Leonard Mustazza - Forever Pursuing the Genesis
The Sirens of Titan and the "Paradise Within"

47
As in the case of many of Vonnegut's novels..., the movement towards Eden [the discovery of the paradise within on the Edenic Titan for Malachi and Beatrice] of sorts begins with its antithesis, the fallen world... The primary case of its trouble, Vonnegut is careful to point out, has to do with the spiritual alienation of the species, the sense that life is without inherent meaning colliding with the desperate belief that there must be some source of meaning out there somewhere.

48
Rumfoord: he exists now as a wave phenomenon that materializes on earth only at fixed intervels, the miraculous materializations that people so avidly await. More importantly, at the same time that he lost his physical substantialit, he gained certain extraordinary talents, including ability to read minds (22) and to see into future (24). He does not hesitate to use these talents in his self-appointed mission to reorder human priorities and thus save humankind from meaningless.
The Church of God the Uttery Indifferent

49
(as in piano and other novels?) Feelings are unimportant to Rumfoord, and people are expendable. The experiment is all.

51
He also sees it that they handicap themselves with weights and other devices meant to hamper natural human advantages. In effect, Rumfoord has nothing less than to remake the human species, not in his own image, for he will remain superior and (52) unhandicapped, but in an image that he considers good.

53
David Goldsmith has argued that The Sirens of the Titan is, by authorial design, only ostensibly about the conflict between Rumfoord and Constant, but "the opponent is none other than the God himself." "Does anybody up there like us?" Goldsmith continues. "Is there anybody there at all? Are those who are manipulating us here on earth in turn being manipulated by higher powers?" (but for Mustazza the novel is in the conflict between those two characters)

54
While Rumfoord thought that he was controlling the destinies of human beings on Earth and, on a smaller scale, the lives of Malachi and Beatrice, it was actualy he who was being controlled by the Tralfamadorian to deliver the replacement part.

55
In the end, finally, he [Malachi] finds his happiness on Titan with his mate and his son: he will learn to deliver, in James Mellard's words, "the only message that we have to deliver--a life." In effect, Malachi will discover an Edenic place and, more important, what Milton would call "the paradice within." This latter discovery allows him to find what he went to Rumfoord to find in the first place--the meaning of life, which is to take charge of our lives whenever we can and to love others. Sighnificantly, moreover, Vonnegut allows Malachi, along with his equally abused son and mate, to discover the internal paradise of meaning at the same time that Rumfoord, the great "tribal god," discovers the failure of his own external paradise on earth.
As for the external paradise that Malachi and his family find on Titan, Vonnegut never explicitly calls it Eden, and yet it is quite clear that this fictional place is meant to summon up visions of an Edenic locus and the way of life.

56
(Beatrice in her book "The True Purpose of Life in the Solar System", written on the Titan) Free will is not the ability to make endless choices, but to make choices whenever we can; and even if we are unknwingly carrying out the will of some great power (the Tralfamadorians, Rumfoord, even God), we are nevertheless free in the choice of our way to do it. Besides, she later maintains, "the worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody would be not to be used for anything be anybody." (The point is, according to Mustazza, rather Beatrice's than Vonnegut's one).

57
After her [Beatrice's] death Malachi will be left alone, but he will also be left with an important realization, which, in effect, constitutes the theme of The Sirens of the Titan: that "a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved."
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(Irony): it is paradise that involves, in Russel Blackford's words, "physical separation from their kind."