On Postmodern Narrative Arts In Breakfast Of Champions

Kurt Vonnegut,Jr. was considered as a major voice among the important post-modernist novelists in American contemporary literature. He has been lauded as one of America's most respected novelists due to his active artistic interaction with American life. Though a well-known and widely read writer,Vonnegut has never won unequivocal applause from literary critics as John Barth or Thomas Pynchon. He is always labeled as a black humorist and most literary studies tend to attach great im-portance to his famous novel Slaughterhouse-Five, while his other novels still wait for more comprehensive and systematic assessment. This thesis attempts to make a study of Vonnegut's novel Breakfast of Champions.In this novel, Vonnegut adopts some typical postmodern narrative skills, which include montage, collage, fragments and metafiction etc. The successful application of these techniques by Vonnegut in Breakfast of Champions makes it a typical example of postmodern narrative.This thesis discusses the postmodern narrative arts of Breakfast of Champions in the light of postmodern narrative theory. The author of this thesis firstly introduces Kurt Vonnegut and his works. A review of major criticism on Kurt Vonnegut and his novel Breakfast of Champions is provided to show the necessity to write the thesis.It consists of four chapters: Chapter one analyses the postmodern narrative struc-ture which is embodied through the application of fragmentary plot and meta-fiction. Here fragmentary plot includes three aspects: collage, montage and open-ending. Chapter two studies the non-linear narrative time in the novel, which is demonstrated by the anti-tradition linear chronology and anticipation in Breakfast of Champions. Chapter three focuses on the unique narrative point of view in Breakfast of Champi-ons. It points out that reader's role is changed from passive reception to active par-ticipation in the reading process. Chapter four discusses the language of the novel in terms of defamiliarization, irony and the vulgar-style.Through analyzing the"disordered"form of the novel, the thesis reveals its main idea that the development of science and technology towards people's life are inevita-ble thus people have no alternative except adapting themselves to the circumstances. The purpose of the thesis is to make necessary complement to the existing study of Vonnegut and his works.