Date
6-2018
Department
College of Arts and Sciences
Degree
Master of Arts in English (MA)
Chair
Marybeth Baggett
Keywords
Bluebeard, Breakfast of Champions, Histriographic Metafiction, Redemption, Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut
Disciplines
English Language and Literature | Literature in English, North America
Recommended Citation
Tutton Parker, Rebecca, "What’s in the Potato Barn: A Discourse of Redemption in Three of Kurt Vonnegut’s Novels" (2018). Masters Theses. 498.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/masters/498
Abstract
This thesis discusses how three of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels (Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, and Bluebeard) become a discourse on redemption when using Linda Hutcheon’s historiographic metafiction. Starting with Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut opens the discussion about redemption by creating a character struggling with PTSD who is unable to be redeemed. In Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut continues the discourse by introducing Rabo Karabekian who opens Vonnegut as character’s mind to the idea that redemption is possible. By Bluebeard, Rabo Karabekian is able to obtain redemption for both himself and for his author. By studying these three books together it becomes clear that Rabo Karabekian is able to bring a form of redemption to Vonnegut and his literary canon.
