Breakfast of Champions Research Paper

AP English Language and Composition
19 November 2012

Breakfast of Champions:
Repercussions of Having a Unique Sexuality The symbol planet Mercury, used by the transgendered community, symbolizes a crescent and cross, the male and female principles of harmony in an individual. Human sexuality refers to the sexual attraction between two people, which is determined by their sexual orientation. Whether someone’s attraction remains towards the opposite sex (heterosexuality), to the same sex (homosexuality), or has both of these tendencies (bisexuality), the question of sexuality has remained a major quandary since people started to portray their unique sexualities. Lesbians and gays have always existed. “Between each of us and our sex, the West has placed a never-ending demand for truth: it is up to us to extract the truth of sex, since this truth is beyond its grasp; it is up to sex to tell us our truth, since sex is what holds it in darkness” (Foucault 1). Sex and sexuality have a direct relationship. It is a fact that Western culture has always promoted sex and sexuality more so than other cultures, like the Japanese, Indian, or even Chinese. However, talking about sexuality and related ideas like these were deemed appropriate so long as they practiced heterosexuality. “What Catholicism and most other modern Christian churches vigorously deny is just how much homosexuality was not only tolerated, but practiced by many of its founding fathers, and the degree of toleration, if not veneration, it received. Afrocentrics often deny that homosexuality was a feature of African cultures in ancient times” (Choe 1). Catholic and Christian churches refused to accept homosexual people and the public eschewed them. However, this attitude remained hypocritical because many founders of church practiced homosexuality and other forbidden acts such as masturbation and adultery. Sexuality remains a highly debated topic today. Breakfast of Champions, written to depict the stories of two lonesome, white, fairly old men, develops into a critique of first-world problems and the troubles faced by the two major characters. In Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. portrays the repercussions of having a unique sexuality through characterizations of Kilgore Trout and Dwayne Hoover, appeals to logos, and his style of writing. Kurt Vonnegut displays Kilgore Trout’s characterization and his sexuality. Like many Americans in the novel, Trout has a unique sexuality. However, the characterization that Vonnegut connects Trout with provides a justification of his likes and dislikes. Kilgore Trout, a catalyst for other characters in Breakfast of Champions, eventually becomes a father figure for Hoover by the end of the novel. Trout’s perception of sexuality surpasses that of other characters, except for Dwayne Hoover. In the beginning of the novel, Kilgore Trout exposes himself to many dilemmas, which eventually leads to “The police [catching] him [Trout] in the act of pulling up his trousers… supposed that they had caught him committing some public nuisance, had caught him working with an old man’s limited palette of excrement and alcohol” (Vonnegut 76). Kilgore Trout last sees a car hurtling toward him at high speeds before he pulls up his trousers in a public place. Trout gets mugged and the thieves steal his money, keys, and other valuable items that he possesses. The police essentially think that Kilgore Trout engages in a sexual act in a public area. The area where the police locate Trout consists of people who were poor and black, and people that were believed to be of homosexual nature. Since Trout was not popular or respected at that time, the police have no choice but to think of him as a reprobate of public regulations and policies. Kilgore Trout has an unfortunate tendency to arrive at a wrong place at the wrong time, and unfortunately for him, the incident with the police happens to be one. At this point, no one has any idea about Trout’s sexuality. Thus, the police formulate a biased judgment that Trout possesses characteristics of being gay. While the police believe that Trout possesses homosexual characteristics, his actions provide another reason that he may be heterosexual. “All he [Trout] was getting, the cashier thought, was pictures of women in their underpants. Their legs were apart, all right, but they had on underpants, so they were no competition for the wide-open beavers on sale…” (Vonnegut 58). During the 1970 era, the idea of women not wearing underpants appealed to many men. A massive increase in the sales of pornographic magazines and blue films follows the explosion of expressionism and free will. In this era, magazines start to focus more on the pubic area of women instead of focusing on the breasts and legs. According to many of the store owners of porn shops and stands, it would be strange if men did not buy magazines that contain naked women and vulgar ideas. These books were sold in stores only because they were items that straight men and lesbian women could potentially masturbate to. The store owner thinks that himself. Meanwhile, Trout says that he buys those magazines for the sole purpose of displaying them at an arts festival. Vonnegut characterizes Trout in such a way that people are led to believe that he possesses a unique sexuality. Greg McInnis proposes, “The two