Kurt Vonnegut

1. Kurt Vonnegut By: Cory, Tim, and Brad Period 2

2. He was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on November 22, 1922. • His parents are Kurt Vonnegut Sr. and Edith Lieber and they are second-generation German-Americans.

3. Early life… • He attended Cornell University in May 1940 and majored in chemistry while being an assistant managing editor and associate editor of the Cornell Daily Sun. • While in college, he followed in his father’s footsteps and became a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity.

4. While in college, he enlisted in the army. • Because of this, he had to transfer to the Carnegie institute of Technology as well as the University of Tennessee to study engineering.

5. POW • Kurt fought in WW2 and on December 19, 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge, he was captured by German troops and became a prisoner of war. • He was taken to Dresden, Germany and was forced to work. One night, there was an American bombing run and he took shelter in an underground slaughter house known to the German troops as Schlachthof Fünf (slaughterhouse five) • He was one of the lucky soldiers out of the hundreds of thousands that died during this bombing.

6. Freedom! • After being liberated from the war camp, he attended the university of Chicago and worked at the City News Bureau of Chicago. • As time went on, he began to write novels.

7. Some of his works: • Slaughterhouse five • The Cat’s Cradle • Mother Night • Player Piano • The Sirens of Titan

8. End of life • Kurt Vonnegut died on April 11, 2007 at the age of 84 in New York City, New York.

9. Slaughterhouse Five • Published in 1969, this is the book that made people notice Kurt Vonnegut. • It is truly a story of hard times in war and the ever-changing life of a man named Billy Pilgrim…

10. Important Characters: • The narrator- This is actually Kurt Vonnegut ,as stated in the preface of the book, as he begins to explain his war story. • Billy Pilgrim- The main character of the book who leads a very strange life. He is in his mid forties and is an American soldier captured during WW2. • Bernard V. O’Hare- Who the narrator seeks in the beginning of the book to help retell the war story. • Paul Lazzaro- A weak soldier at the prison camp with a bad temper and seeks revenge on those that do wrong towards him. It was he that planned to kill Billy. • Valencia Merble- Billy’s rich, overweight wife. She dies from carbon monoxide poisoning on the way to the hospital to visit Billy after his plane crash.

11. Characters cont. • Montana Wildhack- Abducted by the Tralfamadorians and forced to be Billy’s mate. She does not what to at first but eventually falls in love with him(1 week after meeting). • Edgar Derby- Throughout the book, the memory of this man’s death haunts Billy. He was and older gentleman that Billy stuck with in the prison camp that was shot when trying to take a tea kettle. • Roland Weary- A highly disliked soldier that, in my opinion is the reason that Billy was killed in the book. When in the boxcar on the way to the prison camo, he somehow dies and Paul Lazzaro believes it was Billy’s fault. He then goes out to avenge his friend’s death.

12. Setting • Dresden, Germany- The firebombed city where Billy was help as a prisoner of war. • Planet Tralfamadore- Where Billy was taken when he went aboard the flying saucer. • Luxembourg- Where Billy was captured by the Germans starting his new life as a POW.

13. Summary: • This book is fairly dark and dreary. By this, I mean to say that there are a lot of sad events that happen and most of all, death. • It begins with the narrator(the author) talking about how he is going to write about his time in the war. He goes and tries to enlist the help of his friend, Bernard V. O’Hare but he isn’t of much use either. So, the narrator decides that he is going to write the story of a man named Billy’s life which as you will notice incorporates actual war events from Vonnegut’s life in it.

14. Before I begin with the rest of the summary, I am going to say right now that it will get confusing, I know it was to me. • The main character, Billy, will have these moments that he is “unstuck in time” and he will all of a sudden be in a different part of his life. The book is constantly changing between the past, present, and future.

15. Well, Billy starts out fighting in the war and when he first goes to battle, he has his first “unstuck” moment. He sees his whole life from the time of his birth all the way to his death and everything in between. He awakes to Roland Weary telling him to get up and that they have to get going. Shortly after that, they are captured by German soldiers and they become prisoners of war. Once again, he has another unstuck moment. He awakes in a boxcar on its way to the prisoner camp. He falls asleep in it and has another moment. In this one, he is seeing himself being abducted by the Tralfamadorians.

16. After arriving at the prison camp, Billy keeps going in and out of his “unstuck” state. Some of the many “unstuck” moments he has are al follows: Marrying his fiancé, Valencia, and the arrival of Montana Wildhack while at trakfamador. He then wakes up back in the camp where Lazzaro says that he will kill him after the war is over. Billy already knew that would happen because he saw it in one of his unstuck moments. • He then goes to work in the factory making food for the German workers. Then one night, he was told to hide in the meat locker know to them as Schlachthuffünf(slaughterhouse five.)

