Day 5

Kurt Vonnegut's Short Stories Lesson Plan

Discussion of Thought Questions

  1. 1

    In "The Kid Nobody Could Handle," what is the significance of Heinholz saying "Our aim is to make the world more beautiful than it was when we came into it"?

    This claim acts as a kind of moral center to the collection, as this is how most of the most sympathetic characters in the collection attempt to live--Harry and Helene from "Who Am I This Time?"; Heinz Klechmann from "Adam"; David Potter of "Deer in the Works"; and Heinholz from "The Kid Nobody Could Handle," amongst others. It is a sentiment that ties up many of the other thematic concerns of the stories, which tend to deal with the tensions between war and peace, capitalism and communism, equality and...

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