The Foster Portfolio By Kurt Vonnegut

We’re often told to do what we love. But when the things we love hate each other, we have to make compromises. This happened to Herbert Foster in “The Foster Portfolio” by Kurt Vonnegut. The theme of this story is that sometimes you have to make sacrifices to keep what you love and that’s shown throughout the story through Herbert’s wanting to keep both his family and jazz. He knew he couldn’t have both openly, so he hid them from each other and gave up a lot to keep them hidden.

Herbert Foster loved his family. He has a mother, a wife, a child, and a recently deceased grandfather. His father loved jazz, and eventually left his family for jazz leaving the rest of the family to grow to hate jazz and his father. When his grandfather died, he

This makes Herbert feel like he has to hide the side of him that’s most like his father, the side that loves jazz. His family is struggling to make ends meet, or so Herbert is letting them believe, and so he needs to work extra. He works nights to make extra money for his family. But really, he’s not working. He’s out playing jazz and being everything his dad was, three nights a week. He goes by Firehouse Harris when he’s there. He’s willing to give up the fortune he inherited, and some time with his family because he gets to experience his other love. I believe it makes him feel closer to his father since he wasn’t there for him growing up. He gets to connect with his father even though he’s not there and really never has been. Herbert likes how his life and weekly routine is, and he knows that the money will mess with that. This is why he’s willing to sacrifice the money and time with his close family so he can feel like he’s with his whole

The biggest one I noticed was a fairly small detail, but it had a lot of importance. In the story, Herbert quotes the bible at some point when talking with Mr. Crane. This religiousness adds to his guilt about having a secret double life. However, they take that part out of the film, which takes some of Herbert’s guilt away. It’s a relatively small detail but I feel like it had an impact. There were some parts that the film illustrated better than the story though. For example, I thought that the conversation between Mr. Crane and Herbert in the bedroom was much clearer and easier to understand in the film than in the story. Overall, the story and the film were pretty much the