Eliot Rosewater

Eliot Rosewater is a recurring character in the novels of American author Kurt Vonnegut. He appears throughout various novels as an alcoholic, and a philanthropist who claims to be a volunteer fireman. He runs the Rosewater Foundation, an organization created to keep the family's money in the family. He is among the few fans of the novels of Kilgore Trout (another of Vonnegut's creations).

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

"God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater," or, "Pearls Before Swine," the first of Vonnegut's novels to feature the character of Eliot Rosewater, is also the one in which he is the most prominent.

The novel follows much of his life as the liberal son of a rich, conservative Senator from Rosewater County, Indiana who founded the Rosewater Foundation. Eliot Rosewater is convinced that he should spend the family riches to help the poor and uses the Foundation to this end, an idea looked down upon by his father. Norman Mushari, an opportunistic former associate of the Rosewater family lawyer, attempts to have Eliot declared insane so that the family wealth can be inherited by his new client, a distant relative to the east. After becoming lucid after a year-long mental blackout, Rosewater's favorite writer, Kilgore Trout, tries to explain to the Senator that Eliot's actions were sane and compassionate.

laughterhouse-Five

"Slaughterhouse-Five," or "The Children's Crusade," first published in 1969, features Eliot Rosewater in Chapter Five. Billy Pilgrim, the main character of the novel, has committed himself to a psychiatric hospital during his last year of optometry school, and finds himself sharing a room with Eliot Rosewater. Eliot introduces Billy Pilgrim to the works of Kilgore Trout, which set the foundation for Billy's adventures through time and with the Tralfamadorians, aliens that Billy claims abducted him.

"Rosewater was twice as smart as Billy, but he and Billy were dealing with similar crises in similar ways. They had both found life meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in war. Rosewater, for instance, had shot a fourteen-year-old fireman, mistaking him for a German soldier. So it goes. And Billy had seen the greatest massacre in European history, which was the fire-bombing of Dresden. So it goes.So they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe. Science fiction was a big help."(Page 101, Dell 1981 paperback edition)

This passage contributes to God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, as it may explain why Eliot Rosewater claims to be a volunteer fireman. By volunteering to be a fireman, and even setting up a phone line in his home for emergency calls, Eliot believes he can make up for shooting the 14 year old in the war.

Although Eliot Rosewater only makes a short cameo in the novel, he contributes tremendously to the plot. Throughout the novel, Billy Pilgrim travels through time and is even abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. Billy also claims that the aliens placed him in a zoo on their planet. Vonnegut alludes to these adventures being fabricated and fueled by the Kilgore Trout novels introduced to Billy by Eliot Rosewater.

"He got a few paragraphs into it, and then he realized that he "had" read it before-years ago, in the veterans' hospital. It was about an Earthling man and woman who were kidnapped by extraterrestrials. They were put on display in a zoo on a planet called Zircon-212." (Page 201, Dell 1981 paperback edition)

Due to the fact that the entire novel is about the lessons Billy Pilgrim learns after he is abducted by Tralfamadorians and placed in their zoo, Eliot Rosewater's introduction of Kilgore Trout during Billy's stay in the veteran hospital could be considered the second most important event during the novel, after the bombing of Dresden, of course. Obviously, Billy's travels are fabricated and based on science fiction he has read by Kilgore Trout.

In conclusion, there would be no story to tell about Billy Pilgrim had Eliot Rosewater not introduced him to Kilgore Trout.

Film appearances

*"Slaughterhouse-Five" (1971), played by Henry Bumstead
*"Breakfast of Champions" (1999), played by Ken Hudson Campbell

Appearances in Vonnegut's Novels

*"God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater"
*"Slaughterhouse-Five"
*"Breakfast of Champions"
*"Hocus Pocus"

While not explicitly stated, Eliot Rosewater could be the Swedish doctor in "Galápagos". He is referred to as "the only person I ever met outside of Cohoes, New York, who had heard of my father."