Kurt Vonnegut Novel, Creative Research

In the history of American contemporary literature, Kurt Vonnegut(1922-) is one of the writers who enjoy quite high prestige. Most of his works gain praises from both experts and readers. Among them, the novel Slaughterhouse-Five has accepted wide interests after its publication and it has ever occupied the first place in the book list of New York Times. As a famous writer generally acknowledged in the literary circles of Europe and America, studies on him and his works have become an old but new academic topic. Though the studies on him in the mainland has achieved a certain results, it is still not enough, so it requires a further deepening and widening.Among a quite large number of works by Vonnegut all his life, it is novels that lay the foundation for his position in the American literary world. This thesis, mainly centered on his novels, with a comprehensive employment of the theories of existentialism and carnivalism and others relevant, and an adoption of studying methods such as text analysis and author biography comments, gives a specific demonstration of the two major themes, the three artistic characteristics, his views on novels creation and his life experience. By means of summing up the studying achievements of the predecessors, it aims at providing a new visual angle so as to further dig the connotations and artistic values of his novels.This thesis is divided into 5 parts:Part 1, i.e. the part of introduction, makes a carding and summing-up of the translations and introductions of his works in China, and the studying points of this thesis are also put forward in this part.Part 2,i.e .the first chapter of this thesis, exposes the two main themes in his works by analyzing several representative works of him. The two main themes are the difficulty or, impossibility of coming to grips with the magnitude of evil and the necessity for establishing a viable human community in that fragmented world.Part 3, i.e. its second chapter, expounds the artistic characteristics of Vonnegut from three aspects: tone, collage and carnivalization. With his reforming of tones, styles and forms, Vonnegut builds an attractive world of novels, thus broadening the...