...Kurt Vonnegut, Through Pain an Struggle Comes Triumph Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is known as one of the great science fiction writers during the 1950s through the 70s. He is widely known for his novel Slaughterhouse- Five, in which he took some of his own experiences with the war in Vietnam and wrote a science fiction novel. Vonnegut had written about his experiences a lot. This is why Vonnegut’s experiences with depression and death are themes explained in his work. The following paragraphs will explain the two works that have been read and give background on the man himself. Early Life Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on November 11th, 1922. Vonnegut’s ancestors come from German descent and they brewed beer as a family business and were also architects (Reed). Even in his early life Vonnegut has dealt with diversity. The impact of World War I seriously changed the lives of the family. Because of his German descent his family became a victim to prejudice treatment around the state (Reed). After the war the family had to deal with the prohibition, which took away the income and then the Depression slowed down and almost stopped the production of homes. Out of the 3 children Kurt could be seen as the child who did not get the best. His older sister and brother, Alice and Bernard both went to private schools while Kurt went to public schools. In 1940 Vonnegut attended the prestigious Ivy League school Cornell University. He majored in biochemistry...
Words: 1604 - Pages: 7
...I. Introduction In his foreword to a collection of the radio scripts of comedians Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. endorses these entertainers as somehow new and different—and relevant—since they draw their humor from the plight of the (American) Common Man. In the process, Vonnegut offers us an insight into his own writing, and the philosophies that inform it. “They aren’t like most other comedians’ jokes these days,” Vonnegut writes, aren’t rooted in show business and the world of celebrities and news of the day. They feature Americans who are almost always fourth-rate or below, engaged in enterprises which, if not contemptible, are at least insane. And while other comedians show us persons tormented by bad luck and enemies and so on, Bob and Ray’s characters threaten to wreck themselves and their surroundings with their own stupidity. There is a refreshing and beautiful innocence in Bob’s and Ray’s humor. Man is not evil, they seem to say. He is simply too hilariously stupid to survive. And this I believe. Jerome Klinkowitz, in the introduction to his essay collection entitled Vonnegut in America, has used this quote—as he certainly should—to support his claim that Vonnegut’s humor has its roots in the comedic response to the Great Depression. But of course there is much more to it than that. The reader is left with a nagging question: Were humanity’s case really as Vonnegut describes it, and were this truly his belief, wouldn’t it seem that the...
Words: 6991 - Pages: 28
...Kurt Vonnegut, Through Pain and Struggle Comes Triumph Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is known as one of the great science fiction writers during the 1950s through the 70s. He is widely known for his novel Slaughterhouse- Five, in which he took some of his own experiences with the war in Vietnam and wrote a science fiction novel. Vonnegut had written about his experiences a lot. This is why Vonnegut’s experiences with depression and death are themes explained in his work. The following paragraphs will explain the two works that have been read and give background on the man himself. Early Life Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on November 11th, 1922. Vonnegut’s ancestors come from German descent and they brewed beer as a family business and were also architects. Even in his early life Vonnegut has dealt with diversity. The impact of World War I seriously changed the lives of the family. Because of his German descent his family became a victim to prejudice treatment around the state. After the war the family had to deal with the prohibition, which took away the income and then the Depression slowed down and almost stopped the production of homes. Out of the 3 children Kurt could be seen as the child who did not get the best. His older sister and brother, Alice and Bernard both went to private schools while Kurt went to public schools. In 1940 Vonnegut attended the prestigious Ivy League school Cornell University. He majored in biochemistry. Later Years ...
Words: 1582 - Pages: 7
...The Judge of Wars and American Society --Black Humor in the Slaughterhouse Five American society was unstable at 1960s. Korean War and Vietnam War catalyze anti-war emotion among the American people. Black humor was normally appeared in the both literature works and comic works during that period. Black means oppression, sadness, helpless and death. Black humor is a way of using ironical comedy to show tragedy. Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller were the most famous writers in American at the period of anti-war writing. Slaughterhouse Five and Catch 22 were the representative work of black humor back then. In the Slaughterhouse Five, through the using of dark humor in the language and the characters, Kurt Vonnegut suggests the meaningless, indifferent and ruthless of the wars and American Society. In the Slaughterhouse Five, there are senses of embittered humor with the Tralfamadorian phrase “So it goes” and “blue and ivory”. These two phrases appear in the novel more than a hundred times. Through the using of repeating phrases after each time when death happens, Vonnegut built their meaning with each incremental refrain. It may look upon as funny in an ironic way when one see “So it goes” at the first time. However, when one reads further in the novel, that phrase becomes irreverent and irritating. Also at the same time, Vonnegut compares the war scene which is “all the young people in bright elastic clothing and enormous boots and goggles, bombed out of their skulls with snow,...
Words: 1106 - Pages: 5
...1970s From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search "Seventies" redirects here. For decades comprising years 70–79 of other centuries, see List of decades. From left, clockwise: U.S. President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil crisis put the nation of America in gridlock and caused economic damage throughout the developed world; Both the leaders of Israel and Egypt shake hands after the signing of the Camp David Accords in 1978; The 1970 Bhola cyclone kills an estimated 500,000 people in the densely populated Ganges Delta region of East Pakistan (which would become independent as Bangladesh in 1971) in November 1970; The Iranian Revolution of 1979 ousted Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi who was later replaced by an Islamic theocracy led by Ayatollah Khomeini; The popularity of the disco music genre peaked during the middle to late 1970s. Millennium: | 2nd millennium | Centuries: | 19th century – 20th century – 21st century | Decades: | 1940s 1950s 1960s – 1970s – 1980s 1990s 2000s | Years: | 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 | Categories: | Births – Deaths – ArchitectureEstablishments – Disestablishments | The 1970s, pronounced "the Nineteen Seventies", refers to a decade within the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1970, and...
Words: 11872 - Pages: 48
