Grief In Kurt Vonnegut's The Fault In Our Stars

“Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you.” This quote taken from The Fault in Our Stars, written by John Green, succinctly expresses how grief has influenced Kurt Vonnegut 's writing. John Green, a modern day author, can compare to Kurt Vonnegut,a writer from the 1930s, as authors from all time periods are prone to incorporate personal experiences and grief into writing. Vonnegut 's life experiences of losing one 's mother and sister, lacking a dependable father figure, and being traumatized by serving in World War II are depicted through the author 's writing through symbolism. Among all the tragedies Vonnegut endured throughout life, the first dealt with Kurt Vonnegut Sr. falling into severe depression after …show more content…
's architecture business in the Great Depression, and died the day before Mother 's Day due to overdose on sleeping pills. Afterwards, Alice Adams, Vonnegut 's sister, died of cancer. The death of both of these women brought great disheartenment to Vonnegut due to the close relationship the author held with the ladies. Consequently, the story "Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow", revolves around a world where people are able to take a drug that stops aging and death. The troubled author copes with the loss these women by creating a world where death and disease have been eradicated. Incidentally, this fictional society is suffering with a problem of overpopulation due to the fact that all diseases have been cured and taking a simple and cheap drug called anti-gerasone can halt the aging process. The older people refuse to succumb so the new generations that are being born lack resources or space to thrive. Furthermore, the people in the story simply live and enjoy life yet fail to actually do anything productive or contribute anything to the world. Em, a character in the story stated, " Sometimes I wish folks just up and died as regular as clockwork, without anything to say about it, instead of deciding themselves how long they 're going to stay around. There ought to be a law against selling the stuff to anybody over one hundred and fifty"(Vonnegut,201). Even though …show more content…
Dresden was bombed and up to 60,000 people were killed except Vonnegut and the other soldiers who were kept in a former meat locker and slaughter house that was 60 feet underground.The soldiers ' job after the bombing was to collect and burn all the remains of the dead, and this experience scarred the author forever. This event also led Vonnegut to write the famous novel, Slaughterhouse Five,which dealt with what happened in the war and is the reason the author 's writings are filled with themes of war and death." I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee. I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that." This quote from Slaughterhouse Five shows evidence that Vonnegut is against murder associated with war and the machinery/technology to facilitate war. With this in mind, a theme that is prevalent in many of Vonnegut 's stories is technology crippling society. The reason Vonnegut frequently incorporates the theme of technology hindering society instead of technology helping society is because back in the author 's time, the recent "technology" people used were guns and machines