... . Nevertheless, Breakfast of Champions is clearly designed to rub middle-America's face in the sheer, unadulterated ugliness of life with its frank and unrelenting dissection of US life. Regarded by many as one of the greatest American writers of all time, Vonnegut has created a truly delightful ... control what goes on around us, however hard we try. Heller once wrote about Closing Time; "In all my novels the central characters are extremely perplexed and at odds with their surroundings, and their surroundings do constitute America. I do not think you can understand America from me unle...

• Word Count: 4213
• Approx Pages: 17

... Dresden in 1967. In a taxi on the way to the Dresden slaughterhouse that served as their prison, Vonnegut and O'Hare strike up a conversation with the cab driver about life under communism. It is to this man, Gerhard Muller, as well as to O'Hare's wife Mary, that Vonnegut dedicates Slaughterhouse-Five. Muller later ... not to look back any more. In chapter two Billy Pilgrim believes that he has "come unstuck in time." He travels randomly through his own life with no control over his departure or destination or chronology. Born in 1922 in Ilium, New York, Billy grows up a funny-looking w...

• Word Count: 5323
• Approx Pages: 21
• Grade Level: High School