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“All Persons Living and Dead Are Purely Coincidental:” Unity, Dissolution, and the Humanist Wampeter of Kurt Vonnegut’s Universe

Clarke, Danielle M
Abstract
Though most critical analyses of Kurt Vonnegut’s work focus on the assertions made in individual texts, Vonnegut’s narratives do not occupy the traditional space of a singular novel. Instead, Vonnegut’s characters and narrative devices appear again and again in multiple, non-sequential works, weaving together otherwise isolated texts. In this thesis, I explore the way reading Vonnegut’s canon as an interconnected whole reshapes the way his novels are perceived individually and forms a larger continuous narrative in which humanist themes are brought into counterpoint with the more nihilistic satire Vonnegut is most known for. Vonnegut uses this unique act of world building as a phenomenological device, dissolving the traditional boundaries within and between texts and revising the role of the author.
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2014-04-01
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Undergraduate Honors Theses
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Kennedy, Colleen
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English
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https://scholarworks.wm.edu/handle/internal/12281
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