Existentialism And Nihilism In Vonnegut's Breakfast Of Champions

Concerned with problems with identity, death and therefore the nature of life, my major work, esse/sein/est uses both a fantastical setting and personal retellings of significant historical events to examine universal themes inspired by existentialist thought. Influenced by a variety of sources from the English curriculum, the studies in my other subjects and personal reading, it aims to answer, if in a fanciful way, some of the major questions that occupy us all at some point in our lives. Through study of the After the Bomb elective in
English Extension 1, I came to understand the existentialist and nihilist paradigms that came about as a result of the senseless destruction of World War Two. The constant questioning of reality and meaning

The final inclusion of the image that had inspired Casus was inspired by Vonnegut’s use of hand drawn images throughout his novel Breakfast of Champions.
Stille Nacht was harder to develop, though it follows a more conventional narrative form, examining the Christmas Truce of 1914. Through my investigation, my preconceptions about the event were challenged by first-hand accounts, altering my narrative and writing, for example “Enemy soldiers shouted to one another from the trenches, joined in singing songs and soon met one another in the middle of no-mans-land to talk, exchange gifts and in some areas to take part in impromptu soccer matches.” Again I created anonymity through exclusively using personal pronouns, with the names only being introduced towards the end. As I wrote I found that the central character of Peters was partially inspired by Joseph Heller’s Yossarian from his novel Catch-22, an assigned text from
English Extension 1. I created a sense of numbness and depression with the repeated motif of cold and winter, which I furthered with allusions to medical terminology.