Political Cartoons
Kurt Vonnegut 1922-2007
By Cartoon: Mike Keefe, The Denver Post, Project: Cynthia Kirkeby, ClassBrain
Apr 13, 2007, 21:04 PST

© Keefe, The Denver Post 2007

On April 11, 2007, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. died of brain injuries caused by a fall that happens weeks prior in his Manhattan home. He changed the landscape of fictional writing with his literary explorations through 1997 with the publication of his final novel, Timequake.

He is best known for his science fiction and experimental fiction such as Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, and Breakfast of Champions. Vonnegut's work, such as Slaughterhouse Five are considered classics of American Literature and the science fiction genre, and simultaneously they have been some of the most frequently banned books in American Literature.

In Vonnegut's Apocalypse, and article that appear in Rolling Stone Magazine in 2006, Vonnegut said,

"The Army kept me on because I could type, so I was typing other people's discharges and stuff. And my feeling was, 'Please, I've done everything I was supposed to do. Can I go home now?' That's what I feel right now. I've written books. Lots of them. Please, I've done everything I'm supposed to do. Can I go home now?

Questions to Ponder

• Do you consider Kurt Vonnegut, Jr's work American classics or works that should be banned?
  
  
• Which elements of his novels do you think have caused individuals and communities to not only ban his books, but on a number of occasions to burn them?
  
  
• Slaughterhouse Five dealt in part with the little known bombing of Dreseden. Why did this novel lead to an investigation of the justification behind the aerial bombing of Europe?
  
  
• Cat's Cradle, explored some of the issues involving technology, religion, and ethics, and yet this science fiction novel gained him his Master's Degree in anthropology. Which themes in this novel qualified his work as the thesis for his Master's degree?
  
  

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