Well this is just charming. Apparently Kurt Vonnegut, brilliant writer and social commentator extraordinaire, had a theory that all stories could be graphed on a basic happy/sad scale, and that the shapes these stories created said something about our culture.
That’s the very pleasant chart version, with more info at this link.
(And do watch the video. Vonnegut seems like a very lovable professor, maybe a bit dusty, but the audience is having a ball and is just eating it all up. It almost sounds like someone had a heavy hand on a laugh track.)
Someone with a deeper knowledge of Vonnegut than me should really go chart Vonnegut’s stories in this way and see what “shape” they make. I feel like “Slaughterhouse-5” may have some twists and turns to it, though “Breakfast of Champions” might be kinda flat.
What do you think? Does this “graphic” interpretation make sense?
M.E. Kinkade 