Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

1983

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Coyle, William

Abstract

Many of Kurt Vonnegut's central characters are benevolent advocates of positive human change. Because of the absurdities of their world, these efforts are futile and doomed to failure. Rumfoord attempts "to do good for my native earth" in The Sirens of Titan, on a cosmic scale. Lionel Boyd Johnson, Bokonon, in eat's Cradle, creates a religion based on lies to lessen the awful truth. Eliot Rosewater in God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater attempts to love the "discarded" Americans of Rosewater, Indiana, on a one-to-one basis. The conflicts inherent in. Vonnegut's world cloud the motivation of these efforts but they are still sincere efforts within their pluralistic framework. The results are a mixture of positive and negative; the most positive exist on a small human scale; the most negative on a collective or institutional scale.

Extent

107 p.

Comments

Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters|Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 1983.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters

Identifier

FADT14143

Format

pdf

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