Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., in a commencement address at Bennington College in , recounts how as a young man he was very optimistic about the promise of science to improve human life, Bergeron,” written by Kurt Vonnegut at the time of the Cold War, is a short story that takes place in a future world of the year where the Handicapper General and the law force the 1/10/ · Kurt Vonnegut was born in November of in Indianapolis. This is where he eventually met and married Jane Cox. Vonnegut's life has been a struggle, starting with his
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. November 11, — April 11, was an American writer kurt vonnegut essay for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. Born and raised in IndianapolisVonnegut attended Cornell University but withdrew in January and enlisted in the US Army. As part of his training, he studied mechanical engineering at the Carnegie Institute of Technology now Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Tennessee. He was then deployed to Europe to fight in World War II and was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He was interned in Dresdenwhere he survived the Allied bombing of the city in a meat locker of the slaughterhouse where he was imprisoned, kurt vonnegut essay. After the war, he married Jane Marie Cox, with whom he had three children.
He adopted his nephews after his sister died of cancer and her husband was killed in a train accident. He and kurt vonnegut essay wife both attended the University of Chicagowhile he worked as a night reporter for the City News Bureau. Vonnegut published his first novel, Player Pianoin The novel was reviewed positively but was not commercially successful at the time. In the nearly 20 years that followed, he published several novels that were well regarded, two of which The Sirens of Titan [] and Cat's Cradle [] were nominated for the Hugo Award for best SF or fantasy novel of the year.
He published a short-story collection titled Welcome to the Monkey House in His breakthrough was his commercially and critically successful sixth novel, Slaughterhouse-Five The book's anti-war sentiment resonated with its readers amidst the ongoing Vietnam Warand its reviews were generally positive. After its release, Slaughterhouse-Five went to the top of The New York Times Best Seller listthrusting Vonnegut into fame. He was invited to give speeches, kurt vonnegut essay, lectures, and commencement addresses around the country, and received many awards and honors. Later in his career, Vonnegut published several autobiographical essay and short-story collections, such as Fates Worse Than Death and A Man Without a Country After his death, kurt vonnegut essay, he was hailed as one of the most important contemporary writers and a dark humor commentator on American society.
His son Mark published a compilation of his unpublished works, titled Armageddon in Retrospectin Inkurt vonnegut essay, Seven Stories Press published Complete Storiesa collection of Vonnegut's short fiction, including five previously unpublished stories. Complete Stories was collected and introduced by Vonnegut friends and scholars Jerome Klinkowitz and Dan Wakefield. Numerous scholarly works have examined Vonnegut's writing and humor. was born in Indianapolis on November 11,the youngest of three children of Kurt Vonnegut Sr. and his wife Edith née Lieber. His older siblings were Bernard born and Alice born He had descended from German immigrants who settled in the United States in the midth century; his paternal great-grandfather, Clemens Vonnegutsettled in Indianapolis and founded the Vonnegut Hardware Company.
His father and grandfather Bernard were architects; the architecture firm under Kurt Sr. designed such buildings as Das Deutsche Haus now called "The Athenæum"the Indiana headquarters of the Bell Telephone Companyand the Fletcher Kurt vonnegut essay Building. Both of Vonnegut's parents were fluent German speakers, kurt vonnegut essay, but the ill feeling toward Germany during and after World War I caused them to abandon German culture in order to show their American kurt vonnegut essay. Thus, they did not teach Vonnegut to speak German or kurt vonnegut essay him to German literature and traditions, leaving him feeling "ignorant and rootless".
He described her as "humane and wise" and added that "the compassionate, forgiving aspects of [his] beliefs" came from her. The financial security and social prosperity that the Vonneguts had once enjoyed were destroyed in a matter of years. The Liebers' brewery was closed in after the advent of prohibition. When the Great Depression hit, few people could afford to build, causing clients at Kurt Sr, kurt vonnegut essay. His father withdrew from normal life and became what Vonnegut called a "dreamy artist". She labored to regain the family's wealth and status, and Vonnegut said that she expressed hatred for her husband that was "as corrosive as hydrochloric acid ".
Vonnegut enrolled at Shortridge High School in Indianapolis in While there, he kurt vonnegut essay clarinet in the school band and became a co-editor along with Madelyn Pugh for the Tuesday edition of the school newspaper, The Shortridge Echo. Vonnegut said that his tenure with the Echo allowed him to write for a large audience—his fellow students—rather than for a teacher, an experience, he said, was "fun and easy". After graduating from Shortridge inVonnegut enrolled at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He kurt vonnegut essay to study the humanities or become an architect like his father, but his father [b] and brother Bernard, an atmospheric scientist, urged him to study a "useful" discipline.
He later penned a piece "Well All Right" focusing on pacifisma cause he strongly supported, [8] arguing against US intervention in World War II. The attack on Pearl Harbor brought the US into the war. Vonnegut was a member of Reserve Officers' Training Corpsbut poor grades and a satirical article kurt vonnegut essay Cornell's newspaper cost him his place there. He was placed on academic probation in May and dropped out the following January. No longer eligible for a deferment as a member of ROTC, he faced likely conscription into the United States Army. Instead of waiting to be drafted, he enlisted in the Army and in March reported to Fort BraggNorth Carolina, for basic training. In earlythe ASTP was canceled due to the Army's need for soldiers to support the D-Day invasionand Vonnegut was ordered to an infantry battalion at Camp Atterburysouth of Indianapolis in Edinburgh, Indianawhere he trained as a scout.
