Ideas are intoxicating. As well said by Oscar Wilde, an Irish writer and poet of the 1890’s, “An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.” Kurt Vonnegut embodies this idea about ideas in a number of his novels. A common reoccurring theme brought up by Vonnegut in his book Breakfast of Champions is that an idea, or the lack of them can cause disease, and a great example of that is with the repetition of the symbol, mirrors as leaks into another universe.
Early on in the storyline, we learn about Kilgore Trout’s ‘idea’ that Mirrors are leaks, and throughout the book mirrors are brought up. In chapter 18, when the narrator interacts with his characters in the cocktail lounge, he tells us, the readers, that he is wearing sunglasses so that he can be incognito. His sunglasses have a mirror finish on the lenses, which we can conclude, goes back to the idea of mirrors as leaks. “The lenses were silvered, were mirrors to anyone looking my way. Anyone wanting to know what my eyes were like was confronted with his or her own twin reflections. Where other people in the cocktail lounge had eyes, I had two holes into another universe. I had Leaks.” (Vonnegut 197) This reference to mirrors acting as leaks, is a sense that Trout understands it as: a hole between the book itself and that of the author, Kurt Vonnegut. In chapter 11, we’re told that Sugar Creek, a popular tourist attraction in the book, floods becoming “a vast mirror in which children might safely play.” The inhabitants can look into the creek like looking into a mirror and see themselves as the reader does. It goes on, “The mirror showed the citizens the shape of the valley they lived in, demonstrated that they were hill people who inhabited slopes r...
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...that has free will, and everyone else around him are just robots. For Dwayne, being that he was severely mentally unstable, this was the moment that seemed to fulfill whatever he was waiting for. Thus, Dwayne goes on a rampage, beating up the supposed “robots” that are the people around him, be that of friends or strangers, while using his declared free will (Vonnegut 259-264). In reality, such gruesome scenes would be looked down upon, but Vonnegut’s use of black humor helps to make the scenes more comedic. But because Dwayne got a hold of a book with radical ideals, his boat was rocked over, thus showing the destruction ideas can really have on someone.
Ideas are disease, and ideas can influence. Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Breakfast of Champions, introduces and gives plenty of fictional examples of how this is fact is true; the book’s climax is due to this main fact.
I think one thing that Vonnegut is trying to show us is that man too easily accepts things as valid without questioning. Refering to this, Newt, another character, says, "No wonder kids grow up crazy. A cat's cradle is nothing but a bunch of X's between somebody's hands, and little kids look and look and look at all those X's…No damn cat, and no damn cradle" (114).
Wood, Karen and Charles. “The Vonnegut Effect: Science Fiction and Beyond.” The Vonnegut Statement. Vol. 5. 1937. 133-57. The GaleGroup. Web. 10 March. 2014.
Kurt Vonnegut’s fictional novel “Cat’s Cradle”, indirectly explores issues that parallels into topics such as religion, scientific/technological advancements, political power and much more. Vonnegut’s novel is narrated by a character named Jonah (John). He, Jonah, sets out to write an anthropological book based off of what key people were doing on the day that the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Throughout Vonnegut’s novel it can clearly represents how a writer can become a very destructive person to society. As for this novel, it shows through the uses of parallels that a writer can become a very destructive person to society, these parallels are reflects to real world issues throughout his novel to show this claim, that a writer too can be a destructive person to society.
Cat's Cradle is, "Vonnegut's most highly praised novel. Filled with humor and unforgettable characters, this apocalyptic story tells of Earth's ultimate end, and presents a vision of the future that is both darkly fantastic and funny, as Vonnegut weaves a satirical commentary on modern man and his madness" (Barnes and Noble n.pag). In Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut uses satire as a vehicle for threatened self-destruction when he designs the government of San Lorenzo. In addition, the Bokonists practice of Boko-maru, and if the world is going to end in total self destruction and ruin, then people will die, no matter how good people are and what religion people believe.
Kurt Vonnegut, born on November 11, 1922, was an American writer. He was best known for his use of humor, science fiction, and satire in works such as Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, and Breakfast of Champions. Vonnegut was born into a family of three and enlisted in the United States Army while in college at Cornell. A while later, on Mother’s Day, in 1944, Vonnegut discovered that his mother had committed suicide. That same year Vonnegut was assigned to a new combat unit and captured during the Battle of the Bulge while serving as a private with the 423rd Infantry Regiment (Bio). Throughout his stay as a prisoner of war he was able to take up a position as a leader but was soon revoked when he spoke out to the German guard. In February of 1945, Vonnegut witnessed the Allied firebombing of Dresden, which destroyed the city. Along with other American survivors, Vonnegut was one of the few that survived the bombing in an underground slaughterhouse meat locker. The German guards called the meat locker “Schlachthof Fünf” which translated to “Slaughterhouse Five" (Wiki). After the unforgettable experience of the bombing the name stuck with the building and was soon his inspiration for his famous novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. Slaughterhouse-Five was Vonnegut’s novel written about the journey and experience of a young solider named Billy Pilgrim. Vonnegut makes the biggest event in his novel the bombing of Dresden to make the novel a semi-autobiography because like Billy, Vonnegut experienced the horrible bombing personally. The main character, Billy Pilgrim portrays the experiences that Vonnegut went through while he was a suffering POW. It is clear after reading the novel and essay written by Vonnegut over a forty y...
