Kurt Vonnegut Analysis

Billy Pilgrim is the person that the book is written around. We follow him, perhaps not in a straight order, from his youth joining the military to his abduction on the alien planet of Tralmalfadore, to his older age at his 1960s home in Illum. It is his experiences and journeys that we follow, and his actions we read about. However, Billy had a specific lack of character for a main one. He is not heroic, he has very little personality traits, let alone an immersive and complex character. Most of the story is written around his experiences that seem more like symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from his World War Two days, combined with hallucinations after a brain injury in a near-fatal plane

There is a paradox called the “paradox of unanimity,” which states that the larger the poll is, the more unreliable a unanimous verdict becomes. For example, if a store had just been robbed, three people claimed to witness it, and they all choose the same suspect out of five suspects, then this unanimous decision can be considered almost completely legitimate. However, if in the same situation, except with 100 witnesses, a unanimous decision would almost certainly be wrong. This is due inferred due to numerous causes, such as decisions being affected by what others chose, and unreliability of memory. Sometimes, things appear too good to be true, and they oftentimes are. Kurt Vonnegut tells us this in “The Euphio Question.” He uses a

The story 2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr is based in the future in 2081. Kurt Vonneguts stories take place in the future and are science fiction. In the future the world has population control and only a certain amount of people could live on earth. At the beginning of the twenty first century, there was not a lot of resources on earth to feed everyone. That is when population controlled came in, and the earth became a cleaner place to live and not so packed (Kurt Vonnegut). There were no issues on earth. The world was perfect. No one had any illnesses or were going to die. There was no crime, so no prisons needed. The only time someone would die, is if they would volunteer to die for someone else or they were just tired of life. Sounds like a perfect world, well it might be, if that person does not want to have children and want immortality.

In the story, Harrison Bergeron, one learns that the author, Kurt Vonnegut, does not like the way society is. He does not like how people judge one another because one is not as attractive, or smarter, or funnier. He

One of the greatest impacts caused by disasters is one’s motivation for living. In Slaughterhouse-Five, many characters display twisted minds after experiencing wars. Billy and Rosewater find life meaningless, because they witness too many dead bodies in war; Lazzaro finds the sweetest thing to be revenge. As wars bring distorted senses to people, Vonnegut presents two opposing coping methods in Slaughterhouse-Five: One is the Tralfamadorians’ passive idea and the other is the narrator’s humane notion. The overall concept of the Tralfamadorians is to “ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones” (Vonnegut 150). They do not look back, not even forward; they focus on the scattering patch of good moments regardless of time. A similar idea is how they have come to regard death: “in bad condition in that particular moment, and that the person is just fine in plenty of other moments.” The thought – it is more important that a person has lived a brilliant life – is comforting; however, it disregards the possibilities a person has as long as he or she lives. In an interview, Vonnegut points out that he “resents” the promising ideas, the Utopianism, in science fiction (qtd in Simpson 261). This is disclosed in Breakfast of Champions, when Kilgore Trout indirectly

Kurt Vonnegut’s background had an endless influence upon his writing. In his early years, Vonnegut was a private in the 106th infantry division in World War II. He and five scouts were caught behind enemy lines, and then captured. They were held POWs and were beaten on various occasions. In 1945, they witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany. Kept during this time in a slaughterhouse, this is part of the inspiration for Slaughterhouse-five. After being released from the Slaughterhouse, Vonnegut called Dresden “utter destruction” and “carnage unfathomable”. This distressing time in his life led to one of the many themes of Slaughterhouse-five which is that nothing good can come from war and a massacre. This theme

It is expected for arguments to arise when writing about controversial topics. Many times the meaning of a book is not as obvious as the author intended, which may lead to problems. Other times, books are challenged because they contain sexual or inappropriate material. When Kurt Vonnegut released Slaughterhouse-Five critics were quick to judge his peculiar way of writing. Although Kurt Vonnegut’s book Slaughterhouse-Five was oftentimes misunderstood, interpreted as inappropriate, and judged for the peculiar point of view, critics seem to appreciate and accept one aspect of it: the structure of the book.

