Kurt Vonnegut All The King's Horses

A known problem in today’s society is the tendency to avoid problems by ignoring them. This has been mocked and satirized by the media, studied by scientists, and become an almost humorous staple in modern culture. However, none of the reactions to this problem have come close to solving it. In Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut tell the story of a war veteran, Billy Pilgrim, who jumps around time and is kidnapped by an alien race called the Tralfamadorians. He delves into themes of war and morality while offering a look into the mind of veterans after they return from war and how it affects them. Vonnegut explores humanity’s destruction of the Earth with a similar morbid yet dryly humorous approach in his poem Requiem. In both texts, Vonnegut

“If you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risks, you win no victories.” (Richard M. Nixon). In his investigative biography, Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer, expresses that even though young people can be ignorant and take treacherous risks, these can be used as knowledge enhancers and can be life changers.

In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five he talks about many different themes. He quotes, makes fun of, and uses many different themes. I would like to talk about one major theme in Slaughterhouse Five, religion. In the book he uses religion to teach important lessons, he used it as inspiration, and he even pokes fun at religion.

This story had a graphical representation that seemed to be abnormal or incoherent in the way it was presented, because in our society it is not normal and it is against the law to have a game in which the prize is death, but although it is not normal and against the law it happens in our everyday life. Although we do not have this kind of tradition anymore (within the United States,) we do have other rules, or laws, which instead of help people, it kills them little by little and some people decide to take justice in their hands. For example in some foreign countries the laws allow government to punish criminals by publically humiliating

Kurt Vonnegut followed many principles in his writings. He claimed that “people do not realize that they are happy” (PBS NOW Transcript). Feeling that people had the wrong view on war, he felt that he needed to get the facts straight. Vonnegut believed that art can come from awful situations, and that the truth is not always easy to look at. Kurt Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse – Five to tell of his experience in the bombing of Dresden, as a prisoner in war and the atrocities that occurred.

Throughout the non-fictional novel Into the Wild, the author Jon Krakauer catches the reader’s interest early on in the book. Krakauer takes us on a journey, telling the story of young Chris McCandless’ adventures after abandoning everything he owned. Krakauer fully emerged himself into the study of McCandless’ life’s adventures and soon developed a deep understanding of who he was and how he impacted to world. Krakauer connected with McCandless in an unexplainable way. Because of Krakauer’s past endeavors, he was able to capture the mentality of McCandless’ choices and write about them in a speaker and subject dynamic. As the novel progresses, the reader gets the sense of a unique brotherhood between the two, although they had never actually encountered one another. As Krakauer and McCandless’ “friendship” progresses, the reader will gain affection towards McCandless.

Elie Wiesel, the author who survived the Holocaust. In his book Night he describes the events in which he and his family endured during the Holocaust. George Orwell, the brilliant author who illustrates the Russian Revolution throughout his book Animal farm. He uses animals to infer the events that occurred in this time period.Even though Animal Farm and Night portray two different historical events, Night illustrates the horrifying experience of the Holocaust, while Animal Farm illustrates the alarming events of the Russian Revolution, both stories are related and distant in many ways.

Would choose a new car, a good job position and a high quality life or would you choose to give up all for a journey into the wild to discover the truth? Christopher Johnson McCandless choose ultimate freedom and truth rather than choosing security and material excess. The story into the wild is written by Jon Krakauer and it covers how Christopher lived for two years without the need of society and material excess. Chris journey enlightened him to the truth and made him feel the raw throb of existence. But, by mistaking people as part of society not as part of God creation and nature will suffer and eventually die. The journalist Jon Krakauer believes in Chris truth and see a relation between him and Chris and what gave him the motive ti write Into the Wild.

Nevertheless, both outcomes would lead to death. His final decision was to play the game and attempt to win instead of taking the easy way out. Another similar characteristic is how the antagonists have the advantage of having people to fight with them. “One almost did win. I eventually had to use the dogs” (Connell 14).

The ninety-five page novella, Animal Farm, written by George Orwell. Aimed at teenagers and adults, it cleverly shows the flaws within society and how we will never change. This timeless classic was converted into an hour and ten minute long film (in 1954) which is suitable and supposedly appealing to young children.

Kids who have been a victim of maltreatment are often times hindered in development as the rest of their life plays out. No matter the starting age, a family neglect can create in kids an odd and unpleasant feeling. The constant exposure to depressors and “bring-me-downs” that effected kids see really puts them into a terrible cycle. Some cases of maltreatment lead to extraordinary stories and even more impressive characters. In Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer, we can observe that Chris McCandless fell into this vicious cycle, and was effected by it throughout his adventurous life. Some of McCandless’ experiences later in life can be directly correlated with his childhood difficulties. But, in order of make sense

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut takes places on two contrasting planets. One is Earth, where war tears apart families and minds, and the other is Tralfamadore, where supernatural alien beings share their extended knowledge of the world. Vonnegut uses the two planets, Earth and Tralfamadore, to show the contrasting ideas of chaos and order, and that human actions have limitations that render them helpless against a meaningless universe.

Three books that I have read with influential themes are as follows: Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior by Ori Brafman and Rom Brafman, Animal Farm by George Orwell, and Night by Elie Wiesel. Sway talks about how most human behavior do can be explained by science. It goes into detail about why people are attracted to doing what they know is the wrong thing to do. Animal Farm uses the metaphor of a farm being compared to a government to illustrate what happens when people are under the rule of strict leaders. Lastly, Night tells the story of a Holocaust survivor. Its vivid and horrific details about the Holocaust left an impact on me. One thing the author mentioned is how much it hurt him when people said the Holocaust was

Kurt Vonnegut once said, “We are who we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” In this case, Vonnegut pretends to be science fiction writer, when in reality, he is writing about a million other things - kindness, peace, hope, religion, the human spirit - in which he has no obligation to be careful about who he pretends to be. Vonnegut’s work goes far beyond the traditional realm of a fiction writer, propelling him to be a form of a legend within the literary world. Kurt Vonnegut should be considered a classic author because of the lasting impact of his works, which are still in print today, the breakthroughs he’s made in his genre, and his enduring popularity among critics.

Slaughterhouse-five strives to remember the tragedy of the bombing of Dresden. Kurt Vonnegut constructs his novel around a main character who becomes “unstuck in time” (23). Billy Pilgrim’s life is told out of order, which gives him a different perspective than the rest of the world. Billy lives through his memories, and revisits events in his life at random times and without warning. Vonnegut introduces Billy Pilgrim to the Tralfamadorian way of thinking about memory and time so that he can cope with being unstuck in time. The Tralfamadorian ideology is set up as an alternative to the human ideology of life. In the novel Slaughterhouse-five, Kurt Vonnegut constructs a reality where memory is unproductive through the Tralfamadorian