Kurt vonnegut essay May 14,Vonnegut returned home on leave for Mother's Day weekend to discover that his mother had committed suicide the previous night by overdosing on sleeping pills. She was inebriated at the time and under the influence of prescription drugs. Three months after his mother's suicide, Vonnegut was sent to Europe as an intelligence scout with the th Infantry Division. In Decemberhe fought in the Battle of the Bulgethe final German offensive of the war. Over members of the division were killed, kurt vonnegut essay, and over 6, were captured.
On December 22, Vonnegut was captured with about 50 other American soldiers. During the journey, the Royal Air Force mistakenly attacked the trains carrying Vonnegut and his fellow prisoners of warkilling about of them. He lived in a slaughterhouse when he got to the city, and worked in a factory that made malt syrup for pregnant women. Vonnegut recalled the sirens going off whenever another city was bombed, kurt vonnegut essay. The Germans did not expect Dresden to be bombed, Vonnegut said. On February 13,Kurt vonnegut essay became the target of Allied forces. In the hours and days that followed, the Allies engaged in a extermination firebombing of the city. Vonnegut marveled at the level of both the destruction in Dresden and the secrecy that attended it.
He had survived by taking refuge in a meat locker three stories underground. They burnt the whole damn town down. The American POWs were evacuated on foot to the border of Saxony and Czechoslovakia after US General George S. Patton captured Leipzig. With the captives abandoned by their guards, Vonnegut reached a prisoner-of-war repatriation camp in Le HavreFrance, before the end of Maywith the aid of the Soviets. After he kurt vonnegut essay to the United States, year-old Vonnegut married Jane Marie Cox, his high-school girlfriend and classmate since kindergarten, on September 1, The pair relocated to Chicago; kurt vonnegut essay, Vonnegut enrolled in the University of Chicago on the G.
There, he studied under anthropologist Robert Redfieldhis "most famous professor". Jane accepted a scholarship from the university to study Russian literature as a graduate student. Jane dropped out of the program after becoming pregnant with the couple's first child, Mark born Maywhile Kurt also left the university without any degree despite having completed his undergraduate education when his master's thesis on the Ghost Dance religious movement was unanimously rejected by the department. Shortly thereafter, General Electric GE hired Vonnegut as a technical writer, then publicist, [32] for the company's Schenectady, New Yorkresearch laboratory. Although his work required a college degree, Vonnegut was hired after claiming to hold a master's degree in anthropology kurt vonnegut essay the University of Chicago, kurt vonnegut essay.
His brother Bernard had worked at GE sincekurt vonnegut essay, contributing significantly to an iodine -based cloud seeding project. InKurt and Jane had a daughter named Edith. While Burger supported Vonnegut's writing, he was shocked when Vonnegut quit GE as of January 1,kurt vonnegut essay, later stating: "I never said he should give up his job and devote himself to fiction. I don't trust the freelancer's life, it's tough. InVonnegut's first novel, Player Pianowas published by Scribner's. The novel has a post-Third World War setting, in which factory workers have been replaced by machines. He satirizes the drive to climb the corporate ladder, one that in Player Piano is rapidly disappearing as automation increases, putting even executives out of work.
His central character, Paul Proteus, has an ambitious wife, a backstabbing assistant, and a feeling of empathy for the poor. Sent by his boss, kurt vonnegut essay, Kroner, as a double agent among the poor who have all the material goods they want, but little sense of purposehe leads them in a machine-smashing, museum-burning revolution. In Player PianoVonnegut originates many of the techniques he would use in his later works. The comic, heavy-drinking Shah of Bratpuhr, an outsider to this dystopian kurt vonnegut essay United States, is able to ask many questions that an insider would not think to ask, or would cause offense by doing so. For example, when taken to see the artificially intelligent supercomputer EPICAC, the Shah asks it "what are people for?
Speaking for Vonnegut, he dismisses it as a "false god". This type of alien visitor would recur throughout Vonnegut's literature. The New York Times writer and critic Granville Hicks gave Player Piano a positive review, favorably comparing it to Aldous Huxley 's Brave New World. Hicks called Vonnegut a "sharp-eyed satirist". None of the reviewers considered the novel particularly important. Several editions were printed—one by Bantam with the title Utopia 14and another by the Doubleday Science Fiction Book Club —whereby Vonnegut gained the repute of a science fiction writer, a genre held in disdain by writers at that time.
He defended the genre and deplored a perceived sentiment that "no one can simultaneously be a respectable writer and understand how a refrigerator works". After Player PianoVonnegut continued to sell short stories to various magazines. Contracted to produce a second kurt vonnegut essay which eventually became Cat's Cradlehe struggled to complete it, and the work languished for kurt vonnegut essay. Inthe couple had a third child, Nanette. With a growing family and no financially successful novels yet, Vonnegut's short stories helped kurt vonnegut essay sustain the family, though he frequently needed to find additional sources of income as well. Inhe and a partner opened a Saab automobile dealership on Cape Cod, but it went bankrupt by the end of the year, kurt vonnegut essay.
Inhis sister, Alice, died of cancer two days after her husband, James Carmalt Adams, was killed in a train accident.
Kurt Vonnegut on Man-Eating Lampreys - Blank on Blank
, time: 6:06Kurt Vonnegut - Wikipedia
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, – April 11, ) was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. Vonnegut's final book, a collection of essays entitled Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., in a commencement address at Bennington College in , recounts how as a young man he was very optimistic about the promise of science to improve human life, In his book of essays The Man without a Country, Vonnegut wrote that “For some reason the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But often, with tears in their
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