Kurt Vonnegut Legacy

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Kurt Vonnegut was an American writer born in 1922. Throughout his career he was primarily known as a satirical writer and often delved into elements of fantasy and science fiction. In the 1950s Vonnegut began his career publishing short stories and soon began his prolific career by publishing his first novel Player Piano (1952). As his career progressed Vonnegut explored other areas outside science fiction which resulted in his work, Cat’s Cradle (1963) and Slaughterhouse-Five; or The Chldren’s Crusade (1969). His later work moved even further away from technology and served as commentary on American social values and society. This resulted in his novel Breakfast of Champion; or Goodbye Blue Monday! (1973). Vonnegut’s legacy was cemented as

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  • Questioning the Value of Literary Realism in Slaughterhouse Five, Cat's Cradle, and Mother Night

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kurt Vonnegut writes pessimistic novels, or at least he did back in the sixties. Between Slaughterhouse Five, Mother Night, and Cat's Cradle, Vonnegut paints a cynical and satirical picture of the degradation of society using distortion as the primary means to express himself. In Cat's Cradle, the reader is confronted with the story of the narrator, John, as he attempts to gather material to write a book on the human aspect of the day Japan was bombed. As the story progresses, he finds that becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish reality from illusion. He meets up with a midget, a dictator, and a nation's object of lust as his journey progresses, and he eventually ends up the sole leader of a remote island and witnesses the end of the world. Using implausible stories and unbelievable characters and situations to convey his message, Vonnegut's utilization of literary distortion allows him to move the reader and prove his point in a far greater way than he could by just blatantly shouting his opinions. "Anyone unable to understand how useful a religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either"(16), states the narrator, concerning Cat's Cradle. Throughout the text, Vonnegut uses the religion of Bokononism, which is a fictitious faith founded on the basis of deception, to establish that people can prosper and be happy under false beliefs. When two men founded the island nation of San Lorenzo, Cat's Cradle's model for society, it was...

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  • Relationships and Interdependence in the Works of Kurt Vonnegut

    2146 Words  | 5 Pages

    Relationships and Interdependence in the Works of Kurt Vonnegut While on the surface Kurt Vonnegut's works appear to singularly contain the pessimistic views of an aging, black humorist, his underlying meanings reveal a much more sympathetic and hopeful glimpse of humanity that lends itself to eventual societal improvement. As part of Vonnegut's strategy for enhanced communal welfare, the satirist details in the course of his works potential artificial family groups to connect the masses and alleviate the lonely.

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  • The Life of Billy Pilgrim in Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade

    2034 Words  | 5 Pages

    Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade: A duty Dance with Death. New York; Random House, 1969.

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  • Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five At Drake High School

    585 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kurt Vonnegut is an outstanding author who addresses problems he has with others in very concentrated ways. The disrespect of his book Slaughterhouse-Five at Drake High School by principal Charles McCarthy caused Vonnegut to assert his opinion on the situation. The school did not like the unappealing style of Vonnegut's writing resulting in the destruction of all his books by fire. Vonnegut uses rhetorical strategies such as anaphora, didactic, and invective language portraying his message to never judge a book by it's cover, all writers have the right to express their opinion.

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  • Analysis Of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five

    1050 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis, India and as a child he went through the Great Depression which hit Vonnegut's family very hard. Author William Rodney Allen in A Brief Biography of Kurt Vonnegut states, "When World War II broke out, Vonnegut was 16; at 20, he entered the army and was shipped off to Europe, where he almost immediately was captured by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge," which tells us that he was a prisoner of war early on in his deployment. Vonnegut is moved to Dresden and survives the bombing accidently because the pris...

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  • Religious Allusions in Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle

    1439 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

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  • Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five as an Antiwar Novel

    2286 Words  | 5 Pages

    Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five as an Antiwar Novel. War can affect and inspire people to many degrees. Kurt Vonnegut was inspired by war to write Slaughterhouse Five. which is a unique book referred to sometimes as a science fiction or semi-autobiographical novel.

