Chaos Theory and the Interpretation of Literary Texts the Case of Kurt Vonnegut

This volume presents the principles articulated in chaos theory as rewarding methods for examining literature. The first section examines the shift from modernism to postmodernism, dating the transition to the bombing of Hiroshima. The second section redefines anterior definitions of chaos and functions as an introduction to the fundamental tenets of chaos theory. The third section deploys chaos theory as a critical approach in its examination of Vonnegut's fiction, resolving a recurrent paradox in existing Vonnegut scholarship: how a body of fiction that repeatedly focuses on death camps, unjust prosecutions, vicious and elitist ideological practices, war, greed, futility, and failure, can remain affirmative.