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![]() My study concludes that Vonnegut’s writings depict Darwin’s theory of evolution as having mythic properties. Chapter Four investigates Scientific Materialism in Breakfast of Champions (1973) as it applies to the evolutionary-derived mythology. Chapter Three explores Vonnegut’s Mother Night (1962) in connection with the ideology of Social Darwinism, Nazi Mythology, and the evolutionary-derived mythology. Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan (1959) and Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) are the primary sources of my investigation. Chapter Two examines how the science of New Physics is related to the evolutionary-derived mythology. This discourse is supported by examples taken from Vonnegut’s Galápagos (1985). In Chapter One, the concept of evolutionary-derived mythology is discussed in light of the principles of both mythology and Darwin’s theory of evolution. My theoretical approach will be based primarily on ideas from myth criticism and complemented by treatises on evolution and social Darwinism. By social Darwinism, I mean Darwinism, or Darwin’s theory of evolution, applied to a social context and therefore applicable to human beings. Moreover, this dissertation deals with how and why Kurt Vonnegut’s fiction represents the changing human image resulting from Social Darwinism. However, this dissertation is relevant in its attempt to understand the implications of today’s embrace of Darwin’s theory of evolution as a mythology, or cosmology, that is widely accepted in order to explain why the world is as it is and things happen as they do, to provide a rationale for social customs and observances, and to establish the sanctions for the rules by which people conduct their lives. Historically, an investigation into the impact of science and technology on society is nothing new to the area of literature in fact it has been done for centuries. ![]() Keywords: meta-fiction, historiography, autobiography, pastology. The theorists used in this research are mainly Hayden White, James Aurell, Gerard Genette, Paul Ricœur and Robert T. The third chapter deals with the transcendence of the fictional boundaries, offers a historiographical study of Mother Night and introduces “Pastology” as the new historiographical turn. The second chapter examines the metafictional nature of the novel, questions authorship and explores thematization. Accordingly, the first chapter deals with the historical accounts revealed in the novel, the relevance of using emplotment modes and the construction of history through self-narration. This objective will be realized in a two-fold way: through exploring both the meta-fictional and the historical features of the novel. The aim of the present research is therefore to examine Mother Night through the lens of historiography and test a new way of looking at meta-fictional literature that is laden with history. ![]() ![]() ![]() Unlike the majority of other studies that dealt with the literary content and form of the novel, the question that this thesis raises is rather concerned with the extent to which a work of fiction is able to transcend its own generic boundaries and serve as a basis for a historiographical study. "About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.Kurt Vonnegut’s Mother Night is a collage of historical events written under the guise of a meta-fictional novel. Vonnegut - admired as much for his views and his “Vonnegutisms” as for his publications - wrote extensively in many forms, including novels, short stories, essays, plays, articles, speeches, and correspondence, some of which was published posthumously. This experience provided inspiration for his most successful and influential novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. In the Second World War, he became a German prisoner of war and was present during the bombing of Dresden. Vonnegut was born in 1922 in Indianapolis, and studied at the University of Chicago and the University of Tennessee. Like Mark Twain before him, Vonnegut's reputation and impact on American writing and reading will continue to grow steadily and increase in relevance as new insights are made. Kurt Vonnegut is a unique voice in the American canon - a writer whose works are hard to categorize, often straddling the space between literature and science fiction, and filled with cutting satire and dark humor. ![]()
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