An Analysis of Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions
Kilgore Trout is a struggling novelist that can only get his novels published in porn magazines. Dwayne Hoover is a fabulously well-to-do car salesman that is on the brink of insanity. They only meet once in their lives, but the entire novel, Breakfast of Champions (1973), is based on this one meeting. The meeting is brief, but that is all the author, Kurt Vonnegut, needs to express his message. In fact, it is quite crucial that the meeting starts and ends almost instantly. It is the meeting between sanity and insanity. Kilgore Trout is simply the novelist that Vonnegut was when he was younger. Dwayne Hoover is the older, insane man that Vonnegut has turned in to. The meeting between the two is the exact moment when Vonnegut has transformed. The bad chemicals now will run amuck through poor Dwayne's head.
Mr. Trout has spent his whole life writing crazy novels, mostly about other planets and the crazy things that happen on them. He lives alone in his house with only his parakeet, Bill, to keep him company. Most of what he talks to Bill about is how the world will be ending very soon. "Any time now," he would say, "And high time, too"(pg 18). This is a product of Dwayne's theory that the Earth's atmosphere would soon become "unbreathable" [sic] (pg 18) and kill off all living creatures. This idea was crazy, but Kilgore does many more things that would seem eccentric to any normal person.
The adventure of Kilgore Trout starts when he receives a letter from Midland City. One man, Mr. Rosewater, wants him to come to their fine arts festival as the guest of honor. Kilgore had no idea that he has even one fan. Enclosed is a check for one thousand dollars, which would aid him on...
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...whole life. The ink hold that he has on Trout, is now being released. It is almost as if he is releasing sane Kilgore and accepting insane Dwayne. Dwayne read Kilgore's novel and went on a violence spree. He spent the rest of his life in an asylum. Kilgore went on to become a world-renowned novelist. Vonnegut is a world-renowned novelist, who is known for his crazy and insane novels. It seems as if he feels that he has wasted the first part of his life in the novel, when he is Kilgore Trout. After he meets Dwayne he seems to have all of his success and make all of his money. Kilgore confirms this in the end when he only wants one thing from his creator. He yells out to Vonnegut as he disappears, "Make me young, make me young, make me young!"(pg 295)
Work Cited
Vonnegut, Kurt. Breakfast of Champions. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing
Group, Inc. 1973.
...dons the glimmer of hope that accompanies the fact that life has its moments of grandeur. He encourages the modern reader to escape the question "why me" and urges us to embrace a philosophy that consistently reminds us that even in the midst of the most cruel (and the most celebrated) events, humanity retains all of its virtue and vice. So it goes. Vonnegut allows us to laugh out loud, despite the tragedies of war and the anxiety of the post-modern world. His picture of the modern man is simultaneously dismal and hopeful. His unique style, satiric overview and astute ability to capture the multiple faces of mankind, properly place him in the realm of the most accomplished authors of the Twentieth Century.
The story describes the protagonist who is coming of age as torn between the two worlds which he loves equally, represented by his mother and his father. He is now mature and is reflecting on his life and the difficulty of his childhood as a fisherman. Despite becoming a university professor and achieving his father’s dream, he feels lonely and regretful since, “No one waits at the base of the stairs and no boat rides restlessly in the waters of the pier” (MacLeod 261). Like his father, the narrator thinks about what his life could have been like if he had chosen another path. Now, with the wisdom and experience that comes from aging and the passing of time, he is trying to make sense of his own life and accept that he could not please everyone. The turmoil in his mind makes the narrator say, “I wished that the two things I loved so dearly did not exclude each other in a manner that was so blunt and too clear” (MacLeod 273). Once a decision is made, it is sometimes better to leave the past and focus on the present and future. The memories of the narrator’s family, the boat and the rural community in which he spent the beginning of his life made the narrator the person who he is today, but it is just a part of him, and should not consume his present.
Vonnegut, Jr., Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five. New York City, New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1968. Print.
