Vonnegut's Literary Criticism

In Perry Westbrook’s literary criticism on Kurt Vonnegut, Westbrook states that Vonnegut emerged as one of the most influential and provocative writers in America during the 1960s. He supports this point by using examples of stories written by Vonnegut and giving a summary of each story he provides. Westbrook also talks about recurring ideas and themes in Vonnegut’s stories and Vonnegut’s ideals.
The first point he brings up is how Vonnegut describes himself as a total pessimist and his stories contain serious topics with only wry humor to counteract the despair caused by them. Westbrook uses Vonnegut’s first novel, Player Piano, to support this claim and provides a summary of the story to give the reader a background of the story. In doing
Westbrook thinks that Vonnegut believes there is some point and value in saving humanity from its own stupidity, and in doing so will make the world a better place. Perry Westbrook also emphasizes how in Vonnegut’s stories there is always one person who is aware of humanity’s foolishness, showing how not everyone is blind to humanity’s stupidity. He supports this claim by using The Sirens of Titan and Player Piano, both stories by Vonnegut which contain this theme of dehumanization. These stories also contain a character who is trying to save the rest of humanity from dying due to its own stupidity. Vonnegut’s older stories also continue to make fun off humanity’s foolishness as they rely on modern material objects rather than relationships which really matter. According to Westbrook, Vonnegut continues to rely on his previous genres of fantasy, black humor, and satire. Westbrook also claims that while there is an abundance of humor in Vonnegut’s stories, there is little to no thought in them. Vonnegut also achieves a subtle and effective type of irony by using quotes by Anne Frank which talk about the goodness of