1 score (vii, 56 p.) Includes one sound recording in AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format) / <italic>The Amber of the Moment</italic> is a thirteen-minute composition for orchestra. Inspiration for this piece is drawn from two sources: the novel <italic>Slaughterhouse Five</italic> by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., and my desire to utilize techniques derived from various musical cultures, including Balinese gamelan and African drumming and marimba playing. Although not directly narrative, much of the imagery portrayed in <italic>Slaughterhouse Five</italic> informed the emotional landscape of the piece. As to the use of techniques from other cultures, my aim is not to merely imitate them, but to utilize them in a manner appropriate to the tradition of orchestral concert music. / Committee in charge: Dr. David Crumb, Chairperson; Dr. Robert Kyr, Member; Dr. Stephen Rodgers, Member

This study analyzes the novels of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. from the aspect of point of view. Point of view refers to the reflective mind through which a reader perceives the story. Traditionally, the narrator delivers his narrative in either first or third person point of view, but Vonnegut frequently mixes points of view. Mixed point of view presents a particular challenge to the oral interpreter and the adapter/director of readers theatre scripts. The narrator and the narrative structure are discussed, as well as numerous innovative narrative techniques. Suggestions are made for script adaptations and production direction featuring the narrative structure and point of view.

La pensée provenant du monde scientifique et celle représentée dans le cadre narratif du roman sont toutes deux issues d'une même volonté de révéler les objets de ces pensées, même si leur articulation est indubitablement différente. La science utilise le langage pour décrire le monde et aspire à des avancées techniques, alors que le langage du roman est l'expression d'une expérience. Les trois romans de notre étude intègrent certains aspects de la pensée scientifique et permettent ainsi de rendre compte des chassés-croisés entre la science et le littéraire. L'étude propose de faire état de l'appréhension du monde représentée dans Carpenter 's Gothic de William Gaddis, Roger 's Version de John Updike et Cat's Cradle de Kurt Vonnegut; à ce titre, nous serons en mesure de mettre en lumière les incidences de la pensée scientifique, épistémologique et philosophique dans ces romans. Nous articulerons comment les tensions entre les deux disciplines sont intimement liées aux processus langagiers dans ces fictions. Une réflexion sur la nature des savoirs et de la vérité est également au coeur de la dynamique de ces romans. L'imaginaire de la science permet d'anticiper un questionnement sur le rapport au monde de l'homme contemporain. Le présent mémoire tente globalement, en analysant comment la pensée scientifique se manifeste dans l'espace des romans, d'exposer comment les différents discours sur la science dans ces fictions caractérisent une pensée trouble essayant de faire sens d'un monde complexe et contradictoire. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : William Gaddis, John Updike, Kurt Vonnegut, Littérature, Science, Société, Culture.

We live in an age of rapid change. The advance of science and technology, throughout history, has culminated in periods of transition when social values have had to adapt to a changed environment. Such times have proved fertile ground for the expansion of the imagination. Utopian literature offers a vast archive of information concerning the relationship between scientific and technological progress and social change. Alterations in the most basic machinery of society inspired utopian authors to write of distant and future worlds which had achieved a state of harmony and plenty. The dilemmas which writers faced were particular to their era, but there also emerged certain universal themes and questions: What is the best organisation of society? What tools would be adequate to the task? What does it mean to be human? The dividing line on these issues revolves around two opposed beliefs. Some perceived the power inherent in technology to effect the greatest improvement in the human condition. Others were convinced that the organisation of the social order must come first so as to create an environment sympathetic to perceived human needs. There are, necessarily, contradictions in such a division. They can be seen plainly in More's Utopia itself. More wanted to see new science and technique developed. But he also condemned the social consequences which inevitably flowed from the process of discovery. These consequences led More to create a utopia based on social reorganisation. In the main, the utopias of Francis Bacon, Edward Bellamy and the later H. G. Wells accepted science, while the work of William Morris, Aldous Huxley and Kurt Vonnegut rejected science in preference for a different social order. More's Utopia and Bacon's New Atlantis were written at a time when feudal, agricultural society was being transformed by new discoveries and techniques. In a later age, Bellamy's Looking Backward and Morris's News From Nowhere offer contrary responses to society at the height of the Industrial evolution. These four authors serve as a prelude to the main area of the thesis which centres on the twentieth century. Wells, though his first novel appeared in 1895, produced the vast bulk of his work in the current century. Huxley acts as an appropriate balance to Wells and also exemplifies the shift from utopia to dystopia. The last section of the thesis deals with the work of Kurt Vonnegut and includes an interview with that author. The twentieth century has seen the proliferation of dystopias, portraits of the disastrous consequences of the headlong pursuit of science and technology, unallied to human values. Huxley and Vonnegut crystallised the fears of a modern generation: that we create a soulless, mechanised, urban nightmare. The contemporary fascination with science in literature is merely an extension of a process with a long tradition and underlying theme. The advance of science and technology created the physical and intellectual environment for utopian authors which determined the form and content of their visions.

