The Sirens of Titan Literary Elements

Science fiction, satire

Beginning in Hollywood, California at an unspecificed date in the modern day, the plot ranges all over the universe, from Earth to Mars, Mercury, and even Titan, a moon of Jupiter.

Third-person point of view following Malachi Constant, a rich young man with an unusual destiny, as well as various side characters throughout the novel, such as Beatrice Rumfoord, Boaz, and Chrono.

Blunt, jarring, sarcastic

Protagonist: Malachi Constant, the former richest man on Earth, now an interplanetary traveller being blown about by the whims of fortune - or, rather, the whims of Winston Niles Rumfoord. The novel's antagonist is ambiguous; some might consider Rumfoord, the nearly omniscient man who pulls all the strings, to be the antagonist, but a more accurate assessment would be that the antagonist is actually the futility of existence.

Constant loses all his wealth and is recruited into the Martian Army, being transformed into a brainless soldier-thing called Unk. This is simply the first and most dramatic point of dramatic conflict in the novel; for the rest, Constant is blown around the galaxy, enduring terrible suffering and irrational consequences along the way.

Having been banished from Earth, Constant and his family (Beatrice and Chrono) arrive at Titan, a Jovian moon. While there, they meet Salo, the Tralfamadorian alien whose crashed spaceship is the reason for humanity's development. On Titan, the depressing secrets of human history are revealed, and Constant's family finally breaks apart. In the end, Salo fixes his spaceship with Chrono's "good-luck piece" and drops Constant back on earth, where he quickly dies.

When Rumfoord materializes and appears to Constant, he basically lays out the rest of Constant's life, predicting that all sorts of crazy things will happen to him, including traveling to Mars, being bred "like animals" with Rumfoord's wife, and several others. This entire scene is foreshadowing, anticipating later events that will fulfill these prophecies.

“She didn’t like my fortunetelling.” - Winston Niles Rumfoord (Ch. 1)

Many real places and objects are referenced in this book, including Hollywood, California, the Bible, Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China, the Kremlin, and several others. As a whole, however, the book is mostly self-contained; the greatest overarching allusion is to Christianity, as Constant's exile and space flight closely parallel Jesus's crucifixion and ascension, although the allusion is made with a sarcastic undertone.

There is a lot of religious imagery throughout this novel, especially ironic imagery. The entire novel can be seen as a mockery of organized religion ("the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent"), and much imagery reflects this fact. A notable example is Constant's banishment from Earth: already being the primary figure in a religion, he ascends a platform shaped like a cross and ascends into the heavens, paralleling the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus in the Christian tradition. Instead of heaven, though, he travels to the far-off moon Titan, which orbits Jupiter. In this way, religious imagery only serves to parody religion instead of advocating it.

When Constant and Mrs. Rumfoord learn of Winston Niles Rumfoord's prediction that they will be bred together like animals on Mars, they intentionally try to avoid each other and to stay far away from the spaceship about to launch into space. Paradoxically, their very avoidance causes them to be in the right place at the right time to be abducted and taken to Mars, enacting this eventuality anyway.

Constant's banishment, ascending a wooden platform and taking off in his spaceship, crudely parallels the crucifixion and ascension of Jesus Christ in the Christian tradition. This parallelism serves to emphasize the nature of Constant as a Christ-figure while simultaneously mocking Christianity for its seeming absurdity.

“I told her that you and she were to be married on Mars.” - Winston Niles Rumfoord (Ch. 1)

"Married," in this case, as Rumfoord quickly clarifies, is a euphemistic metonym: what he really means is "bred like farm animals."

"The palace should speak well of the former tenant." (Epilogue)