Kurt Vonnegut's Short Story 'EPICAC'

In Kurt Vonnegut’s short story “EPICAC” we watch the sad and ironic tale of a narrator and his computer and the relationship between them. The narrator, desperately wanting to marry the girl of his dreams, Pat Kilgallen, goes to his friend, EPICAC, for advice on how he can get the girl. However, EPICAC falls for Pat and the narrator rudely and selfishly tells EPICAC that there is no way that Pat could ever love a machine.So what does Vonnegut define humans as? By analyzing this short story, we begin to see that Vonnegut’s picture of humanity is bleak and slightly distressing. The conclusion we can draw from this short and melancholy tale is that human beings don't fully understand and value love as we should since we are inherently selfish creatures that continuously exploit and take advantage of other humans and things, even though we are so often dependent on these things for knowledge and guidance. As we begin to look into Vonnegut’s heartbreaking tale, we see that humans have a very distorted view on love. When first reading, this does not seem to be a prominent idea, but as we begin to analyze this story, it becomes clear that the narrator had a very misconstrued idea of love is and what it does. We see this in two different

In fact, the first sin of man, eating the forbidden fruit since they wanted to be God, and almost every other sin is because of selfish desires. Within Vonnegut’s story, we see the narrator act selfishly. Desiring to have Pat all to himself, the narrator lies to EPICAC, his supposed companion. EPICAC calmly asks the narrator how protoplasm is better than metal and then proceeds to ask what protoplasm is made of that could be better than an imperishable object. The narrator, frustrated that a computer could be so knowledgeable, lies, saying, "Indestructible. Lasts forever." This, among several other things the narrator does, proves his selfishness and inability to correctly show