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Kurt Vonnegut Research Paper

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World War II is notorious for its mass destruction and loss of lives. On February 13th, 1945 the Allied powers bombed the city of Dresden, killing more than 135,000 people. In German captivity, Kurt Vonnegut survived the bombings while waiting underground for hours. Imagine surviving one of the deadliest acts of war, listening to a city crumbling down above you, and then being forced to clean up the aftermath. This was the reality Kurt Vonnegut had to face. Kurt Vonnegut was an author known for his black sense of humor on serious topics and his sci-fi style. Vonnegut grew up in the Great Depression, served in World War II, and wrote books from 1950s to 1990s. Living an extraordinary life with lots of influential events, Kurt Vonnegut expressed …show more content…

Vonnegut majored in Chemistry, but was a writer and editor for the student newspaper Cornell Daily Sun (Leonard 1). Following the start of World War Two, Vonnegut decided to drop out of college and enlist into the army, rather than wait to be drafted (Shields 53). Unfortunately, this caused the tension between Vonnegut and his dad to grow, and caused more emotional pain to his mother. Vonnegut’s mother had been suffering from depression almost her entire life, and just as he had returned home on leave for Mother’s Day, his mother committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills (“Kurt Vonnegut” 208). Vonnegut and his sister Alice were the ones to discover their mom’s death, which left a lasting impact on Vonnegut’s life and his writing (Shields 56-58). He was shipped to Europe in 1944 to serve with the 106th infantry division (Leonard 1). Vonnegut witnessed many horrible sights of war during his deployment, which would often be reflected in his books. On December 22nd, 1944 Kurt Vonnegut and several other men were captured behind enemy lines by Nazis (Leonard 2). Shields explains, the men were packed into train carts with barely enough room to even stand. They traveled for days before arriving at Stalag IV-B in Muhlberg. Upon

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Throughout Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut intertwines reality and fiction to provide the reader with an anti-war book in a more abstract form. To achieve this abstraction, Kurt Vonnegut utilizes descriptive images, character archetypes, and various themes within the novel. By doing so, he created a unique form of literature that causes the reader to separate reality from falsehood in both their world, and in the world within Vonnegut’s mind. Vonnegut focuses a lot on the characters and their actions in “Slaughterhouse Five.”

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Kurt Vonnegut is an author who is well-known for his sarcastic tone of how people live and futuristic time periods. Vonnegut thinks many people accept things as they are in this world, without looking for the truth. He wants readers to question the world we live in. He does this by persuading the reader into seeing the crucial day issues that were present around the time he was writing. His sarcastic tone and futuristic settings are meant to draw in the reader to make bold statements from his perspective.

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Nour Hachemian English 09/05/17 Slaughter House Five Reading Assignment Slaughter House Five by Kurt Vonnegut, is an anti-war book. The author mocks the war through a character named Billy Pilgrim, and he tells us the story of his crazy and adventurous time traveling. Kurt Vonnegut communicates his anti war principles, and demonstrates how sad and horrible war actually is, and the amount of destruction it can cause. He also explains in great detail the bombing of Dresden, and the after effects that it had on the city and the people. Kurt Vonnegut is able to go in such great depth, because he lived through the bombing himself, and was able to experience how horrible and devastating it is to be a soldier..

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so influential is his large repertoire of writing. Kurt wasn’t always a writer, according to family they all thought he’d be a “Jailbird” or in lifelong service to the military. They were wrong, on February 11, 1950 his first published written work titled “Report on The Barnhouse Effect” was published in Collier’s Weekly (1888-1957, 2012-2012) and had very little feedback instead of critics bashing it’s “non-structured style.” So it Goes. Vonnegut continued to write short stories while living in Gary, Indiana with his uncle who is characterized in his books Bagombo Snuff Box (1999)

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In 1969, most of the american population was fed up with the war effort. They were upset because lots of young men were being sent to the frontlines because of the draft, and then some ended up dying as well. They were also upset because the war didn’t seem to have much meaning, and hints of hypocrisy from our government by trying to stop the spread of communism with the spread of representative democracy. Vonnegut used this to his advantage, writing about the bombing of Dresden. It opened all the readers’ eye’s to how much more horrific war can be, with lots of young men and innocent civilians dying for an unnecessary cause.

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Kurt Vonnegut enlisted in the United States Army at the time of World War II. He was captured as a prisoner of war where he received much of his literary inspiration for Slaughterhouse-Five. The anti war theme throughout the book is touched on and also rebutted when Vonnegut states, “there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers” (Vonnegut 4). Vonnegut knows he is writing an anti war book but also is aware that wars cannot altogether be halted he is only trying to relay the horrors of war. The number of innocent victims killed by the bombing is alarming and Vonnegut keeping with his anti war theme made it a point to center his novel around the Dresden bombing which increased knowledge of what the historical city Dresden once was.

