Causes For Fragmented Narrative And Three Methods:a Postmodern Narrative Study Of Kurt Vonnegut’s Five Works

As one of the most outstanding postmodern novelists, Kurt Vonnegut madegreat efforts to the development of American literature. Several reasons ascribed to hissuccess. Fragmented narrative was an important one among them.In this paper, postmodern narrative theory is the theoretical basis. I try toexplore the causes and of fragmented narrative and three methods to face the causesaccording to Kurt Vonnegut’s five related works, namely, Slaughterhouse Five,Jailbird, Breakfast of Champions, Cat’s Cradle, and Timequake.The whole thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter gives a briefintroduction to Kurt Vonnegut, his works, postmodern narrative theory, andfragmented narrative. In the second chapter, I list two causes of fragmented narrativein Kurt Vonnegut’s novels. The first one, Kurt Vonnegut wanted to use “chaos” toembody “chaos”. The second cause is illustrated in the second part of this chapter.That is the collapse of grand narrative. In the following chapter, based on the abovetwo causes, three methods were under discussion. Black humor, schizophrenia, anddeath are going to be discussed distinctively in this part. The last chapter firstly givesa conclusion of the whole thesis, including the two causes and its three methods. Atlast, this thesis points out some suggestions about the further study to Kurt Vonnegutand postmodern narrative theory.