It should be established before anything else that the author I have chosen, Kurt Vonnegut, was heavily influenced by World War II. The idea of war, along with its devastating effects, gave Vonnegut a rather cynical and twisted view on human nature. This perspective bleeds over onto his writing and can be seen in many of his major and minor works, including one of his most impactful, “Slaughterhouse 5,” in which he uses time travel, alien planets, and other farfetched ideas to describe the physical and emotional consequences of violent acts.
Vonnegut’s fatalistic and overly pessimistic view of the future, most likely stems from the very problems created by The World Wars. The mechanization and automation of weaponry caused an emotional disconnect to form that removed the face-to-face contact experienced in previous wars. Instead of having to see and feel the horrible terrors you produce by fighting, all you had to do was press a button or pull a trigger. You weren’t killing other humans; you were killing the enemies, the evil ones, those inferior to you. You were simply following orders. So it goes…
I’ve selected a few powerful short stories from one of Kurt Vonnegut’s collection, known as “Welcome to the Monkey
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Death, blatant abuse of government power, and apathy occupy the majority of this section. By doing this Vonnegut is able to hint at the predictability of human kind. Despite the story taking place about 65 years into the future, there are numerous constants that carry over from war plagued era Kurt Vonnegut grew up in. Kurt himself has obviously never lived in the timeframe mentioned in the story, but he is well aware of the patterns that men and women have followed for millennia. The government structure may be different, but death and emotional trauma are still as impactful and inevitable as they have always