie, and to lie without seeing any harm in it. To say that he was a playwright is to offer an even harsher warning to the reader, for no one is a better liar than a man who has warped lives and passions onto something as grotesquely artificial as a stage. (Editor's Note.1)
After an intro like that, how can we trust the guy? Jobs are personality calling cards in this novel, and your job seems to change you more than anything else.
Campbell complains that he can't ever be a writer again now that he's been a Nazi; O'Hare flips out because he "expected to be a lot more in fifteen years" (43.43) than an ice cream delivery man; and Kraft sort of uses his identity as a painter to shield his mind from psychological breakdown when he's arrested. Check it out:
Kraft thought his situation over, and schizophrenia rescued him neatly. 'None of this really concerns me,' he said and his urbanity returned.
'Why not?' said the boss.
'Because I'm a painter,' said Kraft 'That's the main thing I am.' (39.24-26)
By making his years as a spy incidental, Kraft gives himself an emotional pass. He doesn't have to own up to being a failed secret agent because—psych—he was just a creative type doing his thing all along. Careers are crutches as well as cages in this text. (Heads up: do not ask Resi about her time in the cigarette factory—it's a long story.)
Direct Characterization
One big perk of a first-person, memoir-style confessional? We get tons of direct characterization. That's when the narrator can just straight-up tell you who is a poo and who isn't. The pitfall? Our narrator might be a poo who lies—or who lies to him- or herself.
Campbell is our source on all the peeps we meet. He's especially fond of long biographies ostensibly fortified with extensive research supported by the resources of the Haifa Institute.
Direct characterization is often considered a weak way to describe characters, but here, Vonnegut uses this mode of characterization to work in tandem with his effort to make the text appear both conversational and well researched. After a chapter-long bio of Reverend Dr. Jones, for example, Campbell explains himself through even more direct characterization, which seems legit precisely because it's so direct:
Why should I have honored that with such a full-dress biography?
In order to contrast with myself a race-baiter who is ignorant and insane. I am neither ignorant nor insane.
Those whose orders I carried out in Germany were as ignorant and insane as Dr. Jones. I knew it. God help me, I carried out their instructions anyway. (13.28-31)
There you have it, straight from Campbell's typewriter to your eyes: Campbell is not a poo, but Jones is. And it all seems so official.
Thoughts and Opinions
This whole book is basically Campbell's diary. He's actively sharing his thoughts and opinions with readers. But Vonnegut's on top of this: he writes the text in such a way that Campbell frequently reveals more than he intends to as a narrator.
During one flight of fancy, for example, as Campbell is looking for his Blue Fairy Godmother, he imagines that possible threats wait around every corner:
I had a pistol with me, one of the Iron Guard's Lugers, chambered for twenty-two's. I had it not in my pocket but in the open, loaded and cocked, ready to go. I scouted the front of the shop without showing myself. The front was dark. And then I approached the back in short rushes, from cluster to cluster of garbage cans.
Anybody trying to jump me, to jump Howard W. Campbell, Jr., would have been filled with little holes, as though by a sewing machine. And I must say that I came to love the infantry, anybody's infantry, in that series of rushes and taking cover.
Man, I think, is an infantry animal. (33.3-5)
On the one hand, this is just practical planning ahead. You never know who's going attack you, right? On the other hand, Campbell is running around New York in 1961; he's not in a dark Berlin alley during WWII. He's basically just daydreaming while walking down the street. He thinks he's representing himself as this sly guy adept at taking down the baddies, but he's never actually done that. Really, he's still a kid at heart, making claims about an infantry he never served in.