Grain of Hope in Breakfast of Champions“I think I'm trying to clear my head of all the rubbish in there... the flags... I'm throwing them away too my other books. I won't do puppet shows anymore." This proud exclamation is made in the introduction to Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. It caught my attention and made me want to keep reading. The book continues to take the reader on a bizarre journey through the human mind. Our mental journey is made easier by Vonnegut's childhood "works of art", which mainly consist of underwear, guns, cows and other junk. Finishing the introduction I was immediately given a synapse of the plot. The story follows the mental decline of a wealthy Pontiac dealer, Dwayne Hoover, and the rise of an unknown science fiction writer, Kilgore Trout, who will become one of the most beloved and respected human beings in history. All this is revealed on the first page. In my closed mind, I thought I already knew the plot, so there was no point in continuing. On a whim, I flipped through the book and saw a picture of a gravestone. On the tombstone it was written: "Not even the Creator of the universe knew what man would say next, perhaps man was a better universe in his childhood." For some reason this rather simple line grabbed me and so I went back to the first page and decided to read a little more. To be honest, I'm glad I did it. As soon as I finished the first chapter, I was really hooked. It was one of the few novels I had ever read cover to cover in an all-night sitting. I'll admit, so far this essay has been more of a narrative chronicling my exploits with this novel, but I felt it necessary to explain my initial feelings a bit. This book is full of symbols. Many of the mechanisms of the book (including the chapters) became symbols in Vonnegut's hands. The first chapter delves into American culture. Explain that in our country color means everything. “The sea pirates were white. The people who were already on the continent, who were already living full and imaginative lives, were copper-colored. When slavery was introduced, the slaves were black.