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  • Delusions In Vonnegut's

    1645 Words  | 4 Pages

    Vonneguts character Billy is showing frequent signs of mental illness throughout the book. Most of the chapters show his delusions in the repeated use of the extraterrestrials, the Tralfamadorians. Many scenes from his travels with the aliens can be seen in different parts of his life that Billy may not have realized he had seen and taken to insert into his own imaginary delusions. Vonnegut gives us many scenes to prove that the Tralfamadorians are just a construct of Billy’s broken mind through the use of Kilgore Trout's science fiction novels and other pieces of his life.

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  • Kurt Vonnegut - The Man and His Work

    5175 Words  | 11 Pages

    One of the best, most valuable aspects of reading multiple works by the same author is getting to know the author as a person. People don't identify with Gregor Samsa; they identify with Kafka. Witness the love exhibited by the many fans of Hemingway, a love for both the texts and the drama of the man. It's like that for me with Kurt Vonnegut, but it strikes me that he pulls it off in an entirely different way.

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  • The Satire of Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle

    1004 Words  | 3 Pages

    Meeter, Glenn. "Vonnegut's Formal and Moral Otherworldliness: Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five," in Jerome Klinkowitz & John Somer (eds.), The Vonnegut Statement. USA: Delacourte Press/ Seymour Lawrence, 1973, 204-220.

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  • Effective Use of Irony and Satire in Cat's Cradle

    867 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

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  • Kurt Vonnegut

    723 Words  | 2 Pages

    After returning from the war Vonnegut attended the University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology. In 1947 he moved to Schenectady, New York, where he began to work on his first novel, Player Piano (1952), as well as a number of remarkably varied stories that would appear throughout the next decade in such magazines as Collier's, Playboy, Esquire and Cosmopolitan.

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  • Reality And Fictionism In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five

    762 Words  | 2 Pages

    Slaughterhouse-Five is a story of Billy Pilgrim 's capture by the Nazi Germans during the last years of World War II. Throughout the narrative, excerpts of Billy’s life are portrayed from his pre-war self to his post-war insanity. Billy is able to move both forward and backwards through his life in a random cycle of events. Living the dull life of a 1950s optometrist in Ilium, New York, he is the lover of a provocative woman on the planet Tralfamadore, and simultaneously an American prisoner of war in Nazi Germany. While I agree with Christopher Lehmann-Haupt that Slaughterhouse-Five effectively combines fact and fiction, I argue that the book is more centralized around coping.

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  • Analysis of Slaughterhouse-Five Antiwar Sentiments

    776 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kurt Vonnegut, the author of Slaughterhouse-Five, provided a powerful first-hand account describing the horrific events of WWII. Vonnegut recounted the events and wrote about himself through the novels protagonists, Billy Pilgrim. He was pessimistic regarding the novel because he wrote, “It is so short and jumbled and jangled, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre” (Vonnegut 22). However, on the other spectrum critics considered it to be “one of the worlds greatest antiwar books”(Vonnegut Back cover). The controversial novel was published in 1969, which was over two decades after WWII. The time it took Vonnegut to write the novel is an indication of how difficult it was for him to write about the bombings. Vonnegut does not write the novel to portray the narrator as, “John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war loving, dirty old men” (Vonnegut 14). Instead, he writes about the true chaos’s the narrator endured during his time in Dresden. Vonnegut’s novel consisted of events that reflected major societal and political movements, such as civil rights movements, and antiwar movements, within the United States during the 1960s.

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  • Comparing Themes in Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five

    1891 Words  | 4 Pages

    Throughout his career, Kurt Vonnegut has used writing as a tool to convey penetrating messages and ominous warnings about our society. He skillfully combines vivid imagery with a distinctly satirical and anecdotal style to explore complex issues such as religion and war. Two of his most well known, and most gripping, novels that embody this subtle talent are Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five. Both books represent Vonnegut’s genius for manipulating fiction to reveal glaring, disturbing and occasionally redemptive truths about human nature. On the surface, Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five are dramatically different novels, each with its own characters, symbols, and plot. However, a close examination reveals that both contain common themes and ideas. Examining and comparing the two novels and their presentation of different themes provides a unique insight into both the novels and the author – allowing the reader to gain a fuller understanding of Vonnegut’s true meaning.

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