SOURCE: Kaufman, Will. “Kurt Vonnegut: ‘I Had to Laugh Like Hell.’” In The Comedian as Confidence Man: Studies in Irony Fatigue, pp. 147-86. Detroit, Mich.: Wayne State University Press, 1997.

In the following essay, Kaufman contends that the divide between Kurt Vonnegut's comic persona and his cultural aims is obvious in many of his works, including Slapstick, Mother Night, and Cat's Cradle.

Who can have failed to notice a pattern emerging among those confronting the ethical problems of their own ironic practices—especially those for whom the practice becomes the identity? We have seen Herman Melville troubling over the more sinister implications of the mendacity with which Franklin was so comfortable, and which he himself sought to master. We have seen Garrison Keillor tire of his own ironic obligations, expressing the wish that as he approaches old age he could “quit writing humor and just write irritation for awhile...