Narrative Intertextuality and Self-Reflexivity in Kurt Vonnegut’s Timequake

Abstract

This thesis studies how Kurt Vonnegut’s Timequake makes experimentation with theory of time making a departure from linear flow of time in plot development and thus reflecting the writer’s self by bringing historical, social and literary references. . He uses the black humor to harshly attack the vanities of late capitalist system, the disaster upon ecologies, war, social injustices as well as inequalities. He shows the suspension of free will in the present humans by showing the shrinking of the universe. Along with this, he presents the world using narrative intertextuality to show writer’s insufficiency of language to explain the present world and which also serves as evidences to strengthen the thesis.