Kurt Vonnegut

Stylistic rules to shine on the art of writing. Kurt Vonnegut is an American novelist, who was born in November 11, 1922 and died in April 11, 2007 at the age of 84. He was one of the greatest writing stylists in the American literature. He was known for his darkly satirical style and his black comedy. Vonnegut used a mixture of science-fiction in the majority of his works. Additionally, he was the president of a humanist association because of his humanist beliefs. In 1980, he wrote an essay to…

Pilgrim’s characterization, Vonnegut reveals the deception of glorifying the image of a courageous and masculine war hero, despite, the reality of war’s indiscriminate deaths and incompetent soldiers.…

example, a hobo-soldier dies unexpectedly on the prisoners’ boxcar, “so it goes”; Billy and his friend, Weary, were forced to wear wooden shoes during captivity, and Weary dies of gangrene mangled at his feet, “so it goes”(McFarlane). The setting that Vonnegut places Billy reflects the subtheme of death in his early years in war and his later years. In post war through the 50s and 60s, the same “so it goes” concept applies. His wife dies in route to a plane crash he survives, but his fellow…

In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five the main character, Billy Pilgrim, is a time traveler; he is constantly recalling his past. The moment he time travels, he develops a deeper meaning of the current event, due to his awareness of new details in his life; these moments make him into the man he is. When he lives in the moment of either the past or present; feelings arise and he develops a sense of beatitude, satisfaction, regret, and contentment; this helps with the development of the…

Millon states that narcissists believe they should live a perfect and superior existence (Personality Disorders 344). Perfection is viewed as either all or nothing and no flaws can be tolerated (Millon, Personality Disorders 345). Gatsby therefore attempts to repress the imperfect poverty-stricken James Gatz by changing his name and creating a new life at age seventeen (Fitzgerald 74). Similar thoughts are expressed by Tyson who writes that Gatsby’s fabricated life is more than just a scheme to…

Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros written in 1959 is one of his most famous works forming a part of the Post War Avant-Garde Drama of the Theatre of Absurd. Rhinoceros demonstrates Ionesco’s anxiety about the spread of inhuman totalitarian tendencies in society. Inspired by his personal experiences with fascism during World War II, this absurdist drama depicts the struggle of one man to maintain his identity and integrity alone in a world where all others have succumbed to the beauty of brute force…

There is usually a fine line between humor and seriousness in most literature that Joseph Heller breaks in his novel Catch-22. Heller blends together comedy with frightening truths and criticisms about the military during World War II. Although there are many elements that contribute to the overall quality of the satire, the characters are the main focus and represent different elements of the military process. In particular, the absurdly named Major Major Major Major, who will be referred to as…

Body paragraph 2 – Characters Main Characters: The Little Prince – a mysterious, charming extraterrestrial who the author believes to inhabit asteroid B-612. The prince leaves his planet because he gets suffocated by the clamorousness and vanity of his friend, the rose. He is a sociable child who is unimpressed by the attitude of grown-ups. During his travels to other asteroids, he misses his rose. While on earth, he realizes that his rose if the most important in the world for him because it is…

In this chapter two sub-themes, man’s inhumanity to man and greed, will be discussed as primary causes of conscience crisis that lead to the human predicament in general. The two themes are dealt widely by novelists from many perspectives. From those novelists are John Steinbeck and Cormac McCarthy who wrote about these themes, both of them in his own way, to convey and to touch people's real lives. “Steinbeck has read and studied deeply, dissecting and examining the various facets of human…

Autobiography Slaughterhouse-Five ain't a pure autobiography because, while it does have elements of the author's life in it, most of the narrative is focused on a fictional character, Billy Pilgrim. At the same time, many of Vonnegut's own experiences in Dresden, Germany, provide the engine for Slaughterhouse-Five's plot... so we think it deserves to be called a semi-autobiographical novel. War Drama Slaughterhouse-Five is also primarily about various aspects of war: (a) how much it sucks,…