Kurt Vonnegut's Deconstruction And Reconstruction Of The Real World And The Fictional World And His Tendency Toward New Historicism

In 1948 in his book The Dehumanization of Art and Other Essays on Art, Culture, and Literature, the American famous artistic and literary theorist Jose Ortega Y Gasset seriously prophesied the coming death of the novel: "I believe that the genre of the novel, if it is not yet irretrievably exhausted, has certainly entered its last phase, the scarcity of possible subjects being such that writers must make up for it by the exquisite quality of the other elements that compose the body of a novel" (56). Though there was such authoritative declaration, since 1948, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-), Bellow, Malamud, Pynchon, Nabokov, Hawkes, Coover, Barth, and others, have still provided for the readers a large quantity of excellent works of the novel. The novel's "last phase" has continued for more than 50 years and there are still no signs that the novel has died. However, this is not to say that the contemporary literary scene is satisfactory. Therefore, the postmodernist novelists such as Pynchon, Nabokov, Hawkes, Coover, Barth, Vonnegut, and others have been extremely busy challenging the traditional concepts of the novel, the traditional ideas about the relations between artists and artificial works and readers. They are aware that literature is possible to be exhausted but at the same time insist to restore the vitality of the "exhausted literature."For Vonnegut, a humanistic novelist, the subjects of the novel will never be exhausted because he is deeply concerned with the present-day human conditions and so the social injustice, the economic inequality, the devastative exploitation of environment, and the hideous militaristic barbarity become the enduring themes in his novels.In his novels, Vonnegut negates and dispels the metadiscourse that conceals the gloomy side of the reality and exposes a chaotic and dangerous human world. In the post-industrial society, the machine has replaced the poor workers and made them useless and purposeless; science and technology is used to threaten and destroy human beings; capitalism makes money through mean devices and damages environment and culture. Vonnegut, a present-day strong humanist, introduces new ideas to change the world into one more suitable for the human beings, which he considers a writer's duty. To restore the dignity of the working people, he dispels the sense of mechanization; in order to prevent wars, he appeals to stop making killing machines and form extended families; he also offers people some ways such as black humor, schizophrenia, and new religions (the harmless lies) to deal with the chaotic and cruel reality that could not be changed for the time being.Vonnegut thinks that the traditional realism and modernism could no longer represent the human experience in the postmodern time. In his novel writing, Vonnegut dispels the traditional form of the novel and narrative itself by using metafiction, a fiction about how to write this fiction; reveals the pluralistic nature of the universe, discontinuity and decenterment of the narrative; randomly organizes, pieces together, or cuts apart the text; subverts all the canons, and plays language games. His novels indicate that man has lost his self and the world becomes a worldrvof objects and objects. Vonnegut's novels look for brinks, entertain exhaustion, and describe the vulgar and dead subjects. Meanwhile, Vbnngut pays more attention to randomness and doubt about feasibility and reliability of objective laws and social norms. The novels by Vonngut are stews of variations of genres, the mixtures of higher language and lower language. Vonnegut's novel texts invite the readers to participate in the writing. Vonnegut often uses scientific fiction to suggest the growing intervention of mind in nature and culture, in social relations and high technologies. The systems of semiotic symbols that Vonnegut constructs not only refer to language and texts themselves but also suggest the invention of the outside world.Vonnegut does not seek the innovation of forms for forms' sake and remain on the meaning...