A Character Analysis Of Kilgore Trout In Kurt Vonnegut's Novels

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-) is an important yet often disputed figure in the contemporary American literary field. Recently, many critical works on Vonnegut have been published, and many critics have come to believe that more comprehensive researches should be carried out. In hope of contributing some new insights to the ongoing Vonnegut studies, the present thesis, focusing on five Trout related novels, aims at a narratolocgical study on an interesting character, Kilgore Trout, who frequently appears as an alter ego in Kurt Vonnegut's novels and stories.Following the narratological dichotomy of the story level and the discourse level, the thesis is divided into two parts, respectively discussing the issues related to the contents and the form. The starting point of the research on Trout on the story level is the " reconstruction" of his image. As Trout is often claimed to be an "alter ego", special attention is paid to his relationship with both the real author and the first person narrators. Also discussed is how Trout stories serve as story-lines. As for the stories "by" Kilgore Trout, the thesis intends to argue that though seeming irrelevant to the main story-lines, they are actually both pertinent and reasonable. The research on the discourse level focuses on the issues of focalization and aesthetic effects. The thesis suggests that Trout's voice is not only one mediator between the narrator and the narrated story but also one of the dialogical voices, and Trout's perspective both complements and reinforces the narrator's perspective. In addition, the characterization of Kilgore Trout and the interposition of "his" stories contribute to the distance effect and the mosaic effect.By using Trout as an anchor point to study Vonnegut's novels, the thesis concludes that Kurt Vonnegut is a writer with both artistic craftsmanship and serious humanistic concerns.