Decoding Vonnegut's Jailbird

Jailbird, Vonnegut's best book in the 1970s, is to an extent ignored by critics for a long time. Very few studies have ever been done on it, let alone from the perspective of intertextuality. This study seeks to decode Jailbird's unique charm from the. perspective of intertextuality.Intertextuality plays double roles in making Jailbird a very unique work. On one hand, intertextuality plays a key role in constructing theme and enriching meaning. On the other hand, intertextuality plays a key role in mixing historical elements and fictive elements together. Moreover, intertextuality also give a sense of self-reflexivity to Jailbird.Being both historical and fictive, together the manner of self-reflexivity, Jailbird exemplifies a unique style which Linda Hutcheon calls "historiographic metafiction". In shaping this unique style, intertextuality plays a key role. By intertextuality, Vonnegut could easily introduce fictive elements as well as historical elements into Jailbird. In this style, there's a paradox between fictive and historical. It is in this tension that shows Vonnegut's philosophy toward history writing and fiction writing. In his eyes, history writing and fiction writing all involve artificial interpretation. They have the same attributes------they are texts.Based on theories of intertextuality and theories of historiographic metafiction, this thesis tries to find out techniques of intertextuality used in Jailbird and to analyze-their functions in constructing theme and enriching meaning. Further, this thesis is intended to prove that intertextuality plays a key role in making Jailbird a historiographic metafiction, which mirrors Vonnegut's philosophy towards history writing— being text(s).