Player Piano- Analysis & thoughts

I found the broken headlight on Paul's car to be of importance to the novel. Headlights are meant to help you see at night by illuminating the area around you, yet Paul only had one. In the beginning of the novel, the broken headlight seemed to represent how Paul only saw one side to life, he only had half-vision. Paul only saw his side of the river, only his side of life, the 'successful and educated' side. Paul did not have any connections to the other side of the river and was in fact afraid of the people living on the other side. Because Paul refused to see the other side for what it was worth, he only knows half truths about life beyond machines. Paul has gone through life without question. His blinders have been up to the rest of the world, ignoring what he does not understand and only seeing what society perceives to be acceptable.

Paul also has other cars. It is hinted at that he has cars which are much nicer than the one that he drives around, yet he continues to choose to drive his old, rusty, loud car. This shows that although Paul works on the mechanised side of the river, he is still reluctant to let go of the past. This one fact sets up the idea in the reader that Paul might be able to overcome this societal barrier and bring the two sides together.

In the end, Paul doesn't even have a car, symbolizing how he is now going blindly throughout the rest of the novel. He has left all that he is accustomed to behind and has stepped outside of his box and now has to follow his heart, and believe that it will guide him to do the right thing. Paul has left behind the last of the machines, the start of peoples dependency on machines- his old and rusty car, and is attempting to bring back the human element that was lost to the industrialization of the city. (and to think this all started with a broken headlight)

I found this book to be shockingly representative of life today. People are becoming more and more dependent on machines, and we aren't even looking at the consequences. We are already seeing less industrialized people/countries as beneath us and people that are not as mechanically savvy as stuck in the past, outdated. This book seems to be a foreshadowing of what is to become of our society if we continue down the path we are going. Although there were many similarities between this novel and our lives today, I did not enjoy reading it. Maybe it was because it was so close to the life that we have now that i found it frightening... Truthfully, I just did not enjoy this novel. I am not sure if there is one specific thing that I can point out that I didn't like, I just didn't enjoy it in general.