What does Kurt Vonnegut and June CasaGrande have in common? Both authors don’t have anything in common other than they both are authors, and may disagree. In Vonnegut writing, he states “No one is smarter than anybody else” (Vonnegut) while CasaGrande discuss that “the human brain approaches the task of writing and reading differently” (CasaGrande). Vonnegut and Casagrande reach a concurrence in their writings Harrison Bergeron and A Word, Please: Why is it so difficult to catch or own errors? and share a similar message that brains are different, have different task levels, and thinking levels.
Vonnegut's writing style throughout the novel is very flip, light, and sarcastic. The narrator's observations and the events occurring during the novel reflect a dark view of humanity which can only be mocked by humor. At the beginning of the novel the narrator is researching for a book he is writing. The book was to be about the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and the lives of the people who created the bomb. The narrator travels through the plot of the story, with characters flying in and out, in almost a daze. He is involved in events which are helplessly beyond his control, but which are inevitably leading to a destination at the end.
Vonnegut believes that writers can influence people's ideas profoundly. In one of his many speeches he stated the following:
Baruch Spinoza once said “Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason, that men believe themselves free, simply because they are conscious of their actions and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.” He compared free-will with destiny and ended up that what we live and what we think are all results of our destiny; and the concept of the free-will as humanity know is just the awareness of the situation. Similarly, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five explores this struggle between free-will and destiny, and illustrates the idea of time in order to demonstrate that there is no free-will in war; it is just destiny. Vonnegut conveys this through irony, symbolism and satire.
Kurt Vonnegut, a modern American writer, composed stories about fictional situations that occurred in futuristic versions of today’s world. His stories included violence, both upon oneself and one another, and characters who sought out revenge. In “2BR02B” and “Harrison Bergeron”, Vonnegut conveys physical violence most likely experienced while a prisoner of World War 2, as a way to show how war brings pain and destruction.
Many people think that reading more can help them to think and develop before writing something. Others might think that they don’t need to read and or write that it can really help them to brainstorm things a lot quicker and to develop their own ideas immediately (right away). The author’s purpose of Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, is to understand the concepts, strategies and understandings of how to always read first and then start something. The importance of this essay is to understand and comprehend our reading and writing skills by brainstorming our ideas and thoughts a lot quicker. In other words, we must always try to read first before we can brainstorm some ideas and to think before we write something. There are many reasons why I chose Stephen King’s essay, Reading to Write, by many ways that reading can help you to comprehend, writing, can help you to evaluate and summarize things after reading a passage, if you read, it can help you to write things better and as you read, it can help you to think and evaluate of what to write about.
In "Harrison Bergeron", Kurt Vonnegut investigates the topic of constrained balance in American culture not long from now. Vonnegut makes a world in which all living individuals are equivalent in all ways. He concentrates on making uniformity by changing excellence, quality, and knowledge rather than managing race, religion, and sex, the genuine issues of correspondence in the public eye. He composes this story to instruct the lesson that all individuals are not equivalent, but instead, they all have qualities and shortcomings making each exceptionally person.
Oscar Wilde, an acclaimed Irish Poet, novelist, dramatist and critic once aptly commented, “Men become old, but they never become good”. The philosophical aspect of this quote relies on the basis that human beings are inherently malevolent. Through his pessimistic perspective, Wilde clearly captures the ill-disposed mindset of mankind. Moreover, there are various deductive arguments that discredit the optimistic depiction of human nature. One of the prime examples can be found in Kurt Vonnegut’s literature. In Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat's Cradle, through the illustration of his characters, the author symbolizes the four elements of human fallibility.
Several of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels include philosophies and/or “religions” of Vonnegut’s own invention. Take, for instance, the “latter-day Jonah” character of Malachi Constant, who serves as a Messiah for an invented religion in The Sirens of Titan (Freese 148). Also worth mentioning is the fabricated religion that exists on the poverty-stricken island of San Lorenzo, outlined in Vonnegut’s fourth novel, Cat’s Cradle (150). Although Vonnegut demonstrates similar tendencies in many other novels, one novel’s philosophy stands out in particular: Slaughterhouse-Five. Unanimously considered to be Vonnegut’s grand opus, Slaughterhouse-Five contains a philosophy that combines and fictionalizes aspects of Vonnegut’s own life—including his war experiences and spiritual beliefs—and loosely connects the two in a manner that resembles a cause-and-effect pattern.
Throughout his career, Kurt Vonnegut has used writing as a tool to convey penetrating messages and ominous warnings about our society. He skillfully combines vivid imagery with a distinctly satirical and anecdotal style to explore complex issues such as religion and war. Two of his most well known, and most gripping, novels that embody this subtle talent are Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five. Both books represent Vonnegut’s genius for manipulating fiction to reveal glaring, disturbing and occasionally redemptive truths about human nature. On the surface, Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five are dramatically different novels, each with its own characters, symbols, and plot. However, a close examination reveals that both contain common themes and ideas. Examining and comparing the two novels and their presentation of different themes provides a unique insight into both the novels and the author – allowing the reader to gain a fuller understanding of Vonnegut’s true meaning.