Kurt Vonnegut example essay topic
386 words
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was born November 11, 1922, in Indianapolis, Indiana, the son of, Kurt Vonnegut, Sr., a successful architect, and Edith Sophia Vonnegut. He had two older siblings, a brother Bernard, and a sister Alice. He attended Short ridge high school. This is where he first realized his talent for writing. He was the editor of the school newspaper. Kurt graduated in 1940, and after high school, attended Cornell University and studied bio-chemistry, and was also a columnist and editor of the Cornell daily sun. However, because of bad grades, Kurt found himself almost flunking out of Cornell University. He saved himself from expulsion by joining the army in 1942. While in the army, several devastating experiences happened to Kurt. First in 1944, he received the news that his mother had committed suicide.
A few months later Kurt was captured by the German Army. He was forced to produce a vitamin enriched malt for pregnant women. While doing this he happened to survive the firebombing of Dresden. His book Slaughterhouse-five is partially about the bombing of Dresden After being rescued by the Soviets, Vonnegut returned home.
He was working as a Police Reporter for the Chicago News Bureau and studying anthropology at the University of Chicago. He later moved to Schenectady, New York. Here he worked in Press Relations for the General Electric Plant. This experience that led to the creation of his first novel Player Piano, . It was after the publication of this novel that he moved to Rhode Island, while in addition to writing short stories, he taught High School English and opened the first Saab dealership in the United States. After realizing the shrinking of the Short Story market, he began concentrating entirely on novels.
It was Vonnegut's novels that gain him critical acclaim in the late sixties and seventies. His Science Fiction novels created a popularity and demand that nearly overwhelmed him. He has continued to write novels, his last being Time Quake, in 1997. Kurt Vonnegut has also written two autobiographical books, Palm Sunday, in 1981, and Fates Worse than Death, in 1991, but true to his form, neither follows the path of a true biography.
