Fates Worse Than Death Study Guide & Plot Synopsis

Fates Worse Than Death Plot Summary

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In Fates Worse Than Death, humorist Kurt Vonnegut examines the blindness of the American people to the hypocrisy of the Reagan Administration, bringing the Earth close to the point of extinction. A collage of articles, speeches and biographical interconnections move the analysis forward with examinations of history, literature, psychology and art.

Vonnegut's father is a tragic figure, denied his dreams by the Great Depression. His son Mark is a recovered schizophrenic who has written about it, and his mother's suicide is blamed on chemicals. Professional artists share children's natural intoxication with life until forced to earn money. Casualties among the writers Vonnegut cares about are heavy, and American literary history is foreshortened to where "generations" of writers are separated by less than twenty years. Hemingway, who writes in Vonnegut's childhood, is too bloodthirsty to be in vogue and like Harriet Beecher Stowe has faded in memory.

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