And how can you say a man had a good mind when he couldn’t even bother to do anything when the best-hearted, most beautiful woman in the world, his own wife, was dying for lack of love and understanding’” (48). Martin mocks the prevailing notion that Felix is a harmless, playful innocent. Vonnegut depicts how people admire Felix because he is not influenced by materialistic values. However, Martin correctly points out that he does not deserve praise for not desiring the values that drive others. Thus, Vonnegut persistently allows for subjugation of Felix’s family members and permits the perpetuation of his diabolical atrocities. While Vonnegut obscurely elicits Felix’s “destructive” innocence, he blatantly illustrates Lowe Crosby’s conceitedness.

“Fate is a misconception, it's only a cover-up for the fact you don't have control over your own life.” –Anonymous. In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughterhouse-five, an optometrist named Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time uncontrollably and constantly travels between his past, present, and future. Since Pilgrim is unable to control his time warps, he is forced to re-live agonizing moments such as watching his wartime friend Edgar Derby executed for stealing or going through the Dresden bombing repeatedly. However, he is also able to visit pleasant moments like speaking as president in front of the Lions club or his honeymoon with his wife, Valencia. Vonnegut’s use of repetition and vision of war, time and death are crucial to Pilgrim as he

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

     Those who write on the human condition are often philosophers who write with convoluted language that few can understand. Kurt Vonnegut, however, focuses on the same questions, and provides his own personal answers with as much depth as that of the must educated philosopher. He avoids stilted language typical of philosophers, using shorter sentences, less complex vocabulary, humorous tangents, and outrageous stories to get his point across. With this style, Vonnegut presents the age-old question "How do we as humans live in this world?" in a manner appealing and understandable to the less educated mass. When offering advice to writers on how to write, Vonnegut said, "Our audience requires us

The phrase “so it goes” is repeated 106 times in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five. From “dead” champagne to the massacre at Dresden, every death in the book is seemingly equalized with the phrase “so it goes”. The continuation of this phrase ties in with the general theme on indifference in the story. If the Tralfamadorian view of time is correct, then everyone is continuously living every moment of their life and dying is not the end. However, if Vonnegut believed in this idea, then he wouldn’t have felt compelled to write about the firebombing of Dresden. It is clear that both Billy Pilgrim and Kurt Vonnegut are affected by the massacre they saw, but they have different ways of rationalizing it. Billy finds comfort in the Tralfamadorian view of life, whereas Vonnegut disagrees, and urges the reader to disagree too. The constant repetition of “so it goes” breaks the reader away from the Tralfamadorian point of view, and allows them to come to their own conclusion that although it would be nice to forget the bad parts of life, it is important to remember all of the past. Vonnegut helps the reader come to this conclusion by repeating the phrase after gruesome moments, and showing how meaningless life can be if the Tralfamadorian ideas are believed, as seen through Billy Pilgrim’s bland life..

In the story “2 B R 0 2 B” by Kurt Vonnegut, the authors tells us about how in a Chicago hospital a man named Edward K. Wehling jr. who lives in a society that when every baby is born, every person in that family dies. This man and wife are going to have triplets (3) kids. So because they only have one person to die for them, Ed kills the doctor, nurse, and himself. The theme in this passage is “stand up for what you believe in.”

In a tedtalk, Andrew Stanton said “We all love stories. We're born for them.” (Stanton 1:45) Which is true, our society’s culture is driven by storytelling. Stanton was the mind behind well known movies like Finding Nemo and WALL-E. He obviously had has time to perfect the art of storytelling. He came up with rules to create a good story. Some of the rules being make me care, 2 + 2, no happy village, villain, or love story. And those are just some of the rules used to create a good story.In Kurt Vonnegut's Miss Temptation, Vonnegut uses the rules make me care, 2 + 2, and makes a promise. Vonnegut also breaks the rule of no love story as there is potential for a love story in the end.

Slaughterhouse-Five, a novel written by Kurt Vonnegut, tells the story of the devastating effects of war on a man, Billy Pilgrim, who joins the army fight in World War II. The semi-autobiographical novel sheds light on one of history’s most tragic, yet rarely spoken of events, the 1945 fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany.