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Department of English and American Studies English Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Martina Jergová Vonnegut’s Cradle: The United States as Reflected in Selected Novels by Kurt Vonnegut Bachelor‟s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr. 2014 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Martina Jergová Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr. for his valuable advice and comments and his very helpful attitude. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 3 1.1. Introducing Kurt Vonnegut 3 2. Slaughterhouse-Five 5 2.1 Background 5 2.2 Plot Summary and Narrator 6 2.3 Dresden 8 2.4 American Army 9 2.5 Religion 12 2.6 American Society 13 2.7 Summary 14 3. Breakfast of the Champions 15 3.1 Birthday Present 15 3.2 Symbols of the United States 15 3.3 American Society 17 3.4 Race 21 3.5 Summary 22 4. Hocus Pocus 23 4.1 Narrator and the Plot Summary 23 4.2 Vietnam War 24 4.3 Conditions in 1980s America 28 4.4 Summary 31 5. Jailbird 32 5.1. Narrator and the Plot Summary 32 5.2. Sacco and Vanzetti – Story of Immigrants in 1920s America 32 1 5.3. Richard M. Nixon and the Watergate Scandal 35 5.4. Summary 36 6. Conclusion 38 7. Works Used and Cited 39 8. Czech Resume 42 9. English Resume 43 2 1. INTRODUCTION Kurt Vonnegut said he was „a man without a country‟. This thesis analyzes this statement and his attitude towards the United States of America in general. Analyzing his novels, namely Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Breakfast of Champions (1973), Jailbird (1979), and Hocus Pocus (1990),1 the thesis will show how Vonnegut perceived his native country, its people, culture, and politics. The choice of books is based on their content, since they concern various events in the history of the United States, such as the Vietnam War, the Second World War, the Watergate Scandal, and the Great Depression, as well as the American politicians and ordinary citizens. Therefore, these books contain lots of information about the United States and Vonnegut‟s reflections of it. Focus is given to particular characters, plots, and depictions in the novels dealing with America in some way. The aim is to observe Vonnegut‟s perception of the United States and how it was changing through the years. The reason that led me to choose this particular topic and author is the fact that I can identify myself with Vonnegut‟s attitude toward life, his ideas and worldview, such as is his humanistic view of life. Prior to starting the analysis of the selected novels, however, I believe it is useful to write a few words about Kurt Vonnegut, which may contribute to a better understanding of his attitudes. 1.1. Introducing Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was born in 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana. When he was 7 years old, the Great Depression in the United States started. He watched his father, a talented architect, losing commissions day by day. Young Vonnegut wanted to be an artist, too, 1 Due to the space limitations it is not possible to analyze also other novels. Therefore, because of this selection, this thesis cannot include Vonnegut‟s famous novels such as Cat’s Cradle, which inspired the title of this thesis 3 preferably an architect, and be part of the family firm, but his father warned him away from any kind of arts, because he found them a useless way of producing money during the Depression; hence Vonnegut majored in chemistry (Man Without a Country 15). This knowledge, however, turned to be an advantage, since „most fine American authors know nothing about technology‟ (MWaC 16) and thanks to that he was able to write about various fictional chemical substances and technical devices, such as the substance ice-nine in Cat’s Cradle, which at the end turns to be a weapon to destroy the whole earth, and which made the novel different and more interesting. On Mother‟s Day in 1944, his mother killed herself with sleeping pills. The same year he was captured by Germans at the Battle of the Bulge, the bloodiest battle of the Second World War for American troops (Miller 358), taken prisoner of war, and a year later he survived the massive firebombing of Dresden, witnessing deaths of more than 20,000 people, mostly civilians (Neutzner 70). These tragedies have more or less influenced Vonnegut‟s writing, even though he said that „the importance of Dresden in my life has been considerably exaggerated because my book about it became a best seller‟ (Conversations with KV). When another death occurred within his close family – his father passed away – he dropped the „Jr.