Automatic Piano "- Toward Rational Destruction

This thesis deeply analyzes Vonnegut's first novel, Player Piano, in the light of scientific and technological rationality theory, which includes technology alienation caused by supremacy of the scientific and technological rationality and destruction of human society. The thesis is composed of four chapters. The first chapter defines the concept of science and technological rationality and proposes that the supremacy of the scientific and technological rationality will cause serious consequences for the human society due to the technology alienation; while the second chapter focuses on analyzing the characters of the novel as well as the alienation of human beings. The third chapter explains the destruction of the human beings and the society. And the last chapter is about the reflection on the destruction of human society based on the harmony between scientific and technological rationality and value rationality. Through analyzing the alienation and destruction of the novel, the thesis reveals the main idea of the novel that the influence of industrial civilization and the development of science and technology towards people's life. In this sense, the novel is an alarm to human society in essence. The purpose of the thesis is to make necessary complement for the study of Vonnegut and his works.