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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In Vonnegut's second novel, the author sets up distinct character-based binaries that represent methods of looking for meaning in the universe. This paper attempts to show that outward-focused searches for purpose, i.e. those that are directed toward a "higher power," bring only division and harm into the world. As the novel's characters operate within their assigned binaries, most of them are able to abandon their nocuous philosophies in favor of an inward-focused search for meaning, which allows them to embrace a radically humbled humanistic perspective that places equal importance upon all creatures.

En termes historiques, une recherche sur l'impact de la science et la technologie n'a rien de nouveau dans le champ des études littéraires. De telles études ont été réalisées depuis des siècles. Cependant, cet essai est actuel dans sa tentative de comprendre quelles sont les implications de l'influence, majeure dans le monde postmodeme, de la théorie "scientifique" de l'évolution en tant que cosmologie. Dans notre société postmodeme, on se réfère donc à cette théorie afin d'expliquer pourquoi le monde est tel qu'il est, pourquoi les choses se produisent comme elles le font, pour fournir une justification pour des coutumes et des observances sociales et pour établir les sanctions pour les règles par lesquelles les gens dirigent leurs vies. Puisque l'objectif de cette thèse portera sur l'image changeante de l'humanité telle qu'on la retrouve dans la fiction de Kurt Vonnegut et le lien entre celle-ci et la mythologie dérivée de l'évolutionnisme, mon approche théorique sera basée d'abord sur des critiques du mythe et des traités sur l'évolution et le darwinisme social. Par darwinisme social, nous entendons la théorie de Darwin, appliquée à un contexte social et donc applicable aux êtres humains. Au premier chapitre et deuxième chapitre, le concept d'une mythologie dérivée de l'évolution est discuté à la lumière de à la fois de principes de la mythologie et de la théorie de l'évolution de Darwin. Cette étude est supportée d'exemples tirés du livre Galápagos (Vonnegut 1985). Le troisième chapitre examine le lien entre la nouvelle physique et la mythologie dérivée de l'évolution. Les livres The Sirens of Titan (Vonnegut 1959) et Slaughterhouse-Five (Vonnegut 1969) sont les principales sources documentaires. Le quatrième chapitre explore Mother Night (Vonnegut 1962) en rapport avec le darwinisme social, la mythologie nazie et la mythologie dérivée de l'évolution. Le cinquième chapitre aborde le matérialisme scientifique dans Breakfast of Champions (Vonnegut 1973). Cette thèse conclut que les écrits de Vonnegut dépeignent la théorie darwinienne de l'évolution comme ayant des propriétés mythiques.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In his novels Slaughterhouse-five and The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut explores issues of cultural identity in technologically-advanced societies post-World War II. With the rise of globalization and rapid technological advancements that occurred postwar, humans worldwide were mitigating the effects of information overload and instability in cultural identity. The influx of cultural influences that accompany a global society draws attention to the fluidity and inevitability of cultural change. A heightened awareness of cultural influences—past and present—creates anxiety for the generation living postwar and before the dawn of the Information Age. This generation suffers from “cultural schizophrenia”: a fracturing of the psyche characterized by anxiety over unstable cultural identities and agency. With the characters of Billy Pilgrim and Winston Niles Rumfoord, Vonnegut explores the different reactions to and consequences of cultural schizophrenia. His unique writing style is an effective hybrid of science fiction conventions and the complexities of human culture and society. Ultimately, Vonnegut explores the dangers of detachment and the complicated nature of agency with novels that are both innovative and accessible.

His Story takes the form of a fictive but autobiographically based investigation into the child and young adult I used to be, and follows that protagonist into early adulthood. It tries to show the damage done to that character and the way in which he damaged others in turn. As Hemingway said, We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. More importantly, the main protagonist is somebody who became concerned with, and cognizant of the main political and social events of his day. His life is set in its social context, and reaches out to the larger issues. That is to say, the personal events of the protagonist's life are recorded alongside and set in the context of the major events taking place on the world stage. The manuscript is some sort of hybrid of novel, autobiography, and historical and social document. As Isaac Bashevis Singer said, The serious writer of our time must be deeply concerned about the problems of his generation. In order to make His Story effective in sharing my ideas and beliefs, and, of course, in order to protect the innocent and more particularly, the guilty, it is created in the colourful area that is the overlap between memory and fiction. When we tell the stories of our lives to others, and indeed, to ourselves, we prise them out of memory's fingers and transform them into fiction. To write autobiography well, as E.L. Doctorow said, you have to invent everything, even memory.