monsters that Trout says are determined to kill the human race—the desire for gold and ‘a glimpse of a little girl’s underpants’… money and sex seem to be the fundamental constituents of the universe of Breakfast” (McInnis 6). Added here, another twist by Greg McInnis. He proposes that Kilgore Trout lusts after viewing a little girl’s underpants. Because Trout fathers one biological child, he may have a probable sexual desire for young children. Trout has a potential lust for little children, thus causing other people to think of him a major pedophile or pervert. In a society where sexuality reflects one’s overall demeanor, having sexuality different from normal incurs negative connotations. Trout believes that his sexuality will eventually lead to his demise, and as Reed states, “Trout develops an idea into a personal fantasy which he then imposes on a vision of the world” (Reed 3). Trout realizes that he has hallucinations of being raped by other gangsters, and thus affiliates everyone that he sees on the street as a potential gangbanger or dreadful apparition. The role of his unique sexuality comes into play when he rides with a Mexican immigrant to the other side of town. Trout physically sits close to the driver and the driver mistakes this for a sexual gesture. Trout actually wants to thank the driver for giving him [Trout] a free ride to his house, but cannot because the driver kicks him out of his car. Vonnegut purposely characterizes Trout in this way to show the misconceptions that people have in the 1970 era. By characterizing Trout in this particular manner, Vonnegut emphasizes the repercussions of having a unique sexuality. Just as Vonnegut characterizes Trout in a unique fashion, he also represents Dwayne Hoover’s sexuality in a completely separate manner. Dwayne Hoover, an insane but wealthy Pontiac dealer who interprets Trout’s novel literally, represents all of the people who are confused with their sexuality. The town that Hoover lives in sees him as a highly respected car dealer. Dwayne’s antics and behavior shatter these preconceptions, and the town finds itself in a state of shock. Fueled by stereotypes of being a relatively “normal” person, a person who likes the opposite sex in a sexual manner, Hoover’s demeanor seems like that of a potential homosexual. Furthermore, Dwayne Hoover does not miss a single opportunity to illustrate his tremendous amount of wealth to the public. Hoover starts to become mentally unstable because of his openness to sexuality, and he says to one of his employees, “It is no longer a crime to smile during working hours, Harry, and I have the personal promise of the Governor that never again will anybody be sent to the Sexual Offender’s Wing of the Adult Correctional Institution for telling a joke!” (Vonnegut 48) This part of the novel deals with the transformation of Harry LeSabre into a transvestite. A transvestite is a person, typically a man, who derives pleasure from dressing in clothes appropriate to the opposite sex. Dwayne Hoover does not know that Harry is a transvestite, and when he says this statement to him [LeSabre], he, Harry, starts to panic and immeditately begins to regret his decision to dress in womens’ clothing. The way Hoover says this intimidates Harry to the point of which he stops coming to work for a long period of time. During this time period, Hoover makes Francine Pefoko his mistress. This moment changes Dwayne’s life forever: “Francine Pefko, Hoover’s secretary-cum-lover is described by Vonnegut as ‘a machine made of meat – a typing machine, a filing machine, and by Dwayne as the ‘best fucking machine on Earth.’ The chemicals which go to make up the body affect the way that this machine called man acts” (Messent 106). Hoover, confused by his likes and dislikes (men or women), decides to have sex with Francine Pefko. Dwayne’s wife, Celia, does not know about this incident, and that creates another opportunity for Hoover. Since Hoover is confused, he goes ahead and also travels to the local strip club to have sex with the female dancers and flirt with the manager of the bar, also a man. By making an excuse that he has to travel to sell some cars, Dwayne buys extra time to flirt and perform sexual acts with the bar owners and employees. When Celia finds out about this venture through an anonymous source she becomes enraged and leaves the house for some time. Ultimately, Celia commits suicide by ingesting a large quantity of Drano, a pipe cleaner. Dwayne’s unique sexuality causes this repercussion. Dwayne’s sexuality also carries over to his one and only son, “Dwayne even forgot that his only child, a son, had grown up to be a notorious homosexual… he played piano in the cocktail lounge…” (Vonnegut 66). Just as Dwayne has problems expressing his sexuality, the genetic dispostion that he possesses carry over to his son, George (Bunny) Hoover. From a young age, Dwayne’s parents do not care about Dwayne Hoover commits another unforgivable act when he slams Bunny’s head into the piano he plays repeatedly. When Dwayne finishes his rampage, Bunny’s face was unrecognizable. This event partially occurred because of Dwayne’s experiments with illicit substances, such as crack cocaine and other drugs. The drugs intensify Hoover’s ill feelings about his only son’s homosexuality and drive him to the point of extreme violence. He also is angry at Bunny because of