Destiny as a Fictive Device in Cat's Cradle, Mother Night, and Jailbird

The literary genius of Kurt Vonnegut is evidenced by his

ability to weave a story from the most mundane of characters and

circumstances into an intricate web of possibilities for his

stories by using literary tools such as cause and effect,

congruence and destiny. Here we will examine Vonnegut's use of

one of these literary tools, destiny as a fictive device, which

serves to propel the three following books: Cat's Cradle, Mother

Night, and Jailbird. Kurt Vonnegut is a master of fictive devices

because he uses them to construct an intricate web of

possibilities for his stories to proceed on.

Destiny, as the dictionary tells us, is "a predetermined

course of events often held to be a resistless power or agency,"

and in these three novels, Kurt Vonnegut implies that destiny is

just the way things are bound to be. Some of the many forms of

destiny used by Vonnegut to guide his characters and to shove his

stories into the right direction include: destiny for people who

don't believe in destiny; such as religious persons,

anti-destiny; the idea of what might have been, and

predestination; the idea that what happens to you is already

decided.

In Jailbird, Vonnegut uses a particularly obscure main

character named Walter F. Starbuck. Walter F. Starbuck was

a normal, law-abiding citizen in his fifties, with a wife and

a son who didn't like him, but, by using destiny as a fictive

device, Kurt Vonnegut creates an amazing story filled with

adventure, love, and betrayal.

In the novel Mother Night Vonnegut lays out the life of his

main character, Howard W Campbell, Jr., from when he was ...

... middle of paper ...

... "And, inwardly, I sarooned,

which is to say that I aquiesed to the seeming demands of my

vin-dit."(p137 Cat's Cradle). A vin-dit is "...a Bokononist word

meaning a sudden, very personal shove in the direction of

Bokononism,..."(p53 Cat's Cradle). By making the character of

John believe in destiny, anything that happens, which sounds like

destiny, the character will react to. This gives the author more

to write about.

Kurt Vonnegut is a great author of American literature

because of how he uses literary tools to write his exciting

stories. Destiny used as a fictive device is the easiest tool

Kurt Vonnegut uses to fertilise the lives of his characters, but

it is also the most effective. If more teachers taught about how

destiny is used as a fictive device, then we would all benefit,

as writers and readers.