Kurt Vonnegut Author Project

Lindsey Powell and Jamie Havelin

“Saugus High School AP Literature Author Comparison Project

Kurt Vonnegut

Cat’s Cradle

Slaughterhouse - Five

Biography of Author

Overview of Each Text

Author Style Elements

Critical Reads

Extra Images and Links

Quiz

Works Cited

Biography of Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut was born on November 11, 1922 to German-American parents. He attended Cornell University to study biochemistry and to help write the school newspaper. He followed in the path of his father by joining the same fraternity and he later joined the Army. On Mother’s Day in 1944, Kurt’s mother committed suicide, which greatly impacted Vonnegut. Vonnegut’s time in the army had a major impact on his writing and so did hid experience as a Prisoner of War during the First World War.

He was one of the few American soldiers to survive the devastating attacks on the city of Dresden, as he and a couple of other POWs hid in a meat locker to protect themselves from the bombs that were being dropped on the city. They had been stationed at a Prison camp that was known as “Slaughterhouse 5” to the German captors. His job had been to gather the bodies of the murdered for the mass burial that the Nazi’s would hold, and the death and destruction that he saw changed his outlook on life.

Upon returning home from the war, Kurt married his childhood sweetheart, Jane Marie and had three children with her before divorcing her in 1979. He got remarried to Jill Krementz in 1970, and was technically married to both women for a period of nine years. When his sister died of cancer he opted to take care of her three children and he also adopted one child with his second wife. Vonnegut raised seven children. Vonnegut’s three nephews lost their father and mother within two days of each other and were adopted by Kurt less than one week later. Kurt wrote many novels in his life, but specialized in science fiction. He died in 2007 after being unable to recover from the brain trauma that he suffered from a fall weeks earlier.

Overview of each Text

Slaughterhouse – Five

The protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, is an optometrist; however he was drafted into the army during World War 2. While fighting during the Battle of the Bulge he is captured by the German Nazis. Moments before he is imprisoned he has his first experience with “time shifting”, an out of body experience where he views bits and pieces of his life, later revealed as the result of brain trauma suffered from a plane crash. While at the POW camp in Germany, Billy suffers from a mental breakdown and when getting a morphine shot he is sent through time once again. He sees himself and the other POWs working for their keep at a former slaughterhouse. The Allies then bomb Dresden; a vast amount of people die but Billy and his POWs survive in a meat locker.

When the war ends, Billy returns to Ilium and gets married to a woman named Valencia Merble. They have two children together. After his daughter’s wedding in 1967, Billy believes he is kidnapped by aliens who force him to “mate” with the actress Montana Wildhack. When he returns Billy does not tell anyone of his extraterrestrial encounter.

In 1968, a plane he is on crashes and he lapses into a coma. His wife dies in a car accident by monoxide poisoning while driving to the hospital. During his coma, he views his life in random intervals. He sees his death and when he wakes up he goes on to a talk show to speak about his experiences, he also writes to a newspaper. He makes a tape recording of the exact account of his death. His daughter is going out of her mind because her dad, Billy, is literally going crazy. Billy believes he will die by a bomb that is dropped on Chicago by a vengeful Chinese man he knew during the war. On the day and hour that he predicted he is killed.

Cats Cradle

The novel begins with the narrator, John, planning to write a book about the day America bombed Hiroshima. While gathering research he writes to Newt Hoenikker, Felix Hoenikker’s son. Felix is a Nobel physicist who aided in the creation of the atomic bomb. By talking to Newt, John realizes the Felix was not a very sociable man but on the day the bomb was dropped he was playing cat’s cradle with Newt. After responding to John’s letter, Newt is engaged to a supposed Russian spy named Zinka.

John travels to Ilium to continue the research on his novel. This is where he meets Asa Breed, Felix’s supervisor. Asa tells John about Felix’s attempt at inventing ice-nine, a substance that solidifies liquid. John fears this invention is a greater risk than the atomic bomb and questions if Felix ever succeeded in creating it. Asa denies the invention of ice –nine. However, Felix did create it and before his death he split the substance up between his children, Frank, Angela, and Newt. Frank used his portion to buy himself the comfortable job of Major General of San Lorenzo Island. Angela traded hers to be married to the scientist Harrison Conners – who works for the United States. Lastly Zinka stole Newts and sold it to the Soviet Union.

John was hired to write an article on a millionaire living on San Lorenzo. On the plane he meets Lowe and Hazel Crosby and Horlick and Clair Minton. Angela and Newt were also on the plane. Frank is getting engaged to Mona, the adopted daughter of the islands dictator, Monzano. Every ruler of San Lorenzo participated in the fake religion of Bokonoism, which made the inhabitants feel excited and gave meaning to their dull lives. Monzano, who has cancer, names Frank his successor, and soon later commits suicide. Frank does not wish to become a dictator and asks John to do it. John only accepts when Frank tells him he is able to marry Mona.

