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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
In seven pages this reader response paper provides a literary analysis of the short story and also considers its importance to the reader. Four sources are cited in the bibliography.
Page Count:
7 pages (~225 words per page)
File: TG15_TGkvmonkey.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
pursuit of happiness. But what if, somewhere along the way, the American government felt justified in compromising citizens rights in the name of self-preservation? This was a concern
of author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922-2007) and his mistrust of government motives is prevalent in many of his novels and short stories. He was, after all, a prisoner of
war during World War II, and knew firsthand it felt to be deprived human rights. These experiences would profoundly influence Vonneguts life and the subject matter of his writings,
which is prevalent in his 1968 short story, Welcome to the Monkey House, first published in the January 1968 issue of Playboy, in which the author imagines what it would
be like if the government outlawed sexual pleasure for the sake of population control (Reed 99). As typical in Vonneguts works, nothing is ever quite the way it seems.
The language used in Welcome to the Monkey House is simple in that it is "the English spoken by people who had shared lifetime experiences similar to his" (Klinkowitz 35).
But it is deceptively so because as this reader discovered simplicity veils more complex messages just as governments occasionally disguise covert agendas with propaganda and information misrepresentation reportedly in
the name of national security. In this story, the government that is depicted is hardly the standard bearer of liberty. Conformity is demanded at the sacrifice of an
individual and if a person dared to refuse ingesting the birth control pills, he or she was automatically labeled a nothinghead (Vonnegut 30) and ostracized. When it was not
dispensing birth control pills or punishing those who refused to take their medicine, the government was encouraging people to kill themselves in order to serve a higher moral purpose of
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