Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut
"Galápagos" is a novel by Kurt Vonnegut that explores themes of evolution and the human condition through a unique narrative structure. Set one million years in the future, the story is narrated by Leon Trout, the ghost of a shipbuilder. While a cruise ship prepares for its inaugural journey to the Galápagos Islands, societal collapse occurs due to global debt and the onset of World War III, ultimately leading to the extinction of humanity caused by a microorganism that destroys female reproductive organs. A small group of survivors, including a schoolteacher named Mary Hepburn, find refuge on one of the islands, where they perpetuate the human race through unconventional reproductive methods.
As the descendants adapt over millennia, they evolve into a seal-like species, showcasing Vonnegut's reflections on Darwinian evolution. The novel critiques the perceived progression of intelligence as a human advantage, suggesting instead that it has become a liability. Vonnegut interweaves humor and cautionary messages about societal issues, including economic disparity and environmental damage, while affirming human decency, particularly through the resilience of female characters. Through its whimsical yet profound narrative, "Galápagos" invites readers to contemplate the complex interplay of chance, evolution, and the essence of humanity.
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Galápagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1985
Type of work: Novel
The Work
Galápagos is narrated from a future one million years hence by the ghost of Leon Trout, son of Vonnegut’s frequently used character, science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout. Leon was beheaded while working as a shipbuilder, and his ghost inhabits a cruise ship bound for Guayaquil, Ecuador, to carry tourists to the Galápagos Islands.
While the ship is awaiting its maiden voyage, the world economic system breaks down under the burben of global debt, and World War III is triggered. Those events, however, which contain typical Vonnegut warnings about contemporary conditions, do not end the human race; what does is a corkscrew-like microorganism that destroys ovaries.
As order breaks down in the port of Guayaquil, ten people escape in the cruise ship. They reach Santa Rosalia, one of the Galápagos Islands. At this point there is only one male, the ship’s captain, and the women include an Indianapolis schoolteacher who eventually becomes the mother of the new human race. She transmits the captain’s sperm to six Indian girls and impregnates them. The male line survives in the baby of a Japanese woman. He is born furry as the result of a genetic mutation caused when his grandparents were caught in the atom bombing of Hiroshima.
Over the succeeding million years, as the descendants of these original survivors reproduce, they adapt to their largely marine life by developing flippers, instead of hands and feet, and smaller, streamlined heads. They also inherit the fur of the Japanese mutant ancestor. Thus they evolve as seal-like “fisherfolk.”
Charles Darwin and evolutionary theory are major themes in this book, and evolution is even reflected in the form of Galápagos. The novel has fifty-two chapters, as the year has weeks. The first part of the book is called “The Thing Was,” capturing the colloquial way to refer to complications in a narrative as well as alluding to the original form of the human animal. The second part’s title is “And the Thing Became,” recounting the adaptation to aquatic life. Having Galápagos narrated by the son of Vonnegut’s fictional alter ego, Kilgore Trout, makes it seem as if the novel itself has evolved out of Vonnegut’s own earlier fiction.
Vonnegut recognizes that evolutionary theory is often misunderstood and that it leaves unanswered questions. He points out that evolution is not simply an inevitable progression of constant improvement. Contingency often shapes the course of events, such as the occurrence of a new virus that destroys female reproductive organs or the mutation caused by the Hiroshima bomb. Moreover, evolution is not always toward the better. For example, in the Irish elk, the deer family’s defense mechanism of antlers was taken to such an extreme that it ultimately led to the extinction of the species.
Some of these ideas Vonnegut treats with typical humor. The convoluted development of the first part of the book, with its many characters, digressions, histories, and coincidences, creates its own kind of whimsical evolution into the main plot concerning the few who reach Santa Rosalia. The short chapters, chopped into subsections, end with suspenseful jokes. It is as if Galápagos itself, like evolution, is shaped not by grand design but by chance and coincidence.
One of the central ideas, comical but pointed, that the novel presents is that the huge human brain has become as burdensome an evolutionary step for humans as the Irish elk’s huge antlers were. Humans’ brains, with their capacity to invent, imagine, and hold opinions, have become their greatest enemies. One problem, Vonnegut posits, is that it has proved impossible for humans to imagine something that could happen without trying to make it happen, often with disastrous results. Similarly, opinions, not necessarily grounded in fact, become so firmly held that they drive humans to irrational acts. In Galápagos, then, Vonnegut reverses the general supposition that as people evolve to higher intelligence they improve. His fisherfolk develop flippers and lose the manual dexterity to make tools or weapons, and as their skulls shrink, their brains diminish, and they become harmonious and content.
Implicit in Galápagos, despite its humor, are some grim warnings. Among the most obvious are warnings about the world economic situation, with its inequalities resulting in massive starvation and in debts that threaten the monetary system. There are warnings about the possibilities of accidental war, of conflict over “opinions,” and of new viruses made dangerous by environmental damage to immune systems. Behind all these ideas, though, looms the overriding danger of what humans are themselves, here presented as the danger posed by their oversized brains.
Galápagos is dominated by a positive tone, however, not only because of its humor but because it ultimately is affirmative about human decency. It is notably affirmative about women. While many of the men are impaired or incompetent, the women, particularly the central mother figure, Mary Hepburn, cope, survive, and nurture. Even the ghostly narrator rejects his father’s cynicism and his own tormented past to become reconciled. The epigraph, borrowed from Anne Frank, is appropriate: “In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart.”
Sources for Further Study
Kirkus Reviews. LIII, August 1, 1985, p. 751.
Library Journal. CX, October 15, 1985, p. 104.
Los Angeles Times Book Review. September 29, 1985, p. 1.
The New York Times Book Review. XC, October 6, 1985, p. 7.
Newsweek. CVI, October 21, 1985, p. 80.
Publishers Weekly. CCXXVIII, August 30, 1985, p. 413.
Time. CXXVI, October 21, 1985, p. 90.
Times Literary Supplement. November 8, 1985, p. 1267.
The Wall Street Journal. CCVI, November 6, 1985, p. 30.
Washington Post Book World. XV, September 22, 1985, p. 1.