History Creator / KurtVonnegut

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!!Vonnegut's stories with their own pages
!!!Novels

!!!Short stories
* "Literature/{{EPICAC}}" (1950)
* "Literature/HarrisonBergeron" (1961)

-->...I am going to sue the Brown and Williamson Tobacco Company, manufacturers of Pall Mall cigarettes, for a billion bucks! Starting when I was only twelve years old, I have never chain-smoked anything but unfiltered Pall Malls. And for many years now, right on the package, Brown and Williamson have promised to kill me. But I am now eighty-two. Thanks a lot, you dirty rats. The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the planet were named [[UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush Bush]], Dick and Colon.

* CrapsackWorld: A common motif in Vonnegut's fiction is social decay in combination with environmental devastation, ranging from (at its most benign) people living sleazy personal lives in a generic midwestern town alongside a river contaminated with toxic sludge in ''Literature/BreakfastOfChampions'' to more extreme scenarios, such as that same town being accidentally destroyed by a neutron bomb in ''Literature/DeadeyeDick'', the aftermath of the Dresden bombing in ''Literature/SlaughterhouseFive'', the end of human civilization from a worldwide pandemic in ''Literature/Galapagos'', or complete annihilation of nearly all life on Earth through a chemistry experiment gone wrong in ''Literature/CatsCradle''.

* JerkassHasAPoint: At one point Anita angrily tells Paul that for someone whose heart bleeds for the uneducated and the way they are dismissed and belittled by those with doctorates, he's sure happy enough to lord ''his'' superior intelligence and educated over ''her.'' Paul can't entirely say she's wrong.

* CrapsackWorld: A common motif in Vonnegut's fiction is social decay in combination with environmental devastation, ranging from (at its most benign) people living sleazy personal lives in a generic midwestern town alongside a river contaminated with toxic sludge in Literature/BreakfastOfChampions to more extreme scenarios, such as that same town being accidentally destroyed by a neutron bomb in Literature/DeadeyeDick, the aftermath of the Dresden bombing in Literature/SlaughterhouseFive, or complete annihilation of nearly all life on Earth through a chemistry experiment gone wrong in Literature/CatsCradle.

* CosmicPlaything: Most of Vonnegut's protagonists are poster children for this trope, suffering one misfortune after another as a consequence of an indifferent society (and universe) while usually taking the blows in stride. Notable examples are Billy Pilgrim in ''Literature/SlaughterhouseFive'' and Rudy Waltz in ''Literature/DeadeyeDick''.

* AuthorAvatar: Kilgore Trout, recurring {{science fiction}} author, [[SelfDeprecation sometimes described as a hack]]. Stuck deep in the SciFiGhetto. Vonnegut has also noted that Trout was somewhat based on Creator/TheodoreSturgeon as well.

* HumansAreBastards
* InYourNatureToDestroyYourselves

* GracefulLoser: [[spoiler: In "EPICAC", the eponymous machine's response when it is told that it would never be able to be with the woman that it and its operator are competing for? Wish the operator well and commit suicide by overtaxing itself... writing thousands of love poems for him to give to her.]]

* InstantAIJustAddWater: "EPICAC", in which the old-school punch-card computer learns how to love when its operator flicks a couple of positions at random.

* ArtisticLicensePhysics: deliberately invoked; as Vonnegut points out in the preface, {{Neutron Bomb}}s do a ''lot'' more damage than is suggested in the story, where [[spoiler:a neutron bomb is dropped on Midland City and kills all its inhabitants, but leaves buildings intact.]]

* FoodPorn: many delicious-sounding recipes are used as a framing device (although Vonnegut explains in the preface that he has tinkered around with the recipes, which are based on recipes from various real life cookbooks, and that they will not work if tried at home). They are also a reference to Rudy's abilities as a cook, and how he feeds and cares for his family as a means of atoning for the damage he has done.

* ThoseWackyNazis: certainly, Otto Waltz seems to think so, and sees Nazi imagery as colourful and fun. He becomes friends with Adolf Hitler while 'studying' in Austria, and has a massive Nazi flag flying above his house. He even greets Felix's friends with 'heil Hitler', and they are expected to say 'heil Hitler' back. By World War II, Otto realises that being openly pro-Nazi perhaps isn't such a good idea.

