A Review on Mother Night

In the novel Mother Night written by Kurt Vonnegut there are many dramatic and

powerful scenes that Vonnegut describes throughout the novel to show the importance they had

on Howard W. Campbell Jr.’s life. When Campbell finds out his wife is still alive and is reunited

with her, beaten on his door step, and when he turns himself in.

When Campbell talked about his past wife whom he suspected was dead for the past

fifteen years it was very apparent that he indeed had a deep love for Helga. When Campbell was

stating his love for Helga he had when they were happily married he said, “Oh, how we clung,

my Helga and I-how mindlessly we clung!” (43). Campbell also always refereed to their

relationship as a “nation of two”, which shows that when Campbell was with Helga all the

needed was her, that was his number one nation. All of the things that Campbell said to describe 
 his love for Helga was made the reader understand how much he loved her. When Vonnegut

reunited the two it made the reader believe that there was hope for Campbell to be happy and live

a normal life now that he had his Helga back. Everyone who witnessed the two meet again was

very emotional, even Kraft came close to crying.

Campbell and Resi had just gotten home from a day out when Campbell was brutally

beaten by a man who recognized Campbell from the newspaper as the Nazi who committed

many war crimes. This man was traumatized from the war and wanted to take it out on

Campbell. Every kick and punch he laid on Campbell he named a friend he had lost in the war to

suggest that each blow to Campbell’s body was out of respect, honor, and to get the revenge for

them because that they could not. He stated “I’m one guy who hasn’t forgot the war. Everybody

else has forgot it, as near as I can tell-but not me.” (146). That statement he made shows what

horrible effects the war had left on him. That scene he crucial to the novel