By: Cory, Tim, and Brad
Period 2
 He was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on November 22,
1922.
 His parents are Kurt Vonnegut Sr. and Edith Lieber
and they are second-generation German-Americans.
Early life…
 He attended Cornell University in May 1940 and
majored in chemistry while being an assistant
managing editor and associate editor of the Cornell
Daily Sun.
 While in college, he followed in his father’s footsteps
and became a member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity.
 While in college, he enlisted in the army.
 Because of this, he had to transfer to the Carnegie
institute of Technology as well as the University of
Tennessee to study engineering.
POW
• Kurt fought in WW2 and on December 19, 1944 during
the Battle of the Bulge, he was captured by German
troops and became a prisoner of war.
• He was taken to Dresden, Germany and was forced to
work. One night, there was an American bombing run
and he took shelter in an underground slaughter
house known to the German troops as Schlachthof
Fünf (slaughterhouse five)
• He was one of the lucky soldiers out of the hundreds of
thousands that died during this bombing.
Freedom!
 After being liberated from the war camp, he attended
the university of Chicago and worked at the City News
Bureau of Chicago.
 As time went on, he began to write novels.
Some of his works:
 Slaughterhouse five
 The Cat’s Cradle
 Mother Night
 Player Piano
 The Sirens of Titan
End of life
 Kurt Vonnegut died on April 11, 2007 at the age of 84 in
New York City, New York.
Slaughterhouse Five
 Published in 1969, this is the book that made people
notice Kurt Vonnegut.
 It is truly a story of hard times in war and the everchanging life of a man named Billy Pilgrim…
Important Characters:
 The narrator- This is actually Kurt Vonnegut ,as stated in the
preface of the book, as he begins to explain his war story.
 Billy Pilgrim- The main character of the book who leads a very
strange life. He is in his mid forties and is an American soldier
captured during WW2.
 Bernard V. O’Hare- Who the narrator seeks in the beginning of
the book to help retell the war story.
 Paul Lazzaro- A weak soldier at the prison camp with a bad
temper and seeks revenge on those that do wrong towards him.
It was he that planned to kill Billy.
 Valencia Merble- Billy’s rich, overweight wife. She dies from
carbon monoxide poisoning on the way to the hospital to visit
Billy after his plane crash.
Characters cont.
 Montana Wildhack- Abducted by the Tralfamadorians and
forced to be Billy’s mate. She does not what to at first but
eventually falls in love with him(1 week after meeting).
 Edgar Derby- Throughout the book, the memory of this
man’s death haunts Billy. He was and older gentleman that
Billy stuck with in the prison camp that was shot when
trying to take a tea kettle.
 Roland Weary- A highly disliked soldier that, in my
opinion is the reason that Billy was killed in the book.
When in the boxcar on the way to the prison camo, he
somehow dies and Paul Lazzaro believes it was Billy’s fault.
He then goes out to avenge his friend’s death.
Setting
Dresden, Germany- The firebombed city where Billy
was help as a prisoner of war.
Planet Tralfamadore- Where Billy was taken when he
went aboard the flying saucer.
Luxembourg- Where Billy was captured by the
Germans starting his new life as a POW.
Summary:
• This book is fairly dark and dreary. By this, I mean to
say that there are a lot of sad events that happen and
most of all, death.
• It begins with the narrator(the author) talking about
how he is going to write about his time in the war. He
goes and tries to enlist the help of his friend, Bernard
V. O’Hare but he isn’t of much use either. So, the
narrator decides that he is going to write the story of a
man named Billy’s life which as you will notice
incorporates actual war events from Vonnegut’s life in
it.
 Before I begin with the rest of the summary, I am
going to say right now that it will get confusing, I know
it was to me.
 The main character, Billy, will have these moments
that he is “unstuck in time” and he will all of a sudden
be in a different part of his life. The book is constantly
changing between the past, present, and future.
• Well, Billy starts out fighting in the war and when he
first goes to battle, he has his first “unstuck” moment.
He sees his whole life from the time of his birth all the
way to his death and everything in between. He
awakes to Roland Weary telling him to get up and that
they have to get going. Shortly after that, they are
captured by German soldiers and they become
prisoners of war. Once again, he has another unstuck
moment. He awakes in a boxcar on its way to the
prisoner camp. He falls asleep in it and has another
moment. In this one, he is seeing himself being
abducted by the Tralfamadorians.
 After arriving at the prison camp, Billy keeps going in
and out of his “unstuck” state. Some of the many
“unstuck” moments he has are al follows: Marrying his
fiancé, Valencia, and the arrival of Montana Wildhack
while at trakfamador. He then wakes up back in the
camp where Lazzaro says that he will kill him after the
war is over. Billy already knew that would happen
because he saw it in one of his unstuck moments.
 He then goes to work in the factory making food for
the German workers. Then one night, he was told to
hide in the meat locker know to them as Schlachthuf
fünf(slaughterhouse five.)
