Carnivalesque Inversion in the Fiction of Kurt Vonnegut

In the politically fluid landscape of modern America, Kurt Vonnegut offers his readers a mirror of cultural self-reflection. Through his personal experiences, he encourages his readers to acknowledge their perceptions of society and ideology as illusionary, allowing them the freedom to recreate a better world. Vonnegut’s novels are as relevant today as they were in post-war America, a call for people to allow America to become a beacon of humanity, the role it was always meant to fulfill. This book focuses on Kurt Vonnegut’s novels Player Piano, Cat’s Cradle, and Slaughterhouse-Five, exploring the themes of technology, religion, and war through the literary theories of Mikhail Bakhtin. It concentrates on Bakhtin’s carnivalesque inversion from Rabelais and His World and his theoretical perspectives on the text as a site of struggle from The Dialogic Imagination.

“Emma Saggers’ far-reaching application of Bakhtin’s theories of the Carnivalesque to the fiction of Kurt Vonnegut is an astute realisation of the possibilities of both. Using the theory as an illuminating lens while keeping the fiction front and centre, Vonnegut’s work is given the kind of sophisticated, incisive attention it deserves but does not always get. Now more than ever, we need the insights and deep humanity of Vonnegut, and Emma Saggers’ study is an ideal critical accompaniment to reading and rereading this much-loved but still under-appreciated American writer.”—Owen Robinson, Senior Lecturer, Department of Literature Film and Theatre Studies, University of Essex, United Kingdom