Kurt Vonnegut’s Quest for Identity

Abstract

he present paper analyzes Kurt Vonnegut’s complex national roots, since he was an American citizen with a clearly German background who was deprived of any German education during his childhood and, con- sequently, had to discover the country of his ancestors when he was fighting the Nazis during World War II. Thus, his roots become an everlasting source of influence for Vonnegut. Obviously, and taking into account his rejection of Barthes’ concept of “the death of the author”, Vonnegut’s quest for roots will become a recurring element from his first literary adventures to the last pub- lished more mature novels.The main focus of the paper will be centered on how, even without a rich German education, Germany will play a fundamen- tal role throughout the novelist’s whole corpus. In order to achieve this goal, I have examined both Vonnegut’s biography as well as his literary corpus (including fictional and non-fictional Works), together with the many inter- views he gave during his long and complex literary career.