Kurt Vonnegut Welcome to the Research Paper

The message is further developed when he refuses to listen to her explanation about why she would work as an agent of suicide, explaining that "a woman's not a woman till the pills wear off." (41). Through these twists and turns, we can see Vonnegut's exploration of sex, sexiness, and age. He utilizes humor and irony to highlight social contradictions and, perhaps, to point out timeless truths about what makes us human.

Another of Vonnegut's trademark literary tools is the use of outright jokes. In this story, Billy the Poet woos his women with poetry, and most of the poems are lewd: "Soak yourself in Jergen's Lotion; Here comes the one man population explosion," (Vonnegut, 1968: 37). The use of humor contributes to Vonnegut's accessibility and helped him become a cult hero for thousands of readers over the years.

Conclusion

Vonnegut may be writing superficially light fiction, but no reader will be fooled. Indeed, he "is ultimately writing about the universal human condition and that he only employs science fiction devices to create distance and irony, just as he employs satire to the same effect." (Kurt Vonnegut). His unique blend of science fiction and irony brings our unspoken social assumptions to the forefront of our awareness. Perhaps most powerfully, he forces the reader to question timeless ethical dilemmas, and in true post-modernist form, he shows us that everything is relative.In a world where the government is evil, the citizens have been brainwashed, and the rapist may be the character with the clearest and most honorable aims, how are we to make sense of this world? It's Vonnegut's world, and we are privileged to visit it.

Works Cited

Allen, William Rodney. (1991). Understanding Kurt Vonnegut. University of South

Carolina Press: South Carolina.

Davis, Todd F. (2006). Kurt Vonnegut's Crusade: Or, How a Postmodern Harlequin

Preached a New Kind of Humanism. State University of New York Press:

Albany, N.Y.

Hayman, David, et.al. 1977. Interview with Kurt Vonnegut. The Paris Review (69) 64.

Hume, Kathryn. (1990). Kurt Vonnegut and the Myths and Symbols of Meaning. In Critical Essays on Kurt Vonnegut, Ed. Robert Merrill. G.K. Hall & Co: Boston, Mass.

Kurt Vonnegut. Literary Criticism.

Available at: http://www.enotes.com/contemporary-literary-criticism/vonnegut-kurt

Levitas, Mitchel. 1968. Books of the Times: A Slight Case of Candor. The New York

Times Book Review. August 19th. Available at:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/09/28/lifetimes/vonnegut-monkey.html

Rider, Shawn. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: So It Goes. Available at:

http://www.wdog.com/rider/writings/KVJ_soitgoes.htm

Vonnegut, Kurt. 1968.….....