 Once there, he was lucky because the whole city of
Dresden was Bombed by the allies and hundreds of
thousands of people died and he was fortunate enough
to survive. During this time, he had another moment
and this time he was in the hospital after his plane
crash. While in there, his wife died. He woke up
watching others rummage through the rubble for
souvenirs. They were then forced to dig up all of the
corpses which was a horrible and gruesome job. The
story ends with him waking up and the war is over. He
walks out of a shed and a bird tells him, “Poo-teeweet?”
Mother Night
 Published in 1961, this is a book about the double life
of fictitious character, Howard Campbell.
 It tells his life as a Nazi-propagandist and the struggles
he went through doing his job and even afterwards.
Characters…
 Howard Campbell Jr.- A double agent working for the
United States spying on the Nazis during the war.
 Helga Noth- The wife of Howard that was supposedly
killed while on the front lines entertaining German
troops.
 Resis Noth- The two-faced sister of Helga that tricks
Campbell.
Setting…
 Nazi Germany- This is where Campbell took up his
fake life as a Nazi propaganda artist.
 New York- This is where Campbell escaped to after the
war where he lived in a poor apartment.
 Israel- This is where Campbell is at the end of the book
after he turns himself in and awaits trial.
Summary
 This book tells the story of what Howard Campbell Jr.
went through as a double agent working for the United
States as a Nazi.
 He worked his way up the ranks in Joseph Goebbels’
propaganda organization and actually was the
spokesperson for getting Americans to convert to the
Nazi cause.
 When Campbell would make his speeches, he would
purposely add things like coughs or pauses. To the
Nazis, this looked normal but along with him, the
Americans also knew what these “coded” messages
meant.
 This was his way of secretly relaying information back
to the Office of Strategic Services.
 During the war, while he is busy doing his job, his wife,
Helga, goes to the frontlines to entertain the German
soldiers. He finds out that the base that she is at get
overrun by allied troops and she is killed in action.
 Because Campbell was never told what the messages
he was sending were about, he did not know that a
message he sent a week before the death of his wife
included the reason why his wife died.
 He is then moved from Germany and he goes to New York.
He lives in a crummy, run-down apartment where he sits
there all depressed with no reason to live. Then one day,
someone shows up and says that she is his wife, Helga. He
then sees a reason to live but eventually finds out that is his
dead wife’s sister, Resi, that was there. she is accused of
working with his neighbor who is a German Intelligence
Officer.
 The FBI is called in to take care of the situation and before
they get there, Resi commits suicide. At that point,
Campbell is even more depressed and turns himself into
the Israelis for a war crime charges against him.
The cat’s cradle
 This book was published in 1963 and tells the story of a
corrupted island in the Caribbean and the people that
inhabit it.
 It tells how a deadly chemical if you will got into the
hands of some children and just what it can do.
Characters…
 The Narrator- A writer named John that is trying to
write a book and discovers a material called Ice-nine
that is in the hands of the Hoenikker children.
 Felix Hoenikker- Considered on of the greatest
scientists of his time and helped create the nuclear
bomb and also developed Ice-nine. He dies just
minutes after creating this substance.
 Frank Hoenikker, Newt Hoenikker, Angela HoenikkerThe children of Felix and the holders of Ice-nine after
their father’s death.
 “Papa” Monzano- The evil dictator of san Lorenzo.
Setting…
 Ilium, New York- Where the maker of Ice-nine resides
and where he made his creation.
 San Lorenzo- A small island in the Caribbean where
John and the children travel while he is in the midst of
writing his book.
Summary
 A man named John, the narrator, is writing a book and
was researching his topic when he found out about
this thing called Ice-nine. He also learned that it was
in the hands of the children of the maker of this
substance.
 John the narrator and the children go to a fictional
island in the Caribbean that is ruled by a dictator
named “Papa” Monzano.
 While there, he learns about a movement called
Bokonism. It is said that whoever supports this faith is
to be executed because the government ruling the
island is Christian.
 What is even stranger about this religion is that even
though it is banned, almost everyone on the island
practices it.
 Later on in the story, John finds out that it was banned
to give the faith a “glamour” to it and that made it
alluring to people.
 Towards the end of the story, the evil dictator is ailing
and dying and wanted a way out. He took the Ice-nine
from the children and proceeded to drink it. He
basically froze to death because of it.
 Right after this happens, a plane crashes into the
palace of the now dead evil dictator tossing his body
into the sea. When this happened, the Ice-nine froze
the whole ocean and killed all the life within’ it. Most
everyone shortly committed suicide afterwards.
 John, however, did not. He escaped and lived in a cave
for several months and actually was able to finish
writing his story.
Jobs:
 Tim: Slaughter house five, compile information onto
PowerPoint.
 Cory: Mother Night, get info on the author.
 Brad: The Cat’s Cradle, attain even more information
on the author.