Breakfast of Champions
Have you ever read a book and enjoyed it, but once you were finished you wondered what it was really about? You wondered if the book had a deep meaning that you had to sit and think about or if the book was just for entertainment purposes only and had no meaning whatsoever. For me, Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was this type of book.
Breakfast of Champions is a story about two men who are going to eventually meet each other at a festival for the arts. The story tells about their journey in detail and explains how each man perceives and reacts to society.
Dwayne Hoover, a Pontiac salesman, is on the brink of insanity. Dwayne is a very “well-to-do” man and owns many businesses in Midland City where he resides. In the blink of an eye Dwayne’s life changes forever. One day Dwayne’s wife drinks Drano and is killed. After this incident Dwayne’s body starts producing “bad chemicals” which causes him to become insane.
The other main character of this book is a man by the name of Kilgore Trout. Kilgore is an interesting character. “Trout,” as he is referred to in the book, is a lonely person who thinks everyone in the world is against him. Trout lives by himself and sells screening and siding for houses. Trout’s best and only friend is his bird named Billy. Trout is a struggling writer whose work is mainly published in pornog...
ultimately defends the wild in all of its forms. He opens the novel with a narrative story about a
James Duncan’s book entitled, The River Why, focuses around the main character, Gus, and how he changes throughout the book. In this book Gus is discovering what life really is and that the whole world does not revolve around fishing. After moving out of his erratic house he spends all of his time fishing at his remote cabin, but this leaves him unhappy and a little insane. He embarks on a search for him self and for his own beliefs. Duncan changes Gus throughout the book, making Gus realize that there are more important things to life than fishing, and these things can lead to a happy fulfilled life, which in turn will help Gus enjoy life and fishing more. Duncan introduces a character, Eddy, who significantly changes Gus’s views on what he needs in his life and she gives Gus a sense of motivation or inspiration. Eddy changes Gus by their first encounter with each other, when Eddy instills in Gus a need to fulfill his life and when they meet up again, completing his need. Fishing is Gus’s first passion but he loses it after he puts all of himself into it, and when Eddy comes into his picture Gus feels a need to have more in his life, like love. Through finding love he re-finds his passion for fishing and learns more about himself. When Eddy and Gus finally get together, he sees this “equilibrium” between his old passion, fishing, and his new one, Eddy. Duncan’s use of Eddy gives Gus a new found sense of purpose and to have a more fulfilled life is a critical step in Gus’s development as a character. This is why Eddy is the most important character to this book, because she gives Gus inspiration to find himself.
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.
Dogs and cats can vary when it comes to the energy level. Most dogs are very active and hyper, most want to play all the time. Cats on the other hand, can be very lazy, and want nothing to do with the owner. All they want the
Works Cited Austin, Addell. A Raisin in the Sun. Cyclopedia of Literary Characters, Revised. Third Edition (1998): 1-2. Literary Reference Center.
2nd ed. of the book. New York: St. James Press, 1995. Literature Resource Center -. Web.
Five teenagers who don't' know each other spend a Saturday in detention at the suburban school library. At first they squirm, fret and pick on each other. Then after sampling some marijuana, a real encounter session gets underway. The stresses and strains of adolescence have turned their inner lives into a minefield of disappointment, anger and despair.
Kelly, Joseph. The Seagull Reader Poems Second Edition. New York: W.W Norton and Company, 2001.
Although cats and dogs are both animals they are different in many ways from, showing love, grooming, vaccinations, food, and vet care. To me dogs are more loveable than cats. However, cats are cheaper when it comes to grooming, vaccinations, and food. Owners treat and take care of their dogs better than their cats. I have always been more of a dog person even though they are expensive.
A fascinating and intriguing novel, The Pearl shares the story of a man named Kino, and how greed can affect his life forever. When Kino finds the “Pearl of the World”, it affects everyone, not just him. John Steinbeck, the author of this novel, uses intricate literary devices in order to give the reader the sense of greed that engulfed Kino and his surroundings. Literary devices such as foreshadowing, symbolism, and characterization all help this story come to life. Kino’s family, his personality, and his town, all changed when one pearl landed in Kino’s hands.
A growing number of studies have attempted to support the theory that cats and dogs differ in their personality attributes. Several common factors have emerged across these studies, such as difference among social behaviours. Higher levels of dominance and hostility have been reported among domestic cats (as cited in Fonberg, 1985). Not surprisingly, domesticated dogs are higher in submissive behaviours (as cited in Marder, 1989). Woodward et al. also reflect upon previously held theories of companion animal attachment that suggest attachment is mediated by the needs of the owner and the characteristics of their pet.
Being a carnivorous predator, the cat needs some sort of play outlet besides its usual habitat or the owner may become the object of play predatory aggression.
Billy is bullied in school because of his size, as he is a lot smaller than all the other children, he is mistreated by his mother by his fellow peers and by his teachers, but not all his teachers, Mr Farthing is probably the only person that Billy trusts to be around Kes because, he understands, he understands that Billy isn’t the sharpest tool in the box and that his bird is the only thing that set’s him apart from all the other children in his school. Where many would have just given up trying to tame the bird, Billy has exceeded he is now confident enough to give a speech in front of the whole class because in his mind he is one thing that all the other boys aren’t, he is unique.
In our lives today, dogs and cats are exceedingly valuable. They help calm people with anxiety, assist the sick and disordered, and aid the depressed. Although, thousands of years ago, dogs were domesticated by humans and put to useful tasks, such as, hunting, herding and guarding. Cats, however, were tamed for only one thing and that was to catch rodents. There might not be a lot about how they came to be, but hopefully that will change. Without cats and dogs in our lives things would be more challenging for most.
The characters in this book are very round. They each have their own story and have their own problems in life. Let’s start ...