Kilgore Trout As Vonnegut's Alter Ego

Kilgore Trout as Kurt Vonnegut's Alter Ego

In 1922, two residents of Indianapolis, Indiana had a son who would later become one of the premiere writers in 20th century American literature. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was born to Edith and Kurt Sr. on November 11, 1922. He graduated from Shortridge

High School in 1940, attended Cornell University for a year, then joined the army. He fought in World War II and was captured by the Germans in 1944. As a Prisoner of War, he lived through the firebombing of Dresden, an event which inspired his acclaimed novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. After he returned from Europe in

April of 1945, he married Jane Marie Cox and spent several years studying at the

Lawrence Broer dubs Trout Vonnegut's "fictional counterpart"

(102). The basic life of Kilgore Trout reflects Vonnegut's, and the two share the some of the same writings. The basic themes of both Kurt Vonnegut's actual works and the ones he attributes to

Trout are the same. Kilgore Trout, in many ways, truly is the parody, the alter ego, the fictional counterpart, of Kurt

Vonnegut himself.

References:

Broer, Lawrence R. Sanity Plea: Schizophrenia in the Novels of

Kurt Vonnegut. Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama

Press, 1989.

Klinkowitz, Jerome, and John Somer. The Vonnegut Statement. New

York, New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1973.

Lundquist, James. Kurt Vonnegut. New York: Frederick Ungar

Publishing Co, 1977.

Mustazza, Leonard. The Critical Response to Kurt Vonnegut.

Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1994.

Vit, Marek. "Kurt Vonnegut." Online. URL:

"http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/4953/vonn.html" (May 10, 1997.)

Vonnegut, Kurt. Player Piano. New York, New York: Dell

Publishing, 1952.

Vonnegut, Kurt. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. New York, New York:

Dell Publishing,