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Chapter 10
Themes
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
Doctor Halyard, the Shah of Bratpuhr, and Khashdrahr are at the Carlsbad Caverns, which is home to the country’s largest computer. The computer is called EPICAC: it is, Halyard explains, “an electronic computing machine,” which is to say that it’s basically an electronic brain. It has been built into the caverns themselves and can answer almost any question by taking multiple factors into account. Mostly, though, EPICAC computes how many items like refrigerators, lamps, or hub caps consumers will use. It also decides how many engineers and managers to employ, what their IQs should be, and how many people should go into the army or the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps.
The Carlsbad Caverns is a national park in New Mexico that consists of a number of caves and beautiful rock formations. The mere fact that an enormous computer has taken over this geological marvel tells readers a lot about this futuristic version of the United States, making it clear that the country has prioritized technology over all else—including natural beauty. Instead of celebrating one of the nation’s most magnificent geological features, the country has decided to use it to house a computer that calculates—among other things—how many products to manufacture. This is a clear sign that the United States cares about efficiency, productivity, and money more than anything else.
Themes
The President of the United States, Jonathan Lynn, arrives to give a speech, and Halyard sits with the Shah and Khashdrahr in the audience in one of the caverns. The Shah doesn’t quite see the purpose or value of EPICAC until the President remarks that the computer is like the wisest person to ever live—in fact, the wisest man to ever grace the earth is to EPICAC what a worm would be to that wise man.
The President of the United States emphasizes the power and importance of EPICAC—so much, in fact, that even the Shah, who is otherwise so skeptical of all the supposed progress Halyard has shown him, can’t help but be impressed. This is because he sees the value in wisdom. He’s not impressed by EPICAC’s ability to calculate how many products to manufacture in a given year, but he is impressed by the idea that EPICAC possess great knowledge.
Themes
After the speech, the Shah asks the President if he can pose a question. He then walks over to EPICAC, gets on his knees, and sings something to it. He’s disappointed not to receive a reply. Khashdrahr explains that the Shah asked EPICAC an “ancient riddle,” but the President says this is ridiculous, claiming that people can’t just speak directly to the computer. On the Shah’s way out, he refers to EPICAC as a “false god.”
Although the Shah was initially impressed by the suggestion that EPICAC can answer basically any question, he’s disappointed to find that this isn’t the case. Of course, the President points out that there’s a specific way to pose a question to this large computer, but the Shah pays this no mind, seeing EPICAC as a “false god” that promises wisdom but can’t actually deliver any useful knowledge. And though the Shah didn’t go about asking his question in the correct way, it seems likely that EPICAC wouldn’t have been able to give him a satisfactory answer anyway—after all, computers aren’t well-versed in riddles. The passage shows that although everyone in the United States celebrates EPICAC’s wisdom, the computer is really more of a glorified calculator intended to streamline production than it is an actual repository of wisdom.
Themes