‟ from his name, which is why he will simply be referred to as Kurt Vonnegut throughout this thesis. However, this family name he inherited indicates that Vonnegut, despite being born in the United States, has German ancestry.2 Thus, he was „identified with his German heritage‟ (Krasny), which allowed him to write about the 2 The family name has its origins in an estate by the River Funne in Germany owned by Vonnegut‟s forebears. German „ein Gut‟ means an estate, thus derived surname „FunneGut‟ indicates an estate by the river Funne. In English it sounded more like a „funny gut‟, therefore Vonnegut‟s great-grandfather decided to change it to „Vonnegut‟ to be better accepted by American society. (Shields 418) 4 destruction of Dresden, the major theme of Slaughterhouse-Five, from the both the Allies‟ and the Germans‟ point of view. He did not write this best-seller until more than 20 years afterwards. In 1951, he quit his job at General Electric which he disliked so much (Conversations with KV) and he began to write short stories to support his family. Later he started to publish his first novels such as Player Piano and The Sirens of Titan, other short stories and even plays. Nevertheless, Slaughterhouse-Five remains his most influential and famous work, which is why this thesis begins with the analysis of this novel. 2. SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE 2.1. Background Kurt Vonnegut would be probably disappointed if the whole title of the book was not mentioned here, since the original name of the novel in fact expresses Vonnegut‟s opinion on every war and his bitterness of the unnecessary deaths of countless young people. He explains his choice of „Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death’ at the beginning of the novel, when his friend‟s wife expresses her disapproval of all the war stories that make soldiers look like heroes and great men, but who just „pretend to be men instead of babies…and war will look just wonderful, so we‟ll have a lot more of them‟ (SF 12). Vonnegut promised her he would call the book „The Children’s Crusade’, comparing this disastrous march of Christian children, majority of whom ended up in slavery or dead, to the World War II, the firebombing of Dresden, wars, and violence in general. 2.2. Plot Summary and Narrator 5 The story of Slaughterhouse-Five basically describes Billy Pilgrim‟s life, from his youth at the Battle of the Bulge, his becoming a POW, his marriage, nervous breakdown which sent him to hospital and his mind-traveling in time. Vonnegut, however, put the priority on the characters, which are allegorical (Krasny), such as the protagonist of the book, Billy Pilgrim. Despite the fact that he and Vonnegut have many things in common and at the first sight it may seem he in fact is Kurt Vonnegut, it is not so. Rather he is something like his alter ego. The difference between the two can be seen when comparing their wives; Jane Cox, Vonnegut‟s wife, was his childhood sweetheart („Kurt Vonnegut's 'Homesick' Letter To His Wife‟), while Billy „didn't want to marry ugly Valencia. She was one of the symptoms of his disease. He knew he was going crazy, when he heard himself proposing marriage to her‟ (SF 88). Furthermore, Valencia in the novel died, while Jane Cox was still alive when Vonnegut wrote the novel. Speaking about their education, Vonnegut majored in chemistry and was awarded a master‟s degree in anthropology, whereas Billy spent only six months at college, which was not even a regular one; but a night school of optometry (SF 31). Not to mention that at the end of the book Billy is assassinated with a laser gun. It is important to say that even though Vonnegut seems to be the narrator of the whole story, it is not so, either. In the first and the final chapter, it is undeniably Vonnegut who narrates. The first chapter includes Vonnegut‟s statement about writing the book, „I would hate to tell you what this lousy little book cost me in money and anxiety and time. When I got home from the Second World War twenty-three years ago, I thought it would be easy for me to write about the destruction of Dresden…‟ (SF 2), which indicates that Vonnegut himself addresses to the reader and he is going to talk about his own experiences from Dresden and World War II. He also describes the way he used crayon during the writing process and how his friend‟s wife influenced the title 6 of the book. The final chapter recapitulates the whole story and Vonnegut mentions there assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, but still there is Billy Pilgrim, who together with Vonnegut and his war buddy O‟Hare returns to Dresden two days after the bombing.
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