While looking at Monozano’s body, John realizes that Monozano drank ice-nine, which solidified his insides. John calls Newt, Frank, and Angela into the room. They tell him how they took their fathers creation and split it up for no real reason. During this discussion a plane crashes into the island causing the house they are in to fall into the ocean. The ice-nine seeps into the water and solidifies it. The only survivors of the crash were John, Frank, Newt, and the Crosby’s. John wrote Cats Cradle as a record to tell what happened. They survived for six months and then passed away.

Style Elements

Cat’s Cradle

Sentence Structure – Vonnegut uses simple short sentences to create a complex novel. Here Vonnegut is writing about the fictional island San Lorenzo, one can see the simplistic diction he chooses to use. "Subsequent expeditions came for gold...found none, burned a few natives for entertainment and heresy, and sailed on" (89).

Science Fiction – In Cat’s Cradle Vonnegut creates a fictional religion called Bokononism. “Anyone who cannot understand how useful a religion based on lies can be will not understand this book either.” (14)

Rhyme – This quote represents the motives behind the creation of Bokononism. “I wanted all things To seem to make some sense So we all could be happy, yes, Instead of tense” (90).

Prose writing – Felix talking about the game Cat’s Cradle.

"No damn cat, and no damn Cradle" (114)

Irony – Bokononism “All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies.” (14)

Slaughterhouse – Five

Allusions- Vonnegut makes many allusions to his own life experiences in the novel as both Vonnegut and Billy are POWs at the German camp “Slaughterhouse 5”

Refrain- Throughout the novel the refrain “So it goes” is repeated by almost every character, it can be found 106 times

Diction - Vonnegut likes to use a simple diction so that all can understand him. “All time is all time. It does not change.”

Sci Fi.- Vonnegut has many science fiction elements in his story such as the introduction of aliens and their fourth dimension of time and space

Imagery- Vonnegut uses imagery to show the readers what the world looked like in a time of horror and massacre, “The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the zipper on the fly of God Almighty”

Critical Reads

Historical

-World War 2

-Battle of the Bulge

-POW

-Nazi’s

-Atomic Bomb and Hiroshima

Biographical

-Cats Cradle

Ilium – Schenectady, New York

Hoenikker – Vonnegut family

Cancer, 2 siblings

-Slaughterhouse Five

Same Birthday 1922

WW2

Bombing of Dresden

Slaughterhouse survival

POW

Reader Response

-Confusing

-Unable to relate

-Somewhat Amusing

-Sad for the trauma each character experiences

The Infamous War: A Political View

“You can [not] say that civilization [does not] advance, for in every war they kill you in a new way”. In the early 1900’s,World War II commenced with the German invasion of Poland; a vast amount of soldiers and civilians were killed due to the inhumane nature of society. Kurt Vonnegut - a soldier in World War II – wrote two novels pertaining to the destructive disposition of war. In Vonnegut’s novels, Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat’s Cradle, he utilizes the literary devices, allusion and characterization, to exemplify his anti-war beliefs through different strategies in both novels.

Vonnegut, being a veteran, saw first hand the mayhem and murder caused by war; he devoted his two novels to showing others the disastrous nature of it through allusions. Both works of literature were written regarding the atrocities of World War II. Slaughterhouse-Five alludes to the infamous Battle of the Bulge in Belgium. He also refers to the beautiful city of Dresden – a town that was heavily bombed during World War II. Like Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle also alludes to the war; however, it refers to the devastating day when America dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. In Slaughterhouse-Five, using his past as a reference, Vonnegut writes of an abandoned slaughterhouse that saved American prisoners of war. This allusion is a retake on actual history; Vonnegut, himself, was a prisoner of war and while at a camp in Dresden. He sealed himself up into an airtight meat locker in a slaughterhouse and survived the air raid. Although the allusions in Slaughterhouse-Five are historical, the ones in Cat’s Cradle are merely fictional. The characters, the invention of ice-nine, and the places were all created from Vonnegut’s imagination.

