| Kurt Vonnegut is a considerably influential writer in the history of contemporary American literature. His Slaughterhouse Five, published in 1969, establishes his position in literary fields, and this novel gets widely read and closely studied. Besides Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut's other works deserve reading and studying all the same. Breakfast of Champions published in 1973, tells the story of the meeting between two men, Kilgore Trout and Dwayne Hoover. The meeting process reveals a world of chaos, a process of clearing human's junk and trash, a process of exploring the meaning of life. Junk and trash refers to hypocrisy, ugliness and atrocity of human beings, while the meaning of life lies in the pursue of the beautiful. The characters, the author and the people in reality all live in a world of chaos living through testings. The characters experience the testing set by the Creator of the Universe in the novel, the author is being tested by his living and dream, and the real people experience the testing of life. It is through the testings that the meaning of life is found. Through close reading, it is found that the theme of the novel is revealed in three aspects, society, human and the earth, while illustrations in the novel also play an indispensable role in revealing the theme, chaos and testing. |
