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. Later Years During his time in college he wrote for the university’s newspaper Cornell Sun. Vonnegut’s first few articles where about the opposition he had against the United States entering the war. But after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Vonnegut had a change of heart and enlisted himself into the military (Reed). Meanwhile, his family was faced with problems. Vonnegut’s father struggled dealing with the fade of his career, and his mother dealt with depression. In 1944 Vonnegut had gotten permission to take a special leave for Mother’s Day, but the night before he arrived she died of a drug overdose (Reed). Vonnegut was among an enormous amount of Americans who were taken as prisoners. In Dresden is where Vonnegut had got the inspiration to write Slaughterhouse- Five (Reed). He was sent to Dresden where, like Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five, he worked making a diet supplement for pregnant women. On February 13th Royal Air Force bombers made a heavy raid on Dresden which was foiled up by United States Air Force the next day (Reed). Through this raid Vonnegut, like Billy Pilgrim, was sheltered in a meat storage cellar below a slaughterhouse. The devastation brought on Dresden was almost total as the compounded fires became one huge destructive blaze (Reed). Work Influenced By His Life Slaughterhouse-Five attracts readers not just in content but, in the ways in which it is put together. On the title page Vonnegut describes the novel as "somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales from the planet Tralfamadore, where the flying saucers come from." Later the Tralfamadorian novel is described as being made up of "clumps of symbols" each of which "is a brief, urgent message," which the Tralfamadorians read simultaneously rather than consecutively (Reed). That is what Vonnegut attempts in constantly pairing scenes from different plot lines, places, and times. These elements flow together at the focal event, time, and place, Dresden. Vonnegut integrates himself into the novel more directly and extensively than in any of his other works (Group). The entire story is autobiographical from beginning to end, from the mind of the author we are drawn to the story as if it were a reality (Group). That feeling is maintained throughout the story with moments where Vonnegut appears as a character. Slaughterhouse-Five enjoyed a greater commercial success than had any of the previous novels (Reed). By then Vonnegut would soon emerge from the underground of youthful audiences to recognition from all ages. Vonnegut had started to get attention because people became interested in Vonnegut’s commentator on life as a rising popular philosopher (Reed). Another novel that shows influence from his life is Cat’s Cradle. With Cat's Cradle Vonnegut makes a triumphant and irreverent return to science fiction (Group). "Call me Jonah" the narrator begins, referring to the opening lines of Moby Dick (Group) and preparing the reader for a religious theme by recalling the parable of Jonah and the whale. But here the whale is technology, and it finally swallows everything. The narrator is involved in research for a book on Hiroshima. He is also involved with the family of Dr. Felix Hoenikker, one of the "fathers" of the atom bomb, a man so machinelike and insensitive to his surroundings that he once tipped his wife after serving him breakfast (Vonnegut). The story skips through urban America with Vonnegut taking satirical potshots at every moving target, and on to the Republic of San Lorenzo, a Caribbean paradise complete with its own language, religion, and dictator named Papa Monzano. Though the island's people are starving, the crime rate stays low thanks to a punishment called "the hook." Their only wrong doing is a universal acceptance of the words of the prophet Bokonon. The novel is built around two symbols: ice-nine and the cat's cradle. The ice nine is an ice crystal with a rearranged molecular structure that gives it a melting point above one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Everything the ice nine comes into contact freezes. Tanner has noted, he sees man as "an inveterate pattern-maker," a creature bent on creating artificial forms of order against the surrounding chaos (Vonnegut). What better defense against confusion than to freeze everything perfectly immobile (Reed)? “Originally invented to free army tanks from mud holes, ice-nine finally destroys creation in a random series of events. With typical Vonnegut irony, chaos itself precipitates the final "order." This is vintage Vonnegut and must rank among his best science fiction” (Reed). Life Analysis “Vonnegut has proven to be a remarkably durable author. The novels demonstrate that his skills have matured while his imagination has remained. Such a long, steady career is rare in American letters. In addition to his stories, novels, plays, and nonfiction, he had written many introductions, essays, and commentaries in every conceivable type of book and magazine. He had also continued to be in demand as a speaker and to draw large audiences. The heading Vonnegut commonly uses for these engagements is “How to Get a Job Like Mine,” which serves to launch him into an evening of entertainment in which he would have talked about absolutely anything but what that title suggests. Typically he will start with something relating to the place in which

he is speaking and to current events. Then read from things he has written but that have not been widely published if published at all, interspersing these with extemporaneous remarks, jokes, and outrageous asides” Vonnegut’s life analysis as Reed states is completely agreeable with. Depression and End of his Life Vonnegut suffered from depression for a long time in his life but was not documented in any biographies of him until about the last 10 to 15 years of Vonnegut’s life, when it had been documented. But in retrospect Vonnegut had a lot of things to be depressed about during his life. Examples: he was born in to a family struggle, living in Indiana he had to face prejudice rules and treatment because he was German, out of three children he was the child who had to earn his way up in life (parents not paying for private schooling), being held prisoner of war in Dresden, he comes home to see that his mother dies of a drug overdose, with all of this happening in his life how could he not write about it? This is why Vonnegut’s experiences with depression and death are themes explained in his work. As the list shows above he had a lot of things that caused his depression, which is why death and depression are common themes put into his work. Even through all the depression and death Vonnegut still managed to do nice things in his life. He raised seven children: three from his first marriage; three of his sister Alice's four children, adopted by Vonnegut after her death from cancer, and a seventh, Lily, adopted with Krementz his second wife (Reed). His son, Mark Vonnegut, a pediatrician, wrote two books: one was about his experiences in the late 1960s and his major psychotic breakdown and recovery. The other includes stories of growing up when his father was a struggling writer, his subsequent

illness and a breakdown in 1985, as well as what life has been like since then. Mark was named after Mark Twain, whom Vonnegut considered an American saint (Group). In 2004, Vonnegut participated in the project The Greatest Album Covers That Never Were, for which he created an album cover for Phish called Hook, Line and Sinker, which has been included in a traveling exhibition for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “Just as Vonnegut's prose style has often been characterized as honed-down, there is sparseness to his graphics. That is the chief distinction between the vigorously colored felt-tip calligraphy of the early 1980s and the later silk screened art. And in both, the relative simplicity of expression counterpoints the generosity of imagination and vision, making the work more compelling.” (Reed) Vonnegut died on April 11, 2007, after falling down a flight of stairs in his home and suffering massive head trauma. He was 84 years old.