The Hero as a Deep-Diver: Existential Problematics in Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions & Jerzy Kosinski’s Pinball

American novelists of the late nineteenth century and twentieth century have been quite adept at creating deep memorable characters. These novelists often used their protagonists for higher purposes, such as endeavouring to construct a critique of the times by placing the characters in opposition to their respective societies. As a result, in American novel, the hero often became an unassuming type of hero who courageously defied the conventional beliefs and ignorant assumptions of society. The American fictional hero is constantly confronted by an ugly challenging reality; that is society and its pressures of conformity. In American tradition society is never a neutral force; rather it is intrusively active force which encroaches on the lives of individuals. The hero can never ignore or neglect it. He is forced to fight against a suffocating society and repelling reality