his homosexual nature. In reality, Dwayne expresses his extreme anger on his son, who became homosexual only because of Dwayne’s confused sexuality. Because of Dwayne’s unwavering resolve to state his personal sexuality, he also begins to have hallucinations like Kilgore Trout, and eventually follows Kilgore Trout in some kind of religious manner: “The novel’s protagonist, Dwayne Hoover, reads Kilgore Trout’s story Now It Can Be Told and believes its message that he, Dwayne, the reader, is the only creature in the universe with free will, the only one who is not a robot” (Messent 106). Not only does Hoover show a god-like devotion to Kilgore Trout’s novel, but he also gives off a sense of irrational thinking and wrong behavior. By not offering his opinion on what the novel actually stands for, many accuse Hoover of being a man who lives in solitary confinement. Hoover, at this point, believes that everyone else in the world does not possess the amount of knowledge that he does. He feels like he remains alone in the world that he used to love. The physical beliefs and characterization of Dwayne Hoover promote another sense of the repercussions of a unique sexuality. Though the characterizations of Kilgore Trout and Dwayne Hoover emphasize the issue of a unique sexuality in the 1970s, the appeal to logos that Vonnegut utilizes promotes the issue more. Vonnegut shows the tribulations that these characters face as they live out their dull and boring lives. The issue of Harry LeSabre and Dwayne Hoover directly relates to the logos that Vonnegut uses. “When Dwayne treated Harry as though he were invisible, Harry thought he had revealed himself as a revolting transvestite, and that he was fired on that account” (Vonnegut Jr. 116). Harry feels insecure about his sexuality. Because of this, he portrays his insecurity in such a way that he believes Dwayne hates and cannot wait to leave him [Harry]. Hoover and LeSabre both agree on the issue of sexuality, but both have opposing viewpoints on how to solve these issues. Harry relies on a more personalized approach, where he himself takes charge of his actions. Hoover does this because he is forced to; not because he wants to. In relation to this, “When Dwayne razzed him about the clothes he wore to work, and then mentioned the Sexual Offenders’ Wing of the Adult Correctional Institute of Shepherdstown, Harry had to suspect that his secret was out” (Vonnegut 49). Harry suspects that his secret is out because no one ever has a clue about his supposed sexuality. It seems like a mere coincidence to the casual passerby that Dwayne’s actions signify normality and he avoids Harry for perhaps a misunderstanding, but to Harry it seems like his whole life has collapsed. Noting these issues, Simmons comments, “These sexual revisionists proclaimed a modernist liberation from repressive Victorian past, and subsequent historiography has tended to accept that frame of reference” (Simmons 1). Hoover realizes that his childhood and past forces him to become a man with an undetermined sexuality. This becomes clear evidently through Vonnegut’s usage of multiple references to Hoover’s uncharacteristic and strange childhood. Also, Dwayne and Harry provide reasons to answer the question why they are involved in such vulgar activities. This initiates a rebellion for the townspeople, which carries over into these two humans respectively. They want to be socially accepted, and because of their unique sexualities, they cannot be. Messent states, “…as he [Vonnegut] draws up a widescale indictment of the numerous flaws of American life” (Messent 3). Vonnegut proposes the idea of sexual discrimination because of his characters’ unique sexualities. American life and culture frowns upon the difference of people compared to majority of the humans. In Shepherdstown, conformity to the average American lifestyle remains a standard that everyone follows. Basically, all people are the same in this town. When Dwayne Hoover, Kilgore Trout, and Harry LeSabre arrive with their different viewpoints on sexuality, the townspeople eschew them mercilessly. It takes years upon years to build up a significant reputation to convince the townspeople to accept these three men socially. This discriminatory attitude reflects the repercussions of having a unique sexuality, and Vonnegut reasons through them with his appeals to logos. Syntax, defined as the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages, is used heavily by Kurt Vonnegut to represent the repercussions of having a unique sexuality. Carried through by an extensive amount of information about sexuality and sentence structure, the author portrays the issue of sexuality perfectly. Vonnegut embodies his characters after his own personal life, as stated by Reed: “Vonnegut declared he was through with novels and with characters that were spooks… The end appeared at hand, if one dared take the author seriously. In Breakfast of Champions he announced the discarding of old characters and themes, while also bringing other lines… to their seeming logical ends” (Reed 1). Vonnegut “brings in” new characters such as Dwayne Hoover and Harry LeSabre, but he still keeps old ones like Kilgore Trout and others. Vonnegut himself states: “And it is in order to acknowledge the continuity of this polymer that I begin so many sentences with ‘And’ and ‘So,’ and end so many paragraphs with ‘… and so on’ ” (Vonnegut 234). These statements are widely recognizable in Vonnegut’s novels; not just Breakfast of Champions. Vonnegut uses these statements to further emphasize the repercussions of having a unique sexuality. Again, as stated by Reed, “In Breakfast of Champions the statements are terse, the rhythms brusque, the sentences short and staccato in the manner of the later abrupt style… this novel has the repeated injunction ‘Listen’, the reiterated fade-out ‘And so on’, and the inconclusive ‘Etc.’ ”(Reed 2). Vonnegut hammers home the point with these statements. Sometimes they reference death and destruction, and other times they reference the pleasure and happiness derived from sex, or an act that has the same effect. A final syntax strategy that Vonnegut uses is the editorial we, where he includes himself speaking in place of his characters. For example, “I had nothing in my hand, but such was my power over Trout… I might have shown him a Helen of Troy, for instance, only six inches tall” (Vonnegut 301). In this case, Vonnegut’s “six inches” refers to a male penis. He tells the reader that he [Vonnegut] has absolute dominance over his characters and what he can put into the novel. He also emphasizes the repercussions of having a unique sexuality. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. appropriately makes sexuality the central issue of his novel, Breakfast of Champions, set during the 1970s. With strong historical support to establish his narrative, Vonnegut points out the repercussions of having a unique sexuality through the characteristics of Kilgore Trout and Dwayne Hoover, the appeals to logos that he uses, and the syntax he employs to describe his own writings. Sexuality was a forbidden topic to be discussed in the early to mid twentieth century, and it has progressed a lot from where it used to be. “In the middle Twenties a girl of seventeen, daughter of a middle-class family, was evaluated socially by her dates – how many, with what sheiks, how expensive, how exciting…” (McPartland 99). In the 1960s and 1970s, those who preached sexual liberation and sexual freedom adopted the term "free love," and those who opposed a casual sex lifestyle again used the term as prima facie evidence of the immorality of the practice. As sexually transmitted diseases, and especially AIDS/HIV, became more widespread, the "free love" of the late 20th century became less attractive. Most children were taught to fear sex and such topics since they were in grade school. “For twentieth-century Americans, the first sexual revolution popularized the image of the flapper, an ideal of youth, beauty, and freedom of action for women, but also one of sexual vitality…” (Simmons 1). Difficulties of reconciling sexual expression with the new feminist agenda come out in the work of the Swedish writer Ellen Key, one of many European theorists to whom American rebels looked for justifications for changing sexual morality. Key romanticizes male eroticism and linked erotic life to bodily health and spiritual harmony. She also claims that men 's true fulfillment is sex-specific: it becomes bound to the rules and regulations of a tough society. Men should be free to form love relationships whenever so moved and should be able to end marriages which did not bring them sexual satisfaction. “Through the media, the legal system, and sometimes violence, Americans attempted to promote their particular view on issues as varied as abortion, homosexual marriage… the result was a highly social mix that continues into the twenty-first century” (Myers-Shirk 11). There have been significant shifts in social attitudes, behaviors and institutional regulations surrounding sexuality since Freud opened the door to the bedroom. Sexuality throughout the 20th century has moved closer to the center of public debate than ever before. One hundred years ago the idea of sexual politics would have been unthinkable. The 1960s which unleashed the so called sexual revolution seems more a source of comic relief and tragic nostalgic recirculation than political inspiration. Another way that sexuality has evolved is through the novel The Joy of Sex. “…[I]t tackles an array of modern topics unheard of in the 1970s, like Internet pornography, AIDS and Viagra, and features photographs (and drawings, when things get too graphic) of a suitably buff 21st-century couple” (Lyall 1). In a world where knowledge is readily accessible at the touch of one’s fingers, many young children find it easy to become confused about their sexuality. Bombarded as they are by explicit images, impossible expectations and contradictory, alarming information from an ever-expanding array of media promoting the notion that everyone should be having amazing, contortionistic sex all the time, they lose themselves in the beliefs of a wrong and inaccurate society. Children, the future of the new world, carry with them many hard-to-achieve expectations. A recent finding states that a group of men who were exposed to the sex-related articles endorsed more risky sexual behavior. This finding also states that the chance of a young male becoming homosexual increases when a homosexual person resides within their living areas. Whether or not people believe in unique sexualities, it will always be known that there will be different people in the world, and it is humans’ jobs to accept them for who they are.