* AllLovingHero: Eliot's defining trait - he loves ''everyone,'' no matter how unlovable they are, simply because they are human and need someone to love them. Possibly deconstructed [[note]]though it could also be seen as a case of EvilCannotComprehendGood[[/note]], as Senator Rosewater bitterly notes that that makes for a raw deal for anyone who (like himself) wants to have a personal relationship to Eliot, since Eliot loves them exactly as much as he does a random person on the street. Eliot's wife also tries to be this, but it eventually causes her to have a nervous breakdown and turn into a complete sociopath for a while - essentially, she ''wore out'' her sense of empathy by trying to apply it as widely as Eliot. [[spoiler: Eliot himself also suffers a mental collapse towards the end of the novel.]]

* {{Hypocrite}}: Fred Rosewater's wife is said to despise him for being so poor and dull, while having failed to notice that she's every bit as poor and every bit as dull as he is. [[note]]In fairness, since he's the breadwinner of their household, her being as poor as him is pretty much inevitable.[[/note]]

* ItsNotPornItsArt: To settle once and for all the question of which is which, Senator Rosewater has created a law of which he is quite proud. The law says that if it has pubic hair, it's pornography. (Note that this was before the modern custom of porn stars [[LoopholeAbuse shaving off their pubic hair]]).

* NauticalKnockout: Eliot accidentally killed his mother when he took her sailing on his small boat and tacked. The boom swung across, knocked her off the boat where she sank like a stone.

* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: The narrator is named after prominent American Socialist UsefulNotes/EugeneDebs

->''"Many people need desperately to receive this message: I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people do not care about them. [[YouAreNotAlone You are not alone.]]"''

* WomenAreWiser: Starbuck believes this, and further asserts that back in his day, it was considered conventional wisdom.

[[AC:Hocus Pocus]]
* AnachronicOrder: In this case, due to the scraps of paper from the "original artist" getting a bit mixed up.
* GoshDangItToHeck: The narrator never swears, because his grandfather told him that if he uses profanity, it's easy to dismiss what he's saying.
* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: The narrator is named after prominent American Socialist UsefulNotes/EugeneDebs
* TakeThat: At one point the narrator receives a pamphlet titled ''The Protocols of the Elders of Tralfamador'' (with Tralfamador being an alien planet), obviously a mockery of the anti-Semitic tract ''Literature/TheProtocolsOfTheEldersOfZion''.
* ViewersAreGeniuses: The riddle at the end.

* RapeAsDrama: Quite gruesomely used in "Welcome To The Monkey House". Sex is repressed and discouraged to the point where a vigilante thinks the only way to convince women to try it is to rape them. The women he does this to end up being his loyal followers, and eventually help him do it to other women. It may sound unreal, but this happens in a lot of societies and cultural subgroups.

Despite having been an active anti-interventionist in college, Vonnegut enlisted in the US Army during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. During the Battle of the Bulge, he was captured by the enemy and brought to Dresden. Dresden was a German city known for its doll-making which, after conversion to war-production, produced light infantry equipment that was only of marginal military value. Because of those industries, and the railway lines which passed through it (and enabled German industries to continue functioning through the continued transportation of resources across the country), like all other German cities it was fire-bombed by the western Allies as part of their campaign to reduce German armaments production. [[CatchPhrase So it goes]]. This event would become a major theme in many of his books, especially the later ones.

* WindsOfDestinyChange: The titular effect from "Report on the Barnstable Effect" - anyone who thinks in just the right way can manipulate chance all around them. First manifesting as the ability to roll snake-eyes at will on two dice, it can allow its user to cause machines to fail at will around them. Horrified by the potential destructive power of the effect, Prof. Barnstable goes into hiding and dedicates his life to [[ActualPacifist rendering all weapons inert via his power]].

[[Literature/SlaughterhouseFive Listen]]: Kurt Vonnegut (November 11, 1922 -- April 11, 2007) was an American science fiction writer. His work is known for its satirical, anti-authoritarian, humanist, absurdist and often [[CrapsackWorld brutally depressing worldview]]. If this worldview can be pinned down to one event, it would be the bombing of Dresden.