Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Kurt Vonnegut character analysis in slaughterhouse five
Can literature influence human behavior
Kurt Vonnegut character analysis in slaughterhouse five
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Breakfast of Champions: Life With Others
For anyone who has ever wondered what the meaning of life is, it is to be the eyes and ears of the Creator of the Universe, if one believes Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions (1973).
In Breakfast of Champions the protagonist, Kilgore Trout, is a lonely science fiction writer who lives in a hole in the dredges of New York City. His only work published was "to give bulk to books and magazines of salacious pictures" ( 21). Finally catching his break, Trout is invited to the Midland City Arts Festival, home of Dwayne Hoover. Hoover, who is a wealthy car salesman, owns a share of virtually everything in Midland City. However, Hoover is on the brink of insanity at this time and is thinking that one of the artists at the festival will help him find the solution to his quest for fulfillment.
Vonnegut uses characters from diverse lifestyles to develop his discouraging views of humanity. Through comical writing, Vonnegut shows how love, relationships, ideas and even gossip can have strong effects on humans and society.
Sometimes people don't realize the effects of words on other people. In Breakfast of Champions, Dwayne Hoover comes to this realization the hard way. Already having a bad day, Hoover runs into one of his employees named Harry. Not too fond of the way Harry dresses, feeling he is too bland, Hoover addresses him. "Harry, why don't you get a bunch of cotton waste from Vern Garr, soak it in Blue Suncoe* and burn up your f-cking wardrobe?" (46). Later in the chapter, he ridicules Harry's appearance again. "I have some news for you: modern science has given us a whole lot of wonderful colors, with strange, exciting names like red!, orange!, green!, and pink!"(48)...
... middle of paper ...
...54). Hoover got up from the table to go on a eleven person beating rampage which included: his son Bunny, mistress Francine and Kilgore Trout. "It shook up Trout to realize that even he could bring evil into the world-- in the form of bad ideas" (15). Due to Hoover, Trout realized how powerful his words were, went on to win the Nobel Prize for medicine.
Trout and Hoover's derogatory comments and unthoughtful actions served to discourage and devastate people's lives around them. The satirical comedy which the novel is perceived by the reader makes it humorous, but as the story unfolds it becomes depressing. There is a sense of truth in Vonnegut's disturbing view of humanity. The road of life is set out for people to travel, being careful of ones actions will make it less bumpy.
Work Cited
Vonnegut , Kurt. Breakfast of Champions. Dell Publishing Co. 1973
I think one thing that Vonnegut is trying to show us is that man too easily accepts things as valid without questioning. Refering to this, Newt, another character, says, "No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's…No damn cat, and no damn cradle" (114).
Wood, Karen and Charles. “The Vonnegut Effect: Science Fiction and Beyond.” The Vonnegut Statement. Vol. 5. 1937. 133-57. The GaleGroup. Web. 10 March. 2014.
Kurt Vonnegut’s fictional novel “Cat’s Cradle”, indirectly explores issues that parallels into topics such as religion, scientific/technological advancements, political power and much more. Vonnegut’s novel is narrated by a character named Jonah (John). He, Jonah, sets out to write an anthropological book based off of what key people were doing on the day that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Throughout Vonnegut’s novel it can clearly represents how a writer can become a very destructive person to society. As for this novel, it shows through the uses of parallels that a writer can become a very destructive person to society, these parallels are reflects to real world issues throughout his novel to show this claim, that a writer too can be a destructive person to society.
But what really forces Vonnegut to impose his presence on the text is his complete inability to remove himself at all from the act of communication at the core of any work of literature. He revels in that involvement. He has mentioned his desire, what he implies is a universal need of all human beings, for some "soul-deep fun." He uses this term as a synonym for greatness. And this has lead to some nasty comments in fiction workshops about stories that I've written: complaints of flat characters, cartoonish plotlines, non-directed criticism, overall pessimism and over-sentimentality for all things lowbrow. Needless to say, sometimes I feel, to varying degrees of pretension, like Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Led by members known as Z-1 and Z-2, Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano and Jaime Gonzalez Duran changed the face of Mexican crime forever. The Zetas were then known for their brutality in their dealings with citizens and rival cartels that refused to cooperate with the Gulf Cartel. As the government started to crack down on crime, the Zetas continued to get more violent, recruiting more military members and submitting them through training of their own. As the Zetas grew and got higher up into the Gulf Cartel there was a lot of animosity. Gulf Cartel members were reluctant to let these new members get into the higher ups of the organization. This led to the Zetas pushing harder in their dealings and eventually fully splitting from the cartel to form the independent Los Zetas Cartel in 2010. The Zetas are now over 3000 members strong with most of them hav...
Slaughterhouse Five is not a book that should be glanced over and discarded away like a dirty rag. Slaughterhouse Five is a book that should be carefully analyzed and be seen as an inspiration to further improve the well-being of mankind. Vonnegut makes it clear that an easy way to improve mankind is to see war not as a place where legends are born, but rather, an event to be avoided. Intelligent readers and critics alike should recognize Vonnegut’s work and see to it that they make an effort to understand the complexities behind the human condition that lead us to war.
Vonnegut's writing style throughout the novel is very flip, light, and sarcastic. The narrator's observations and the events occurring during the novel reflect a dark view of humanity which can only be mocked by humor. At the beginning of the novel the narrator is researching for a book he is writing. The book was to be about the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and the lives of the people who created the bomb. The narrator travels through the plot of the story, with characters flying in and out, in almost a daze. He is involved in events which are helplessly beyond his control, but which are inevitably leading to a destination at the end.
Superficially, Madeline is only an angelic figure, but what is overlooked in a purely angelic reading of Madeline is the split image of one character with two distinct aspects, one virginal and pure, the other seductive and powerful. Madeline is not only a heavenly, ...
States in 1963 through 1969. A position he assumed after his service as the 37th Vice President
To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life”.- Walter Mitty (Movie).
Chaucer uses the prologue to the Monk's Tale as one more opportunity for satiric, self-referential comedy. Within the story he is a necessarily opaque character. Significantly, the Host assumes that Chaucer is, at best, a mid-ranking government official and not an artist capable of constructing a landmark piece of literature such as the Canterbury Tales.
Vonnegut powers uniformity on America in the regions of excellence, quality, and insight. He makes a world in which lovely individuals wear veils to cover their countenances and solid
...rtillery. Cavalry units were converted into basic infantry to accommodate this new technology (Vuksic 260, 262, 267). Many of these warrior horses also perished during the intensity of battle. For instance, at the beginning of the war, there were 22 million horses, by the end, there were only 2.3 million (Moore 39).
In his Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer assembles a band of pilgrims who, at the behest of their host, engage in a story-telling contest along their route. The stories told along the way serve a number of purposes, among them to entertain, to instruct, and to enlighten. In addition to the intrinsic value of the tales taken individually, the tales in their telling reveal much about the tellers. The pitting of tales one against another provides a third level of complexity, revealing the interpersonal dynamics of the societal microcosm comprising the diverse group of pilgrims.
Kurt Vonnegut uses a combination of dark humor and irony in Slaughterhouse-Five. As a result, the novel enables the reader to realize the horrors of war while simultaneously laughing at some of the absurd situations it can generate. Mostly, Vonnegut wants the reader to recognize the fact that one has to accept things as they happen because no one can change the inevitable.