Kurt Vonnegut is one of the favorite dark humorists of the past century. Combining humor and poignancy, he has become one of the most respected authors of his generation. For twenty years, Kurt Vonnegut worked on writing his most famous novel ever: Slaughter House Five. The novelist was called "A laughing prophet of doom" by the New York Times, and his novel "a cause for celebration" by the Chicago Sun-Times. However, Vonnegut himself thought it was a failure. He said that, just as Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back, so his book is nothing but a pillar of salt. Kurt Vonnegut tied in personal beliefs, characters, and settings from his life into the novel Slaughter House Five.
American were treated equal lies right by Fall Creek. Vonnegut was nothing if not a Hoosier.
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.
Kurt Vonnegut was born on November 11th 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana. His parents, Kurt Vonnegut Sr. and Edith Leiber Vonnegut were hit particularly hard by the great depression and his family was financially unstable for most of his childhood. Vonnegut studied at Cornell University, where he double majored in chemistry and biology. Shortly after graduation, Vonnegut enlisted in the United States Army and was deployed to Germany once America entered World War II. Around this time, Vonnegut’s mother committed suicide. Vonnegut was deeply traumatized by the event and never truly forgave his mother during his lifetime. In 1944, he was captured by Nazi troops and placed in a prisoner of war camp in Dresden, Germany. Vonnegut was a survivor of
Kurt Vonnegut Served as a sensitive cell in the organism of American Society during the 1960's. His work alerted the public about the absurdity of modern warfare and an increasingly mechanized and impersonal society in which humans were essentially worthless and degenerated. The satirical tone and sardonic humor allowed people to read his works and laugh at their own misfortune.
Robinson, Daniel. "Getting It Right: The Short Fiction of Tim O'Brien." Studies in Contemporary Fiction. 40.3 (1999): 257. Expanded Academic ASAP.
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.
..., the use of literary techniques including irony, characterization and theme convey the author’s purpose and enhance Into The Wild. The author accomplished his purpose of telling the true story of Chris McCandless. He was an eccentric, unpredictable man that led a very interesting life. His life deserved a tribute as truthful and respectful as Jon Krakauer’s. Through his use of literary techniques, the author creates an intense, and emotional piece of literature that captures the hearts of most of its readers. Irony, characterization, and theme all play a vital role in the creation of such a renowned work of art. “Sensational…[Krakauer] is such a good reporter that we come as close as we probably ever can to another person’s heart and soul” (Men’s Journal).
Is it not on the normal we hear about PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) from former veterans go through. They struggle to keep calm and collected visiting through flashbacks from war and maybe other memories that may not be true. Facing trying to have a normal life after being a prisoner of war (POW). Kurt Vonnegut writes using the setting he seen in his life, making a war drama from a first person experience making it fictional at the same time an autobiography. Being free from war is just illusive according to Kurt Vonnegut. Even though I never been to war I see him trying to show that war hinders us mentally through encounters in war.
I know that I start things between us a lot of the time, but even you know why. You know that it took a lot for me to trust you, but now I do. I am so happy that you are still here with me, being patient, and still by my side. So many people say that I will not make it far in life, but they do not understand me, let alone know me. So many of those people do not know how hard you push me to make something of myself. In the past, I honestly believed that I would not make it anywhere, but now I know that as long as I am happy and still alive, with you by my side I am doing great and can achieve anything.
When you got sick and the doctors told me I should hold you back you taught me it was more important to feel and grow like any other child than to have me hide you under my wing. It was more important to live. And that you did. You danced so beautifully, for years. And then your greatest joy, cheerleading. You made me so proud. You have always been my greatest pride and joy. I'm not sure how I can live this life without you. Remember when you would cry and tell me you were so afraid because you didn't want me to die before you. And I would tell you I wasn't going to die. And remember me saying you couldn't die before me, so we agreed, we had to go at the same time because neither of us could live without the other.
With each passing moment, my heart seems to yearn for our reunion with even greater ardor, despite my prior belief that my love for you had already reached the zenith of human emotion. Over the course of our long and painful separation, I have experienced and endured more than I ever thought I would within the vicinity of my time on this earth, and have been forced to drastically revise my interpretations of both pure bliss and anguish.