Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

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Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

• I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart
  around, and don't let anybody tell you different
• --K.V.

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The Early Years

• Born - November 11, 1922, Indianapolis, Indiana
• Grandfather- first licensed architect in Indiana
• Father- wealthy architect
• Familys wealth diminished when the Great
  Depression hit and Kurt Sr. couldnt find work
• Parents had trouble accepting the fact that they
  were no longer wealthy
• Mother committed suicide on May 14, 1944
  (Mothers Day) (he was away at war)
• Father retreated into his own little world until
  his death in 1957

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Education/Writing

• Shortridge Daily Echo - the first daily high
  school newspaper in the country
• Cornell University - double major (bio and chem!)
• Brother Bernard was a scientist - discovered
  cloud seeding to induce precipitation
• Struggled with bio chem
• Excelled as Managing Editor for Cornell Daily Sun
  (school newspaper)
• By 1943- almost asked to leave Cornell, joined
  Army instead

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Dresden

• All this happened, more or less. The war parts,
  anyway, are pretty much true.

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Dresden

• Became German POW after being captured in the
  Battle of the Bulge
• Sent to Dresden
• The Florence on the Elbe
• No military significance
• Sent to work in vitamin syrup factory
• February 13, 1945 - Allied forces firebombed
  Dresden (incendiary bombs)

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Warning some of the images that follow may be
upsetting. Close your eyes if you do not want to
see them.
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• Laughter and tears are both responses to
  frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to
  laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do
  afterward.
• It is a very mixed blessing to be brought back
  from the dead.

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Dresden, contd.

• Debate about number of casualities from bombing
  (35,000 - 350,000)
• Vonnegut and fellow POWs survived
• Making vitamins in an underground meat locker
• After bombing, put to work cleaning up bodies -
  too many, so the Germans brought in flame
  throwers
• Sent home in May of 1945
• Received Purple Heart for what he called a
  ludicrously negligible wound
• Owes career to experience in Dresden

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Family Life

• Married - Jane Marie Cox (high school sweetheart)
• Three children of their own
• Later adopted his sisters three children after
  her death in 1958

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Employment

• Graduate student at University of Chicago
• Anthropology major (the study of humankind and
  human cultures/societies)
• Thesis was rejected, did not receive degree
• Newspaper reporter
• Teacher (yay!)
• Public relations employee for General Electric in
  Schenectedy, NY
• Ran a Saab dealership

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Humanism

• As described by Kurt Vonnegut himself, being a
  Humanist means trying to behave decently without
  expectation of rewards or punishment after you
  are dead
• Humanism is a progressive lifestance that,
  without supernaturalism, affirms our ability and
  responsibility to lead ethical lives of personal
  fulfillment that aspire to the greater good of
  humanity

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Fatalism

• "All persons, living and dead, are purely
  coincidental. (from Timequake)
• Fatalism - the belief that all events are
  predetermined and therefore inevitable
• Who in Slaughterhouse-Five is a fatalist?
• How would the belief in fatalism guide someones
  everyday actions?

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From Cats Cradle

• "Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly Man got to
  sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?' Tiger got to
  sleep, bird got to land Man got to tell himself
  he understand."

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From Timequake

• In response to his own question, Why bother?
  (regarding reading and writing)
• "Many people need desperately to receive this
  message 'I feel and think much as you do, care
  about many of the things you care about, although
  most people do not care about them. You are not
  alone.'"

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Writing Style

• Long sentences
• Little punctuation
• Do not use semicolons. They stand for absolutely
  nothing.
• Humanist point of view
• Satire - the use of humor, irony, exaggeration,
  or ridicule to expose and criticize people's
  stupidity or vices, particularly in the context
  of contemporary politics and other topical issues

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Writing Style

• Nonlinear Chronology - events are out of order
• Metafiction - fiction in which the author
  self-consciously alludes to the artificiality or
  literariness of a work by parodying or departing
  from novelistic conventions and traditional
  narrative techniques

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Writing Style

• Repetition
• Allusions (religious, literary, classical)
• Use of an alter-ego (see if you can figure out
  who it is)
• Combination of simplicity, irony, and rue
• Blended literature with science fiction and
  humor, the absurd with pointed social commentary

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Science Fiction?

• "I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file
  drawer labeled 'science fiction' ever since the
  publication of Player Piano, and I would like
  out, particularly since so many serious critics
  regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.

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Later in Life

• Taught creative writing at Harvard
• Got divorced (and later remarried Jill Krementz
  a photographer)
• Saw his son Mark suffer and recover from a
  psychotic breakdown
• Attempted suicide (1984)
• Died April, 2007- head injuries due to a fall in
  his home (ironic)

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Other Interesting Tidbits

• Smoked unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes, which he
  considered a classy way to commit suicide
• November 11, 1999 - an asteroid was named in his
  honor
• Considered Mark Twain to be an American saint
  (did you wonder why his son was named Mark?)

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Vonneguts Last Lines

• When the last living thing?
• Has died on account of us,?
• How poetical it would be
• ?If Earth could say,?
• In a voice floating up?
• Perhaps?From the floor
• ?Of the Grand Canyon,?
• "It is done.
• "?People did not like it here.''

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So it goes.