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People are influenced by the events that surround them. Individuals transform into a product of their environment and experiences of the time. The literature and art often reflects the time period in which it is written in, and Vonnegut’s novel is no exception. The novel takes place during World War II, but is written during the time of the Vietnam War. With the Vietnam War, came a lot of anti-war propaganda.

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What the Mind Does in Dark Times “It’s not about time travel and flying saucers, it’s about PTSD,” wrote author and critic William Deresiewicz in The Nation magazine in 2012, after reading Slaughterhouse-Five. Slaughterhouse Five is a semi-autobiographical science fiction-infused anti-war novel written by Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut served in World War II as a member of the United States Army for just over two years. He was a member of the 106th Infantry Division during the Battle of the Bulge and then later as a POW in Dresden (National WWII Museum, 2020). Following his experiences in the Army, he published fourteen novels, and one of the most famous, Slaughterhouse- Five, is based on his own war experiences in Dresden.

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They moved to a house in Chicago in 1945 and there they had three children, Mark, Edith and Nanette. Vonnegut worked as a police reporter for the City News Bureau. He also studied for a master’s degree in anthropology at the University of Chicago. In 1947, he moved to Schenectady, N.Y., and had a job in public relations for the General Electric Company. Three years later he sold his first short story, “Report on the Barnhouse Effect,” to Collier’s magazine and decided to move his family to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where he wrote fiction for magazines.

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Another strategy that Vonnegut uses to evoke pity for himself as a character is through his struggle for his goal of creating an anti war book. Throughout the first chapter we are shown how his journey for writing his book seems to go horrible for him. For example he is notes how he was told by a movie maker that his anti war book was simply pointless because war will always exist, and he also brings up multiple times that he tried to brainstorm for the book and it went horrible for him because he simply could not come up with anything as much of it was blocked out seeming due do to war trauma. The cherry on top of his misery in trying to achieve his goal is for most part, he never does, as the chapter ends with him saying “This one is a failure, and it had to be” this quote really makes the reader feel sad for Kurt as we are shown that, at least in his eyes he failed, making us pity him that much more. Ultimately Kurt Vonnegut's use of himself as a character shows how he uses pity to create characters that the reader will care

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The central conflict demonstrated throughout Slaughterhouse-Five is the challenge of telling an untellable story. While Vonnegut has difficulties writing about the atrocity that occurred, called the Dresden Bombing, he presents numerous motifs and symbols. These motifs and symbols compose the themes, lack of free will and the destructiveness of war. These themes work alongside one another to enhance the novel, along with intensifying the central conflict. As Vonnegut constructs Slaughterhouse-Five, he develops the themes, lack of free will and the destructiveness of war, with motifs and symbols to propose the complex ways he attempts to tell his indescribable story.

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War is a tragedy that many have faced in their lifetime; Kurt Vonnegut accurately captures horrors of war, and life in general, in his novel Slaughterhouse-Five. Slaughterhouse-Five may include controversial material such as mature language, violence, and sexual themes, but is a vital learning tool that can broaden minds with the recounting of vivid, realistic experiences and expose readers to new viewpoints; banning this book would hinder the spread of understanding throughout the world. Vonnegut begins his novel addressing the reader in order to explain why he wrote a book about his experience in World War II. The main character, Billy Pilgrim, becomes “unstuck in time,” allowing him to travel through different fragments of his life in a random order.

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Complacency is more dangerous than participation in times of war. Through his novel, Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut describes the life of an American spy, Howard W. Campbell Jr: Campbell worked as a radio broadcaster for the German Ministry of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda and sent coded messages out to the allies through his radio broadcasts during the war. Authors use devices in writing to further their content. Kurt Vonnegut uses juvenalian satire in Mother Night to prove that through pretending to be something it will eventually lead that person to become the thing they are pretending to be. The portrayal of Howard Campbell as morally self-righteous is evident through Vonnegut’s use of sardonic voice and invective.

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While he was in Shortridge high school Vonnegut discovered that he was very good at writing. He started writing columns for Daily Echo, of which he became the editor. After he graduated from the high school in 1940, Vonnegut wanted to study English or journalism but with his father and brother urging, he enrolled at Cornell University as his elder brother, Bernard, who became a pioneer rainmaker by discovering a way to ‘seed’ clouds. Vonnegut studied chemistry at Cornell University but later he confessed he was a ‘lousy student’. However, he became the managing editor of the Cornell Daily Sun and a regular columnist for the

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Kurt Vonnegut mainly focuses his vision actually disordered cycle of life and death to which all human beings are inseparably bound. Kurt Vonnegut representing the purely existential horrors facing man and he is also compelled by his desire to confront all the cruel facts of human survival to show how man gives to his own depression through blindness and stupidity. The invention of technology is also a cruel thing in the world. Even Kurt Vonnegut used the technique to alter the world and that also has the possibility to become reality.

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