Breakfast of Champions
Kurt Vonnegut (1973)
“A novel in which the author enters his own book, sets his characters free, and dismantles America with crayon drawings and the vocabulary of a child.”
Character Analysis
A Pontiac dealer, Holiday Inn owner, and pillar of Midland City — the American success story incarnate. His wife killed herself. His son is gay and invisible to him. His mind is deteriorating. Dwayne represents what happens when the American Dream's machinery keeps running after the human inside it has broken. He is sympathetic precisely because his madness is not villainous — it is chemical, accidental, and systemic. He is America's reward for playing by the rules.
Standard Midwest American — polite, bland, corporate. His language is the language of commerce: deals, properties, franchises. As his mind deteriorates, his speech fragments into echolalia and repetition.