The novels main characters Billy (Slaughterhouse-Five) and Felix (Cat’s Cradle) have similarities about their feelings towards death, which ultimately should say something about Vonnegut’s own opinion on death. Billy Pilgrim is a young man sent off to war, after each death he is faced with he repeats, “so it goes”. This exemplifies his belief that death is a natural part of life and although one’s life must end someone else’s will continue. It is a fairly pessimistic outlook, for Billy is not sad about it, just accustomed to it. Felix, a scientist who aided in the creation of the atomic bomb, is emotionally indifferent to other people. When Felix’s wife dies giving birth, he shows no emotion and goes about his life, not even buying a tombstone for her grave. It is evident that Vonnegut is attempting to show society that life is meaningless through Billy and Felix. Billy not only witnesses but aids in the killings of many people and all he has to say is, “so it goes”. Although the characterization of Billy and Felix are similar they also contain many differences. Billy Pilgrim is a whiny, young man who is incapable of fighting; however, he miraculously makes it out of the war. Felix, on the other hand, is a brilliant physicist. Their characterizations show that anyone can murder; Billy did so through the war, and Felix created the bomb and Ice-nine. Vonnegut illustrates his anti-war belief through them, showing the reader that anyone can kill, and people are too accustomed to stop and think of their actions.

“War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace”. Kurt Vonnegut, having taken part of World War II, has a high distaste for war. This is apparent in his novels Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat’s Cradle. Both novels show the inhumane nature of mankind through allusions to World War II. Although most of the places are fictional in Cat’s Cradle, the towns in Slaughterhouse-Five are mostly real. Vonnegut exemplifies his anti-war beliefs once again through the characterization of Billy and Felix - the novels main characters. Vonnegut is attempting to warn society about the destructiveness that war creates and how death is now too natural in the eyes of society. His novels, especially Cat’s Cradle, are an expose to the future if society does not change its ways because; winning a war is as disastrous as losing one.

Compare and Contrast: Feminist Read

Females are often times the supporting force of a family. Their designated role is to make children, raise them and to do whatever it is that the male wants them to do. Women are conditioned into believing that it is their job to make sure that the men of the world are cared for and happy, no matter the cost to the female. Kurt Vonnegut, a veteran of World War II, hardly concerns himself with the female race. His familial influence forced him to take a degrading view on the actions of females and their purpose in life. In both of his works, Slaughterhouse 5 and Cat’s Cradle, the female characters are given a subordinate role, meant merely to support the male leads of the story. Vonnegut writes in a kind of crazed passion, in which he tries to convey the feelings of his characters through the diction and speed of the story. It is the lack of attention that is paid to the women which allows for Vonnegut’s disdain for the female race to become clearly evident.

Vonnegut shared the common belief that women are put on Earth for very simple reasons; to create and raise a family. Each one of the female characters in his books has a straightforward mission to accomplish. In Cat’s Cradle, Angela Hoenikker is taken out of school as a young child to care for her brothers, as her mother passed while giving birth to a son. She must take on the role of mother, as she is a female and that is what the men of that time believed that females should do. In Slaughterhouse 5 the wife of Billy, Valencia is solely concerned with taking care of her husband, despite the fact that he is suffering from many different hallucinations. After he is injured in a plane crash, she rushes to the hospital but dies in a crash along the way. Her daughter, Barbara then takes over the role as care taker for Billy, showing that females are replaceable in society and yet a necessary part of it as well. Billy cannot survive his life without a female there to guide him but it does not matter whether or not it is his wife or his daughter that is the one who is there to take care of him. Vonnegut believes that while females are essential parts of life, there is no importance to which females are there to care for the men.

Vonnegut also believed that women were meant to be appreciated as forms of art for their beauty. He felt that it was a woman’s duty to look beautiful and thus raise the social standing of her husband. Women were not intended to be intelligent, but rather to be objective for their mysterious beauty and different shapes. The female character of Mona in Cat’s Cradle is used for her beauty to better her husband. Her physical attributes make it possible for her and her husband to raise their popularity in society. Mona is very similar to the female character of Montana Wildhack, from the novel Slaughterhouse 5, in the way that both are merely there to be appreciated for their beauty and sexual prowess. Montana is given to Billy as a mate for him while he is in the zoo on the alien planet of Tralfamadore, and is told that he must mate with her because of her beauty. By reducing the women in his novels to sexual objects Vonnegut reveals some of the key ideals that society held about women. They were not to be trusted with important matters but merely to be used for the betterment of the males that they were with.

Kurt Vonnegut based all of his characters in his book off of real people that he knew and trusted. He had one brother and a sister, exactly like the men in his books. Each of the females that he writes after are parallels the females that Vonnegut knew in his life, whether they be his mother, his sister or the wives of his friends. He felt that women were to be used for any purpose that suited the men that where in their lives. Also since each of the females that he writes about dies in a very simple manner, it proves that Vonnegut feels that death is meaningless and not intelligent. He had issues trusting women and could not imagine a life where they completed with men for important jobs and roles in society.

