Kurt Vonnegut's 2BR02B Essay

People react differently to tragedies: some mourn, some speak up, and some avoid the sorrow. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut suggests the danger and inhumanity of turning away from the discomfort by introducing Billy Pilgrim as someone who is badly affected by the aftermath of the Dresden bombing, and the Tralfamadorians as the aliens who provide an easy solution to Billy. It is simpler to avoid something as tragic as death, but Vonnegut stresses the importance of confronting it. Vonnegut, like many artists, expresses his ideas through his creations. The significance of art is not confined to helping and inspiring the general public; the process of creating art also becomes another form of coping mechanism for artists.

Former President of South Africa and philanthropist Nelson Mandela once said: “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, firemen don’t put out fires; they start them. This novel is about a fireman named Montag who realizes setting houses and books on fire is not only wrong, but it’s the total opposite of what the firemen should be doing. A certain encounter with a character starts a chain reaction in Montag to change the way things are around his city. Through trials and tribulations, Montag finds a group of people who will help him give the people back their knowledge. The prominent themes in this book, along with rhetorical devices, are helpful to connect the characters' lives to the reader’s. This being said, the content of Fahrenheit 451 is why the novel is so popular.

“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

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.

For this essay, I decided to pick two terms that describe Cat's Cradle. I felt that satire and fantasy were two terms that suited the novel quite well. The book qualifies as a satire because it makes a mockery of things that were of concern in the sixties. For example, the Cuban missile crisis was a big issue in the early sixties. Religion was taken much more seriously, and the family unit was more tightly wound. In the novel, the threat comes not from a large warhead, but from a small crystal of Ice-nine. Religion is satired in Bokononism, which is a religion that is based on lies. The family unit is satired by the Hoenikkers. The father is detached from reality, the sister is a

major factor in his detachment from society. Of course, he does it to himself, and

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

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 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, we can see a lot of things wrong with the society, things that most people think could happen to us, but is it really that unrealistic? Ray Bradbury didn't think so when he wrote it because he was writing about his own time period, shortly after WWII, but the themes he wrote about are still present today. In the novel Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury criticizes illusion of happiness, oppression, and loss of self, not only his fictitious society, but our society in real life, too.

     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

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.

I was born into a family with a deep passion for the English language. My parents named me Leslie Margaret Daniels, being named after both their favorite author, Margaret Mitchell. Sadly Gone with the Wind never interested me as a reader but I have always shared my parent’s passion for literature. Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. is one of the timeless books I have read approximately four times now. I just cannot find a book that integrates alien space travel and World War II as tragically beautiful as Slaughterhouse Five does. Sadly, life is not a single fiction book. Therefore, outside of class I keep my self busy with extra-curricular activities. Most of my time is spent with my fellow color guard members. Color guard has taught

Author Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis, and this museum and library is dedicated to the late artist for his contributions in the field of arts and literature. The facility was opened to public in the year 2011, and is located in the Emelie Building. It serves as a library, reading room, museum, art gallery and a cultural and educational resource facility, all-in- one. On display at the museum are paintings, pictures and books related to the author's life. Other interesting items on display are the author's Pall Mall cigarettes, droll drawings and rejection letters from various publishers. The library has been replicated like the office of the author, and is complete with checkerboard carpet, red rooster lamp and blue Coronamatic typewriter.

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 world isn’t perfect, true but it shouldn’t have to be, we are humans and we make mistakes. Sometimes we wish everything could be perfect, yet that may end up making things worse. We shouldn’t try to be perfect like Dr. Hitz thinks it should be. We should just be thankful for what we have now. In “2BRO2B,” Kurt Vonnegut uses characterization and internal conflict to stress the idea sometimes things aren’t as perfect as they seem.