17. Once there, he was lucky because the whole city of Dresden was Bombed by the allies and hundreds of thousands of people died and he was fortunate enough to survive. During this time, he had another moment and this time he was in the hospital after his plane crash. While in there, his wife died. He woke up watching others rummage through the rubble for souvenirs. They were then forced to dig up all of the corpses which was a horrible and gruesome job. The story ends with him waking up and the war is over. He walks out of a shed and a bird tells him, “Poo-tee-weet?”

18. Mother Night • Published in 1961, this is a book about the double life of fictitious character, Howard Campbell. • It tells his life as a Nazi-propagandist and the struggles he went through doing his job and even afterwards.

19. Characters… • Howard Campbell Jr.- A double agent working for the United States spying on the Nazis during the war. • Helga Noth- The wife of Howard that was supposedly killed while on the front lines entertaining German troops. • Resis Noth- The two-faced sister of Helga that tricks Campbell.

20. Setting… • Nazi Germany- This is where Campbell took up his fake life as a Nazi propaganda artist. • New York- This is where Campbell escaped to after the war where he lived in a poor apartment. • Israel- This is where Campbell is at the end of the book after he turns himself in and awaits trial.

21. Summary • This book tells the story of what Howard Campbell Jr. went through as a double agent working for the United States as a Nazi. • He worked his way up the ranks in Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda organization and actually was the spokesperson for getting Americans to convert to the Nazi cause.

22. When Campbell would make his speeches, he would purposely add things like coughs or pauses. To the Nazis, this looked normal but along with him, the Americans also knew what these “coded” messages meant. • This was his way of secretly relaying information back to the Office of Strategic Services.

23. During the war, while he is busy doing his job, his wife, Helga, goes to the frontlines to entertain the German soldiers. He finds out that the base that she is at get overrun by allied troops and she is killed in action. • Because Campbell was never told what the messages he was sending were about, he did not know that a message he sent a week before the death of his wife included the reason why his wife died.

24. He is then moved from Germany and he goes to New York. He lives in a crummy, run-down apartment where he sits there all depressed with no reason to live. Then one day, someone shows up and says that she is his wife, Helga. He then sees a reason to live but eventually finds out that is his dead wife’s sister, Resi, that was there. she is accused of working with his neighbor who is a German Intelligence Officer. • The FBI is called in to take care of the situation and before they get there, Resi commits suicide. At that point, Campbell is even more depressed and turns himself into the Israelis for a war crime charges against him.

25. The cat’s cradle • This book was published in 1963 and tells the story of a corrupted island in the Caribbean and the people that inhabit it. • It tells how a deadly chemical if you will got into the hands of some children and just what it can do.

26. Characters… • The Narrator- A writer named John that is trying to write a book and discovers a material called Ice-nine that is in the hands of the Hoenikker children. • Felix Hoenikker- Considered on of the greatest scientists of his time and helped create the nuclear bomb and also developed Ice-nine. He dies just minutes after creating this substance. • Frank Hoenikker, Newt Hoenikker, Angela Hoenikker- The children of Felix and the holders of Ice-nine after their father’s death. • “Papa” Monzano- The evil dictator of san Lorenzo.

27. Setting… • Ilium, New York- Where the maker of Ice-nine resides and where he made his creation. • San Lorenzo- A small island in the Caribbean where John and the children travel while he is in the midst of writing his book.

28. Summary • A man named John, the narrator, is writing a book and was researching his topic when he found out about this thing called Ice-nine. He also learned that it was in the hands of the children of the maker of this substance. • John the narrator and the children go to a fictional island in the Caribbean that is ruled by a dictator named “Papa” Monzano.

29. While there, he learns about a movement called Bokonism. It is said that whoever supports this faith is to be executed because the government ruling the island is Christian. • What is even stranger about this religion is that even though it is banned, almost everyone on the island practices it.

30. Later on in the story, John finds out that it was banned to give the faith a “glamour” to it and that made it alluring to people. • Towards the end of the story, the evil dictator is ailing and dying and wanted a way out. He took the Ice-nine from the children and proceeded to drink it. He basically froze to death because of it.

31. Right after this happens, a plane crashes into the palace of the now dead evil dictator tossing his body into the sea. When this happened, the Ice-nine froze the whole ocean and killed all the life within’ it. Most everyone shortly committed suicide afterwards. • John, however, did not. He escaped and lived in a cave for several months and actually was able to finish writing his story.

32. Jobs: • Tim: Slaughter house five, compile information onto PowerPoint. • Cory: Mother Night, get info on the author. • Brad: The Cat’s Cradle, attain even more information on the author.