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School Work

Written school work through the years.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr (formal topic outline)

Kurt Vonnegut Jr.’s Way of Writing

Thesis: Through his books Kurt Vonnegut Jr. uses slightly crude humor and an almost unrealistic, lampooning setting to poke fun at how mankind is, and how mankind thinks and acts.

I. Life Biography

A. Father married woman of high established family/ along with him already being socially adapted.

B. Jr. born Nov. 11, 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana 

C. Family originates from Germany

D. Family goes downhill economically and socially/ Cause: prohibition (they own their own brewery), great depression, and anti German feelings after WWI

II. Vonnegut in War

  1. Apposed American entry into WWII

  2. But after Pearly Harbor, he changed mind

  3. 1943 joined the army

  4. Mom got depressed because of him joining the army

  5. May 1944, mom commits suicide

  6. Taken prisoner during “Battle of the bulge”

  7. Witnessed bombing of Dresden/ reason for writing Slaughterhouse-Five

  8. Awarded Purple Heart after war

III. After war/ reasons for writing

  1. When younger mom took writing classes and sent in her work for extra cash/ slightly influenced Vonnegut to start writing

  2. Throughout high school and through college even after college Vonnegut wrote for newspapers

IV. Works/ Popularity/ Classification

  1. Wrote Player Piano 1952

    1. Got him classified as a Science Fiction because use of fantasy

    2. Not very popular because Science Fiction not respectable

  2. Wrote The Sirens of Titan (1956), Cats Cradle (1963), and God Bless You Mr. Rosewater (1965)

  3. Then taught shortly at Iowa Writers’ Workshop, learned new techniques to writing, then later applied them

  4. After teaching wrote: Slaughterhouse-Five

    1. Gained rep. for book

    2. People liked because he wrote about anti war/ during peak of Vietnam Protest

  5. Then wrote: Breakfast of Champions (1973), Slapstick (1976), Jailbird (1979), Galapagos (1985), Palm Sunday (1981), and then one play called Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1970).

V. Story Layout Style

A. “He is a true rarity among modern American novelists- a moralist deploying traditional satire, iconoclastic grim humor, and a lucid view of what is wrong with man.”

B. Combines humorous fiction and what most people think is morally right

C. Vonnegut “My books are essentially mosaics made up of a whole bunch of tiny chips and each chip is a joke.”

D. Player Piano: “The social satire, the contemporary relevance, the humor, and the touch of yearning combine in Player Piano with fast pace and plenty of action. The combination is not always comfortable however. At times Player Piano is serious to the point of being solemn, elsewhere it can be breezily lampooning. Yet it is in part the tension between derision and humane concern which leads to the novels strength.”

E. Satisfaction every page or so, with a surprise, a moral, or a laugh

VI. Style/ Audience 

  1. Uses common issues of America (political corruption, environmental pollution, censorship, and militarism) to be popular in American society’s view.

  2. Depicts modern society/ makes fun of human condition

  3. Tries to get future leaders in government to be part of audience, and wants them to learn some morals depicted in novels

  4. Doesn’t like modern scientific tech, so belittles it, or doesn’t mention it

  5. “ Looking back over the six novels [ Player Piano, The Sirens of Titan, Mother Night, Cat’s Cradle, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and Slaughterhouse-Five] we might be tempted to see them as answering more questions, explaining more of life, or rendering the world more knowable than they do. Vonnegut places considerable emphasis on the fact that we know very little about a great deal.”

VII. Style/ Characters

  1. Often secretly includes self in stories

  2. Characters look for order/ meaning in a disorderly/ meaningless universe

  3. Characters go through a lampooning life


VII. Them/ Character

  1. Characters strive to be important, but history always intervenes

  2. Characters that do reach that goal, realize that they don’t like the upper class

  3. Then join the lower class to become satisfied

  4. Then realize that neither is desirable

IX. Themes/ Player Piano

  1. Tells present events/ problems, but uses futuristic setting

  2. Only things futuristic are social innovation and tech. advances

  3. Novel makes fun of today’s society by using great exaggeration in futuristic setting

  4. Summary: “ the protagonist, other characters, and even the author himself, seem to indulge the notion that , the present being grim and the future holding little promise, the past must somehow have been better.”

  5. So problems of the past are better then the things we do today to fix them

X. Theme/ The Sirens of Titan

A. Depicts society controlled by machines

B. Futuristic, man searching for meaning in universe

C. Humans trying to answer all the “whys” in life, but Vonnegut emphasizes that the answers can’t be answered through science and exploration, but can be found in man himself.

XI. Them/ Slaughterhouse-Five

  1. Character starts respectable ( optometry, engaged to upstanding woman, becomes rich)

  2. Joins war, sees what is wrong with the world

  3. Throughout war and life has lots of tragedy (wife dies, everyone around him starts dieing)

  4. He gives up on life, but no one will let him just die

  5. Finally he is in plane accident and becomes mentally unstable to all, but really he is quite insightful and realizes all the wrongs

  6. Character is not afraid of death

XII. Style/ Slaughterhouse-Five

  1. Includes himself in book,  (joining of war)

  2. Many tragic losses in book and in family

  3. Mental states big part of his life (mom) and of book (Billy)

  4. Uses setting that gets to the audience about war, and tries to show morals, and tries to show anti war feelings


Daniel HankinsComment