Kurt Vonnegut Research Paper

Words: 707
Pages: 3

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was born in November, in Indianapolis, Indiana, a city he would later utilize as a symbol of American Values. Kurt Vonnegut Sr. saw great success in his architectural business, and his wife Edith, was the daughter of a wealthy Indianapolis brewer. Kurt Jr. was the youngest of their three children, along with middle child Alice and eldest, Bernard. The fortunes of the family drastically changed during the course of the Depression, when Kurt Sr. lost his architectural business and had to pull Kurt Jr. out of his private school, where he met Jane Cox, who eventually became his wife. The extreme change in economic conditions led Kurt Sr. to become addicted to prescription drugs and alcohol. Kurt Jr.’s enduring pessimism undoubtedly took its roots in his parents’ disheartening response to being shaken by the Depression.
During Vonnegut’s teen years, during his time at Shortridge High, Vonnegut wrote for The Echo, the student paper. Moreover, Vonnegut continued his curiosity in journalism at Cornell, becoming managing editor of the
…show more content…
Vonnegut had several jobs before his writing career really took off, such as teacher, reporter, and public relations employee for General Electric. After his sister’s death in 1958, the Vonnegut’s adopted her children. Doubling his family size almost overnight, it became more pertinent for Vonnegut to increase his income. In Vonnegut’s beginning novels such as Cat’s Cradle, he was able to establish his signature black comic voice, making his experiences seem humorous regardless of the horrors he was describing. Vonnegut previously established a “…cult of following of college students” (Allen, "A Brief Biography of Kurt Vonnegut”), but he truly spoke to a greater audience with Slaughterhouse-Five and the outstanding film version that soon trailed the novel. By the early 1970s, Vonnegut had become one of the most famous writers on