“Over Here: The First World War and American Society,” is a historical novel that shows the American society’s viewpoint and emotions about the First World War during the 1910s. Author David Kennedy focuses more on the home front experience during the war rather than the military side. He educates us with the parts of history that most people seemed to forget about or pretend to forget about. With a lot of amazing details of events, Kennedy explains the period from early 1917 to late 1918. He overlooks the political aspect of the war, the American population’s reaction to Germany’s actions, and decisions made by the President and other government organizations that led to the United States to join the war.…
Harrison Bergeron and American Documents “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut, is a short story which takes place in the year 2081 in a "perfectly equal world. " This story was made as a way to interpret the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. The ideas that were interpreted from the bill of rights and the declaration in this story were put in a way that often messes with our other rights or does not look at every aspect of the right affected. The story's main idea is the sense that everybody is finally "equal," so much so that anybody who is better than anybody else is put into restraints that weigh them down or make them look worse.…
In “Palm Sunday,” Kurt Vonnegut wrote that young people should use their lives to do “the most daring thing,” which he says is “to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.” Let’s dissect this quote, Vonnegut is saying that we, students of Liberty, need to create communities that are firm, stable, and won’t crumble underneath pressure. Vonnegut is also saying that these communities need to fight this cancerous feeling of being isolated from each other and feeling like we have no one. There already is a community here at Liberty, but like Vonnegut said, we need to equip it with events such as school assemblies that focus on social connection, groups before and after school to help students make connections,…
Books allow people to express themselves independently. For example, Kurt Vonnegut’s book Slaughter-House Five was burnt at Drake High School, he responded in expressing himself this way, “Certain members of your community have suggested that my work is evil. This is extraordinarily insulting to me. The news from Drake indicates to me that books and writers are very unreal to you people”(Hibbard). Kurt Vonnegut is presenting his opinion of books and himself to a school he believes doesn't understand what the book morales actually are.…
The “culture of poverty” mindset creates a distances between the impoverished and the wealthy. Ehrenreich provides the term “culture of poverty” as exemplified in Michael Harrington's The Other America. This work is the foundation in which Ehrenreich reveals the reality of poverty and the misconceptions of the term. There is the idea that “The poor were different from the rest of us, it argued, radically different, and not just in the sense that they were deprived, disadvantaged, poorly housed, or poorly fed.”(607) This idea promotes that if adults with different economic backgrounds are totally different why would their children differ.…
Kurt Vonnegut had delivered quite a few commencement speeches during his time. One in particular, at Rice University, contains a multitude of rhetorical strategies that exemplified the quintessential speech genre. Vonnegut used this genre’s conventions in order to convey his overarching message to the new graduates, as they leave the university. His message to the new generation was to reflect back on their own lives, pause, and consider, “If this isn’t nice, what is?” In other words, the main message was to appreciate what they have at the moment.…
In the novel, Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut discusses the issue of overall emotional state of Americans. This seems to be a rather recurring theme of the novel. Previously, Vonnegut says: "A lot of citizens were so ignored and cheated and insulted that they thought they might be in the wrong country, or even on the wrong planet, that some terrible mistake had been made. It might have comforted them some if their anthem and their motto had mentioned fairness or brotherhood or hope or happiness, had somehow welcomed them to society and its real taste" (pg. 9). Vonnegut is implying that most Americans are unhappy with the way society is as of now.…
My author Kurt Vonnegut is an American novelist. Vonnegut gained popularity in the 1960s when publishing his best-known work, Slaughterhouse-Five. He made a big difference in American literature by writing his novels with the characters looking for a meaning while also giving it a meaningless, out of this world type of feel. He is known for his profound humor; always mocking present-day 's society (Marvin 1). Vonnegut usually focuses on warfare and the human quantity for both the foolishness and unpleasant.…
The text also gives different views on normal contemporary issues that are happening all around. Kurt Vonnegut used his creativity and imagination in multiple ways, whether it be through illustrations, literary devices, or sarcasm. Vonnegut’s novels will live in honor because of the way his style affects the modern day…
Kurt Vonnegut is one of the most influential American novelists of the twentieth century who has brought about a phenomenal distinction in literature. Most of the writers have written only in a particular concept or genre, but Kurt Vonnegut has imprinted his undeniable mark in science fiction with humor, social commentary with absurdity and so on. Kurt Vonnegut has written fourteen novels, three short story collections, five plays, and five works of non-fiction. His works are occupied with unusual characters and the characters show pragmatism, especially in Slaughterhouse-Five. His works mingle satire with humor in a science fiction and his pen does all the magic as per his wish.…
American Dream; to Some, Not What it Seemed “The Americans” by Viet Thanh Nguyen offers the distinct view of a self-contradictory America that while allows the freedom of movement towards success is also an exclusionary destructive nation. “The Americans” follows a family divided by their views of being an American as each member comes to terms with their identity and being open-minded to others’ differences. “The Americans” shows that America can be a place where people of all different backgrounds can live freely and work their way to success. James Carver grew up as a black man in Alabama constantly having to deal with racism and the feeling of non-belonging. Carver struggled with his identity until he found his place as an aerial bomber in the US Army.…
In Kurt Vonnegut’s article, he explains why you should examine your writing style with the idea of improving it. In order to do so, Vonnegut suggest the following seven step process: 1. Finding a subject that you care about, 2. Do not ramble, 3. Keeping it simple, 4.…
Imagine a time when there was no dehumanization occurring in the world. It is difficult to think of one because all throughout history there have been multiple cases of dehumanization. Some examples of dehumanization in history are the assimilation of the Native Americans, the Holocaust A few examples of texts that contain the topic of dehumanization as one of the main themes are The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Grapes of Wrath is the story about a poor farming family, the Joads, that get kicked off their land during the time of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. They move to California because their belief in the American Dream; they have high hopes that they will find work and have…
The “Letter To America” includes Margaret Atwood’s opinions of America and how it has gone downhill since she was a child. She claims we have “gutted the Constitution” and “torched the economy” in her attempts at providing an explanation of why America is on the down-slope. However, Margaret Atwood’s letter fails to accurately depict America as a country and illustrate both the recent and prior affairs in which we have participated in. In her letter, Atwood never uses definite facts or details that can not be argued to be in favor of the opposition.…
However, at first glance, the reading seems to be describing a distinct culture, something that I’ve never heard of or encountered before. As I kept on reading, I realized that it’s really about America. The writing is written…