Extra Links

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki&oldid=204264111

http://www.vonnegut.com/index.asp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five

http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/0,24459,slaughterhouse_five,00.html

www.vonnegutweb.com/catscradle/index.html

Quiz

1. What is Bokononism?

(A) Bokononism is a false religion.

(B) Bokononism is a useful religion that is based on lies.

(D) Bokononism is a book on religion.

2. What did the Hoenikker siblings try to do with ice-nine?

(A) They tried to rule the world with it.

(B) They tried to buy happiness with it.

(D) They tried to destroy it because they recognized that it posed a serious threat to all of humanity.

3. Why did John agree to become President of San Lorenzo?

(A) As President, he could marry Mona, the object of his desire.

(B) He felt that he could do a better job than Frank.

(D) He was power-hungry.

4. Why did McCabe outlaw Bokononism on San Lorenzo?

(A) Bokonon asked him to do so.

(B) He wanted San Lorenzo to be a Christian country.

(D) Bokononism caused too much strife and violence on the island.

5. What is the order from oldest to youngest of Felix’s children?

(A) Newt, Frank, Angela

(B) Frank, Angela, Newt

(D) Angela, Frank, Newt

6. Who Created Ice Nine?

(A) John

(B) Newt

(D) None of the Above

7. Where did John meet the Crosby’s?

(A) Ilium

(B) San Lorenzo

(D) New York

8. How did Monozano die?

(A) Murder

(B) Gun Shot

(D) Knife wound

9. Which war does Cat’s Cradle allude to?

(A) World War 1

(B) Cold War

(D) None of the above

10. When was Kurt Vonnegut Born?

(A) 1922

(B) 1945

(D) 1967

11. What are two of Vonnegut’s style elements in Cat’s Cradle?

(A) Imagery and Irony

(B) Humor and Imagery

(D) Prose and Imagery

12. Who is Zinka?

(A) Frank’s wife

(B) Vonnegut’s daughter

(D) A Russian Spy

13. Which of the following statements describes Felix Hoenikker best?

(A) Felix was a conscientious, brilliant physicist.

(B) Felix acknowledged no moral responsibility for the products of his scientific work.

(D) None of the above

14. Billy was trained as what while in the army?

(A) Infantry man.

(B) Reconnaissance.

(D) Chaplin’s assistant

15. Where did Vonnegut go to College?

(A) Cornell.

(B) Duke.

(D) Yale

16. Billy’s children are named what?

(A) Joseph and Alexandra.

(B) Barbara and Fredrick.

(D) Robert and Barbara

17. Who did Kurt Vonnegut marry?

(A) Mary Jane.

(B) Oda Mae.

(D) Mary Alice

18. Vonnegut died of what?

(A) Brain trauma.

(B) Car Crash.

(D) None of the above

19. Kurt’s sister died from what illness?

(A) Committed suicide.

(B) Cancer

(D) Alzheimer’s

20. The aliens that abduct Billy are called what?

(A) Catsradiams.

(B) Transendentians.

(D) Marsains

21. Billy believes that he will die from what?

(A) A bomb explosion.

(B) Being a POW.

(D) A gunshot wound

22. Billy Pilgrim is an allusion to whom?

(A) Kurt Vonnegut.

(B) Kurt’s Parents.

(D) None of the above

23. How did Valencia die?

(A) Plane Crash.

(B) Car crash.

(D) Cancer

24. Vonnegut liked to write in this genre.

(A) Non-fiction

(B) Romance.

(D) Fiction

25. What is the cause of the time shifts that Billy experiences?

(A) Plane Crash

(B) Car Crash.

(D) None of the above

Works Cited

"Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." Wikipedia, The Free

Encyclopedia. 8 Apr 2008, 18:06 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 14 Apr 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki&oldid=204264111>.

"Cat's Cradle." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 8 Apr 2008, 19:38 UTC.

Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 14 Apr 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cat%27s_Cradle&oldid=204282498>.

"Cat's cradle." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 26 Feb 2008, 17:37 UTC.

Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 14 Apr 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cat%27s_cradle&oldid=194205279>.

"Kurt Vonnegut" Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 8 Apr 2008, 18:06 UTC.

Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 14 Apr 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut>;.

Reed, Peter. "Kurt Vonnegut." Dictionary of Literary Biography: Documentary

Series. Vol. 3. Detroit: Bruccoli Clark/Gale Research, 1983.

"Slaughterhouse - Five." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 8 Apr 2008, 18:06

UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 14 Apr 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five>;.

Vonnegut, Kurt. Cat’s Cradle. United States: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1963.

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse - Five. United States: Delacorte Press, 1969