I need a thesis for 'B.O.C.'


I'm nearing the end of the book... has anybody read it?

does anybody have any suggestions for a possible essay topic for the book?

any help would be greatly appreciated ;)

I'm Tony Montana! You *beep* with me, you *beep* wit de best!

reply

How 'bout "Fabulously well-to-do" vs. "doodley-squat" using character foils as examples....
Dwayne vs. Trout (Economic Success vs. Economic Failure)
Dwayne vs. Wayne (White vs. Black)
Trout vs. Karabekian and Keedsler (artistic recognition vs. lack of artistic agnoledgment)
Dwayne vs. Patty Keen (Rich vs. Poor)
Elgin Washington vs. Trout (captivating vs. gulible)

reply

How about B.O.C a post modern masterpiece written in a modernist time. Discuss!

or

The relevance of B.O.C. in today’s society!

or

What do we think Vonnegut is trying to say in B.O.C?

or

Which character(s) hold the most resonance with you and why?

or

Every character's name in B.O.C has a semblance of lunacy to it. In fact a vast collection of Vonnegut's themes relate to lunacy and the absurd - but do they really?

or

Billy Pilgrim or Kilgore Trout as President of the US? And why?

reply

( This is my [meltdown's] new account )

those are some great suggestions, thanks a lot! lol now i've got an idea of where my essay's gonna go.

I Am The Night in the City of Light

reply

So ... which one are you going to write about and do we get to read it?

reply

well, I'm liking the Dwayne vs. Trout (Economic Success vs. Economic Failure) suggestion; if you really want to read it then i can P-M it to you when it's done.

I Am The Night in the City of Light

reply

I did a 2,000 word essay on BOC simply as a Post Modernist text n got 65% on it, its not great but I'll put a few key sentences up:

Another purpose of the illustrations is to emphasise the childish nature of the book, or more cryptically the alien nature of the book. The drawing mentioned above assumes that the reader would probably not know what a stork looks like, even though most of the people reading it probably would. These, and more overtly the language (“Like all Earthlings at the point of death…” ) convey the idea that either the author or the reader is not from Earth. This makes sense of, as if a reason were warranted, the fractured, broken rhythm that is Vonnegut’s style; a watching alien could make no more sense of Earth than writers can, which is why bullets are described as “projectiles [that] could wreck the wiring or the bellows or the plumbing of a stubborn human being, even when he was far, far away.” Postmodernity no longer looks for knowledge in truth, but “in a practical subject – humanity.” That is to say Breakfast of Champions is not a truthful interpretation of life via conventional forms, but through the laws it creates for itself. Central to the theology of Postmodernism is that the laws are there to be investigated, not adhered to

We may note that Breakfast of Champions is a classic example of a Postmodernist text by its fusion of playfulness and seriousness. So this novel of “junk” becomes, at the end, a way for Vonnegut to exorcise his characters, to free them. In the preface he states how the book’s maturity with a “drawing of an *beep* but the book has, at its very end, a drawing of the author crying. The novel drifts in and out of seriousness, and revels in the notion of plurality, celebrating the fact that texts such as this do not fit neatly into a category but are willing to be serious and funny at the same time. This play-making furthers the point made earlier about incommensurability because it is neither a comedy nor a tragedy (or it is both). One can read this duality as the novel refusing to conform, or simply as Postmodernism refusing to be classified as “high art”. By switching between the two genres they each become a lampoon of that which they are mimicking, but we can trust neither because, as Lyotard states, “everything received has to be suspected” Even the drawings serve a double purpose, to emphasise both the childish nature of the novel, but also to remind us that one can be both funny and serious.

