Kurt Vonnegut

11 Pages 2657 Words

few months in the Dresden POW camp, a catastrophe occurred that would change his life forever:

“We didn’t get to see the fire storm. We were in a cool meat locker under a slaughterhouse with our six guards and ranks and ranks of dressed cadavers of cattle, pigs, horses, and sheep. We heard the bomb walking around up there. Now and then there would be a gentle shower of calcimine. If we had gone above to take a look, we would have been turned into artifact characteristics of fire storms: seeming pieces of charred firewood two or three feet long- ridiculously small human beings, or jumbo fried grasshoppers, if you will” (Mother Night vi).

On February 14th 1945, British and American forces bombed Dresden, killing over 135,000 civilians. Vonnegut survived in that slaughterhouse cellar. This gave him many aspects of life to write about in his novels. After the war, he devoted full time to his writings in hopes to pass on his beliefs and thoughts to the minds of the readers.
Vonnegut has several themes that can be found through out the Sirens of Titan. One of the first notable ideas that he presents has to deal with the aspect of religion and higher powers. Winston Niles Rumfoord is one of the central characters in the book. Vonnegut portrays him as a “god-like” character with the ability to foretell the future. “When I ran my space ship through a cronosynclastic infundibulum, it came to me in a flash that everything that ever has been always will be, and everything that ever will be always has been. Knowing that rather takes the glamour out of fortune telling-makes it the simplest, most obvious thing imaginable” (Sirens 20). The status of “God” placed on Rumfoord hives him a great deal of power. Through out the remainder of the book, he sends Malachi and other characters on a wild ride through the universe. Actually he refers to it a different way:

Life for a punctual person Is like a roller coaster. All kinds ...