Kurt Vonnegut’s Stylistic Inventiveness in His Use of Telegraphic Schizophrenic Black Humour
Kurt Vonnegut’s Stylistic Inventiveness in His Use of Telegraphic Schizophrenic Black Humour

Summary/Abstract: A very important part of Kurt Vonnegut’s life was when he served in World War II and was a prisoner of war in Dresden, which affected him greatly. His experiences are rendered in his famous Slaughterhouse-5, the novel under discussion in the present paper, which is truly unique in point of inventiveness, style and structure, further upholding the anti-war theme and the text’s black humour. Besides the classical traits of black humour, shared by most black humorists, Vonnegut adds his distinctive stylistic characteristics that contribute to his singular form of black humour, i.e. the use of multiple narrative perspectives, the random time structure, the combination of trivial and high literature, lexical inventiveness, the play upon emotional detachment and involvement in the story, parallel verbal motifs, illustrations, the oral rhythm, the poetical stylistic devices, and the appeal to the readers’ senses, which makes the experience of black humour a total and all-encompassing one.

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