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Chapter 5
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
In bed that night, Anita presses Paul for details about what Kroner said before they left the Country Club. He tells her Kroner simply told him to visit him the following week and—much to Anita’s disappointment—said nothing about the Pittsburgh job. As she asks him questions, Paul shows his annoyance, which in turn annoys her, as she argues that she has a right to “be interested” in his professional development.
One of the defining aspects of Paul and Anita’s relationship is that they don’t feel the same way about the importance of status and career advancement. Anita wants Paul to do whatever it takes to get the Pittsburgh promotion, but Paul resents her for constantly thinking about his career. There’s no room in their relationship for Paul’s misgivings about his job, and this seems to weigh on him, causing him to get annoyed with Anita for trying to push him up the corporate ladder.
Themes
Anita says that Finnerty ruined the entire evening, but Paul is thrilled by what Finnerty did. He felt a certain camaraderie with Finnerty at the Country Club tonight, reveling in the feeling of joining forces to undermine Checker Charley. But even more exciting is the fact that Finnerty quit his job—an idea Paul can barely wrap his head around.
Finnerty’s behavior shows Paul that he doesn’t have to just keep working at a job he doesn’t enjoy. He also doesn’t have to keep hiding his misgivings about the effects of automation on society. Instead, he can—like Finnerty—do whatever he wants. To Paul, this feels like a revolutionary idea, though it’s not yet clear if it’ll actually inspire him to do anything different with his life.
Themes
As Paul thinks about Finnerty’s bravery, Anita reminds him about his father’s expectation that he become the manager of Pittsburgh. This annoys Paul, since Anita never actually met his father. Still, she constantly brings him up, suggesting things he might think or say. Paul thinks she’s turned his father into a kind of myth, setting the bar for Paul’s own life. Kroner contributes to this too, taking it for granted that Paul will do exactly what his father did. This makes Paul feel strange. Whenever he thinks about his success, he realizes he doesn’t have the same “corporate personality” as his father, Kroner, or Shepherd. What he lacks, he senses, is the ability to actually care about his job.
Part of the problem weighing Paul down is that everyone in his life (except Finnerty) not only expects him to rise through the company, but also celebrate and obsess over his own success. It’s this second expectation that proves the hardest, since Paul can’t find it in himself to care about his job. He has already risen to a fairly prominent position and now has the chance to gain another promotion, but he finds it difficult to invest himself in this advancement. This, of course, is because he isn’t convinced that what he’s doing actually benefits anyone but the elite class of managers and engineers. Whereas people like his father and Kroner clearly believe that automation has made the world a better place, Paul isn’t so sure, and this makes it hard for him to devote himself to the corporate world—a world that otherwise depresses him.
Themes
