Windows into the psyche of Kurt Vonnegut
Tim Heck
Kurt Vonnegut is one of the preeminent writers of the later
half of the twentieth century. His works are all windows into his
mind, a literary psychoanalysis. He examines himself as a cog in
the corporate machine in "Deer in the Works"; as a writer through
the eyes of Kilgore Trout in several works; and most importantly,
as a prisoner of war in Slaughterhouse-Five.
Vonnegut created short stories and novels that dealt with
events in his life. One of the most obvious self examinations is
in "Deer in the Works". The short story is based on his
experiences as a publicist at the General Electric Company
Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York. "Deer in the Works"
takes place over two days in the life of David Potter as he
begins his employment at the Ilium Works of the Federal Apparatus
Corporation. He is assigned to cover a deer trapped in a remote
corner of the Works. Potter gets lost in the Works himself and
feels just as trapped as the deer. He eventually frees the deer
and escapes the works to return to his newspaper. Vonnegut felt
trapped like Potter does, and left General Electric in 1951 to
write full time.
Before World War II, Vonnegut was enrolled at Cornell
University studying biochemistry. He was surrounded by scientists
and machines and as a result, his first literary works were based
on that influence. Vonnegutøs early writings were not accepted as
serious, mainstream literature due to their scientific nature. He
was considered a science fiction writer by literary critics. That
label caused him to be largely ignored.
He created the character Kilgore Trout, a science fiction
writer, to examine the literary worldøs view of himself. Trout
first appeared in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, and has appeared
in every single subsequent major work of Vonnegutøs. Trout is the
author of two-hundred novels and thousands of short stories. He,
like Vonnegut was, is largely ignored. Vonnegut used Trout to
explore his thoughts on being labeled inaccurately, and as
a writer living in near obscurity. In the preface to Timequake,
Vonnegut states that Kilgore Trout was his "alter ego in several
of my other novels" (xiii).
In 1975, a novel entitled Venus on the Half Shell was
published by "Kilgore Trout". Many thought that "Trout" was
Vonnegut himself, because the title of the book was one that
Vonnegut had attributed to Trout. The author was not Vonnegut,
but rather Philip Jose Farmer. The publishing of the book proved
to Vonnegut that the fame accorded to him was real and after that
he stopped using Kilgore Trout to examine his thoughts on
obscurity and science fiction.
A major event in Vonnegutøs life was his being captured by
the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. He
was an infantry scout lost in enemy territory when he was
captured on December 22, 1944. Taken to the city of Dresden,
Germany, he was put to work in a factory that made malt syrup for
pregnant women. "There, on the night of February 13, 1945, he was
sheltered in an underground meat locker while the Allies
unleashed one of the most relentless air raids of the war" (Reed
755). The raid killed 35,000 civilians.
Vonnegut emerged from the meat locker to find a scene he
later described in Slaughterhouse-Five as "like the moon"
(Slaughterhouse 179). The historic city of Dresden was
pock-marked by bomb craters; its inhabitants ceased to be. The
city had the desolate look of the moon, void of human life.
Vonnegut, along with other prisoners, was forced to dig through
the rubble to find bodies and bring them to funeral pyres. The
shock of the bombing to the 22 year-old Vonnegut could not be
fully dealt with until 1968-twenty three years later, when he
began to write Slaughterhouse-Five. In 1968, Vonnegut "returned
to Dresden with his fellow POW Bernard OøHare to gather material
for the book" (Boomhower 5). There he began to recall the events
that occurred there in 1945.
The protagonist of Slaughterhouse-Five is Billy Pilgrim. His
situation in the war was identical to Vonnegutøs, and Pilgrim is
used by Vonnegut to examine what happened in Dresden. Pilgrim has
the ability to travel in time, the manifestation of Vonnegutøs
1968 trip to Dresden. Pilgrim relives the night the city of
Dresden was destroyed, and ponders the uselessness of the act.
After the publishing of Slaughterhouse-Five in 1969,
Vonnegut told Playboy, "I didnøt have to write at all anymore if
I didnøt want to" (Wampeters 280). Slaughterhouse-Five helped
Kurt Vonnegut lay to rest some of the memories that had haunted
him since 1945.
Vonnegut later claimed,
"The importance of Dresden in my life has been
considerably exaggerated because my book about it
became a best seller. If the book hadnøt been a best
seller, it would seem like a very minor experience in
my life. And I donøt think peopleøs lives are changed
by short-term events like that. Dresden was
astonishing, but experiences can be astonishing
without changing you" (Reed 776).
Despite these claims to the contrary, the experiences at Dresden
had always played a large part in his writings.
His experiences have always shaped what Kurt Vonnegut has
written. He said to his brother, Bernard, that he wrote for an
audience of one, his dead sister; but he truly wrote for himself.
He wrote about his experiences as a prisoner in
Slaughterhouse-Five, as a publicist in a major corporation in
"Deer in the Works", and as a writer through the character
Kilgore Trout. Vonnegut examined his thoughts through the eyes of
David Potter, Kilgore Trout, and Billy Pilgrim. His works are all
deeply personal windows into the psyche of Kurt Vonnegut.
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Last modified: Jun 27, 1999