Works Cited
Choe, Yuki. "Reflections Asia." Reflections Asia. Wordpress, 1 Sept. 2007. Web. 11 Nov. 2012. <http://reflectionsasia.wordpress.com/2007/09/01/the-surprising-history-of-homosexuality-and-homophobia/>.
Foucault, Michel. "The Deployment of Sexuality." The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1. New York City: Vintage, 1990. 77-78. Print.
Lyall, Sarah. "Revising 'Sex ' For the 21st Century." The New York Times. The New York Times, 18 Dec. 2008. Web. 17 Nov. 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/fashion/18joy.html?pagewanted=all>.
McInnis, Gilbert. "Evolutionary Mythology in the Writings of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr."CRITIQUE: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 46.4 (2005): 383+. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 17 Nov. 2012.
Messent, Peter B. " ‘Breakfast of Champions’ ": The Direction of Kurt Vonnegut 's Fiction." Journal of American Studies 8.1 (1974): 101-14. JSTOR. Web. 30 Oct. 2012.
Myers-Shirk, Susan E. "Sexuality." Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History. Ed. Mary Kupiec Cayton and Peter W. Williams. New York: Charles Scribner 's Sons, 2001. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 29 Oct. 2012.
Reed, Peter J. "The Later Vonnegut." Vonnegut in America: An Introduction to the Life and Work of Kurt Vonnegut. Ed. Jerome Klinkowitz and Donald L. Lawler. Delacorte Press, 1977. 150-184. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Vol. 12. Detroit: Gale Research, 1980. Literature Resource Center. Web. 29 Oct. 2012.
Simmons, Christina. "Modern Sexuality and the Myth of Victorian Repression." Xroads.virginia.edu. Virginia University. Web. 28 Oct. 2012. <http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/blues/simmons.html>.
Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. Breakfast of Champions. New York City: Vintage, 1973. Print

Cited: Choe, Yuki. "Reflections Asia." Reflections Asia. Wordpress, 1 Sept. 2007. Web. 11 Nov. 2012. &lt;http://reflectionsasia.wordpress.com/2007/09/01/the-surprising-history-of-homosexuality-and-homophobia/&gt;. Foucault, Michel. "The Deployment of Sexuality." The History of Sexuality. Vol. 1. New York City: Vintage, 1990. 77-78. Print. Lyall, Sarah. "Revising 'Sex ' For the 21st Century." The New York Times. The New York Times, 18 Dec. 2008. Web. 17 Nov. 2012. &lt;http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/fashion/18joy.html?pagewanted=all&gt;. McInnis, Gilbert. "Evolutionary Mythology in the Writings of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr."CRITIQUE: Studies in Contemporary Fiction 46.4 (2005): 383+. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 17 Nov. 2012. Messent, Peter B. " ‘Breakfast of Champions’ ": The Direction of Kurt Vonnegut 's Fiction." Journal of American Studies 8.1 (1974): 101-14. JSTOR. Web. 30 Oct. 2012. Myers-Shirk, Susan E. "Sexuality." Encyclopedia of American Cultural and Intellectual History. Ed. Mary Kupiec Cayton and Peter W. Williams. New York: Charles Scribner 's Sons, 2001. Gale Student Resources In Context. Web. 29 Oct. 2012. Reed, Peter J. "The Later Vonnegut." Vonnegut in America: An Introduction to the Life and Work of Kurt Vonnegut. Ed. Jerome Klinkowitz and Donald L. Lawler. Delacorte Press, 1977. 150-184. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Vol. 12. Detroit: Gale Research, 1980. Literature Resource Center. Web. 29 Oct. 2012. Simmons, Christina. "Modern Sexuality and the Myth of Victorian Repression." Xroads.virginia.edu. Virginia University. Web. 28 Oct. 2012. &lt;http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/blues/simmons.html&gt;. Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. Breakfast of Champions. New York City: Vintage, 1973. Print