If this strikes the reader as an odd plot device it is because Postmodern texts, while accepting that so much has gone before and nothing new can be done (a point which Vonnegut ends his preface with, stating that only Romeo and Juliet and music is sacred) it bends the “rules” which apparently exist in a way to investigate them. It becomes art which refuses a hierarchy, which does not want to fit into a literary canon. Not only does this example reject grand narratives, it mocks them, and in saying that only Shakespeare is sacred he is mocking the rest of the literary genre. One may say that Postmodernism never takes itself too seriously, so when Vonnegut enters as a character the reader is made further aware of the book’s construction. Later on Vonnegut writes, “I had made him up, of course…I made Rosewater [a peripheral character in this novel] an alcoholic in another book….I could have killed him…but I let them live on” which references the whole literary genre as one of Vonnegut’s earlier efforts was entitled, God Bless You, Mr Rosewater. So if the reader finds themselves querying the novel, Vonnegut has “won” because we become aware that this is not real life.

Hope I don't get done for this...

reply

I did some research and a little playing around and think i might be able to write an essay with a thesis to the degree of:

"B.o.C. is Vonnegut's spiritual transition from being an unsuccessful writer to a well known name in literature."

basically he wrote B.o.C after his big breakthrough, which was Slaughterhouse Five. So now he was writing material that was read and acted upon, he was now writing (b.o.c) for the first time as a success. Vonnegut 'frees'/bids farewell to Kilgore Trout at the end, who was a symbol of what he always feared becoming. The novel's subtitle, "Good-Bye Blue Monday" could imply that Vonnegut is bidding farewell to his early struggles to become successful. another supporting piece of evidence I might be able to use is how Vonnegut is "Born again" in this novel, meaning his newfound success is a sort of New Beginning in his life.

how does that sound?

I Am The Night in the City of Light

reply

good job Dark knight, it sounds like you got the novel. I actually just finished reading it the other day and I thought to myself, what the hell is this really about. I know it isnt about the life of Trout or Hoover, instead they are just symbols. The main character of the story or the philosophy of the story revolves around Vonnegut himself. to me this story is semi autobiographical like all of his novels. This on dealing more with his fears of growing old and remorse about his life, coming to terms with who he is

reply

[deleted]

It's too late but here it is anway.

"And so on."

Great fuggin book btw.

reply

I have an idea. It is a Brand new, completely novel approach...are you ready?


How about you finish the book! By the time you get to the end, you may have an idea of what you just read. You can then use that knowledge to flush out one of the many themes and issues in the book. Surely you remember one.

I'm no rocket scientist but i know that when i am going to write a paper on something it helps to have finished the book/movie/play/alternate form of entertainment...

But i guess that's just common sense isn't it?

reply

I wrote my thesis in college on this book for a rhetoric seminar. It was about the connection between imagery and text and presentation of both how it was to disarm reader objectivity and engage the reader into its meta-message through humor and "plain-speak". The book continually argues itself, as is the content of the text, and how BOC engages the reader by framing itself as a plea to the loss of humanity in 20th century America - while alternately highlighting how disengaged we are in understanding towards each others' separate plights and escalate into difference and separation, rather than the more humanitarian goals of love and understanding towards each other.



"Ihe media monkies and their junky junkies will invite you to their plastic pantomime..."

reply

Despite the tendency to scatter P/M jargon across the landscape (not a . . . comp!aint; we all tend to go on and on) Isotope has the kernel of a good analytical topic, here. Y'all might try to incorprate analyses of Vonnegut's precisely placed artwork as extensions of his traditional discourse.

I mean, when KV draws "wide-open beavers" or a "snake" or "Goodbye Blue Monday," his artistic depictions equate in simplicity, "primitivity," and guilessness to the direct & simple "cleanliness" of his accompanying prose.

Vonnegut proves, repeatedly, that complexity of style and the "larding on" of "arcanities" along with the obfuscation that results from the contrived artifice of tortured and constipated prose are NO match for a simple description of the contents of the blackboard above Harry LeSabre's bed or a verbal sketch of a jaihouse tin cup filled with the "wherewithal" of a slow-witted molester.

Pictures may be made from more than a single medium. Large, crudely drawn depictions depict . . . large, crudely treated . . . & so forth.Trump

After all, most of us 1st noticed Vonnegut because he writes about the Simple as if it were Absurd. But we read ALL of it because he writes about the Absurd as if it were the Everday.

reply