Welcome to the Monkey House, Harrison Bergeron, and Slaughterhouse-five, by Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut was a man of disjointed ideas, as is expressed through the eccentric protagonists that dominate his works. Part cynic and part genius, Kurt Vonnegut’s brilliance as a satirist derives from the deranged nature of the atrocities he had witnessed in his life. The reason Vonnegut’s satire is so popular and works so well is because Vonnegut had personal ties to all the elements that he lambasted in his works. Vonnegut’s experience as a soldier in WWII during firebombing of Dresden corrupted his mind and enabled him to express the chaotic reality of war, violence, obsession, sex and government in a raw and personal manner. Through three works specifically, “Welcome to the Monkey House,” “Harrison Bergeron,” and Slaughterhouse-five, one can see ties to all the chaotic elements of Vonnegut’s life that he routinely satirized. One can also see how Vonnegut’s personal experiences created his unique style of satire.

Imagine an overbearing government with a tremendous amount of control over its citizens; it sounds like a theme taken out of a traditional science fiction novel, but this was the reality of the countries that were fighting in WWII. Although Vonnegut did not consciously attack governments in his novel Slaughterhouse- five, he brutally satirized the concept of overbearing governments in his two short stories. In “Harrison Bergeron,” the government controls everyone’s senses using handicaps. The world government in “Harrison Bergeron” does not allow its citizens to have advantage over one another; therefore, the government enforces handicaps on the perfect citizens in order to make everyone equal. Vonnegut begins the story like this, “THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before G...

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...the protagonists in his stories. His experience as a soldier in WWII forever changed the way he looked at the world. His cynical views of war, violence, sex, obsession and government control stemmed from an atrocious past; mainly from the memories of his experience during the firebombing of Dresden Germany. His satire is genius because it comes from an understanding of the implications of war, controlling governments and so forth. He never outright condemned these elements; instead he used dystopias as a subtle way to ridicule them. The works he wrote were absurd as a means to caution and expose the nature of sex, war, violence, obsession and government power. The nature of his satire was strange and demented because the things he was criticizing displayed the same characteristics. His works were brilliant, eye opening and raw because of his personal ties to them.