Analysis of "Mother Night" by Kurt Vonnegut: irony and identity

"Mother Night" is a novel written by the American author Kurt Vonnegut. The novel was published in 1961.

The Life of Howard Campbell Jr

Howard Campbell Jr, writer and playwright, American by birth and stateless by natural inclination, lives in Germany at the time of Hitler, careless about politics and is interested only in his beautiful wife Helga and his theatrical dramas.
Howard gets involved in an American citizen, his blue fairy, in politics. He calls him that because he does not know his true identity and will magically appear in front of him only 3 or 4 times in life. The fairy asks him to become an American spy, in a few words to make new friends without leaving old people who can always come in handy.

The Career in Propaganda

Thus began his career in the propaganda ministry at the Third Reich. His messages are so beautiful and his propaganda so well done that they remain in the heart especially of the Nazis. Howard did his job all too well. Hence the moral of the novel. "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."
The novel is brilliant, intelligent, ironic but never disrespectful: the author laughs behind ideologies, the stupidity of certain big pieces of Nazism, human opulence and also laughs at the smallness of everything including the feelings and friendships that they melt like snow in the sun, especially the most sincere ones.

The friendly and playful irony remains in the light of which nothing is ever so serious or important and men seem spiteful children who love each other but to a certain extent, as long as they are capable of it.