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Call 2BR02B
Kurt Vonnegut’s “2BR02B” appeared in If: Worlds of Science Fiction in January 1962. It remains one of his most unsettling looks at how a society might lie to itself in the name of order. The title, pronounced “2 B R naught 2 B,” nods to Shakespeare’s famous line from Hamlet. In the story, however, the phrase becomes the phone number used to arrange an assisted “voluntary departure” with the Federal Bureau of Termination. This shift signals the story’s mixture of dark humour and sharp critique, wrapped in deceptively simple language.
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Plot Summary of 2BR02B
The story happens in a future United States where ageing has been cured and people live indefinitely. Because no one dies naturally, population control keeps the country fixed at forty million citizens. Edward Wehling Jr., a young man waiting in a hospital, faces a painful dilemma when he learns that his wife is expecting triplets. For each new life, someone must volunteer to die. As he waits, the weight of that rule grows heavier, especially as no volunteers step forward. The setting looks calm, almost cheerful, yet the tension never quite leaves the air.
The Shakespearean Framework: “To Be, or Not to Be”
The title’s reference to Hamlet shapes the story’s tone from the start. Hamlet debates whether life’s suffering outweighs the fear of the unknown after death. His reflection is intimate and deeply personal. Vonnegut twists this question by turning it into a bureaucratic routine. In this dystopia, the choice that tormented Hamlet becomes a scheduled appointment handled by polite clerks. The “voluntary passing away” turns into a civic contribution rather than a desperate act. The Federal Bureau of Termination even thanks citizens for their service.
This transformation highlights the story’s dry irony. Hamlet spoke in a time when “personal end-of-life choice” was a grave sin. Vonnegut imagines a society that flips those values entirely and treats voluntary death as responsible behaviour. Life and death become administrative matters rather than personal struggles.
The Perfect Society and Its Hidden Cost
The story opens with the line, “Everything was perfectly swell,” which carries a forced brightness. This world has no poverty, no disease, no disability, and no war. Ageing is gone, and accidents are the only natural cause of death. On the surface, the scenario looks ideal. Yet the tone signals that something feels off.
Vonnegut shows the cost of this perfection through small details. A cheerful song drifts through the hospital, its lyrics celebrating voluntary death as a thoughtful gesture that frees space for newborns. The people in this world accept the system so fully that they treat death as a matter of organisation rather than loss. The more the story reveals, the clearer it becomes that comfort hides a quiet brutality.
Overpopulation Control
“2BR02B” responds to the growing concern about global population during the mid-20th century. By the early 1960s, the world population had passed three billion and was increasing quickly. Scientists and policymakers debated resources, environmental limits, and the pressure of expanding cities. Vonnegut extends these anxieties to a bleak conclusion. His society manages overpopulation by enforcing exact numerical balance. No one is exempt, and no exception is allowed. Although the system works, it treats people as quantities rather than individuals with hopes and fears.
Viewed in the context of the Cold War, the story becomes even sharper. Both superpowers promoted grand systems for managing society. Efficiency and planning were valued above nuance. Vonnegut suggests that any system—no matter its ideology—can drift into cruelty when numbers matter more than people.
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
When “2BR02B” appeared, Vonnegut was still finding his place in the literary world. He had released Player Piano and The Sirens of Titan, though neither brought widespread acclaim. Much of his work from this period appeared in magazines, and many readers labelled him a science-fiction writer, a term he often resisted.
This story belongs to the years just before Cat’s Cradle and, later, Slaughterhouse-Five established his reputation. It shows him experimenting with tone and structure while refining the dark humour that would become central to his style.
Vonnegut’s Satirical Method: Dark Humour and Moral Horror
Vonnegut has long been my favourite author, partly because of the ease with which he blends plain language with uncomfortable truths. In “2BR02B,” he uses a third-person perspective set mainly in a Chicago hospital. The prose stays light and steady, yet the events carry a cold weight. This contrast makes the horror more striking.
He often uses humour to reveal how systems can shape behaviour. The Federal Bureau of Termination illustrates this clearly. Its name sounds like an administrative office rather than a place that manages death. The Bureau operates gas chambers with the same calm efficiency that other offices use for paperwork. Vonnegut survived the bombing of Dresden, and his writing often contains echoes of large-scale destruction handled with bureaucratic indifference. Here, that distance becomes the story’s most chilling feature.
Throughout the narrative, Vonnegut explores themes of agency, control, sacrifice, and the nature of utopian thinking. Art appears in surprising ways, such as in the mural that decorates the waiting room. The mural attempts to celebrate the system, yet it creates an atmosphere that feels more oppressive than uplifting.
My Thoughts
More than sixty years later, “2BR02B” still feels sharply great. Contemporary debates about population, climate, healthcare, and assisted dying carry threads that run through the story. Vonnegut avoids preaching about particular policies. Instead, he points toward the danger of reducing moral decisions to tidy calculations. When life becomes an equation, something essential slips away.
Vonnegut often distrusted large systems, whether capitalist, authoritarian, or technocratic. At the same time, he believed in the capacity of individuals to act with kindness and integrity. The story captures this paradox. Its world is harsh, but it teaches us that meaning and dignity cannot be replaced by efficiency.
Wrapping Up
“2BR02B” stands as one of Vonnegut’s sharpest examinations of a society that prizes order above humanity. In fewer than three thousand words, he imagines a world free from hardship yet stripped of depth. Birth becomes a calculation, and death becomes a scheduled service.
Vonnegut never suggests nostalgia for a world filled with suffering. Instead, he questions the assumption that comfort and control are enough to define a good life. The story holds space for uncertainty and insists that dignity matters as much as safety.
“2BR02B” first appeared in If: Worlds of Science Fiction in 1962. It later joined the collection Bagombo Snuff Box and now exists in the public domain.
Other stories with ethical dilemmas
Vintage pulp magazine available:
Science Wonder Stories, Vol. 1, No. 2
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