Dementia In Slaughterhouse Five

In the book SlaughterHouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, the main character is named Billy Pilgrim. Billy has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and experiences his life over and over again and can not stop it. PTSD is a disorder that is caused by a traumatic event that a person has experienced. Billy’s PTSD is present throughout the whole novel. I think Billy’s PTSD is a part of the reason that he is going “through time” and is “unstuck” in time.

     This excerpt directly shows that Billy didn’t like Valencia very much and that he actually didn’t want to marry her. However, he was “stuck in amber”. Or, for example, Billy knew the exact time when he would be killed, yet didn't’ try to do anything about it. He couldn’t have changed it anyway.

Veronica kept going towards the hospital anyway. When Barbara arrived at the hospital, she passed out from the fumes, and later died. Billy almost overlooks this tragic event. He just goes on with his life. This does not make him insane, he just believes in a different way of life and abides by that.

Everyone has flashbacks of earlier points in their life, but they do not usually alter someone's life entirely. In Kurt Vonnegut's “Slaughterhouse Five” the main character Billy Pilgrim experiences vivid flashbacks and flashforwards, which drastically change him as a person. These experiences happen over and over and begin to make him even more insane as the novel progresses. The book revolves around Billy and often switches to important experiences in his life. These events are mostly bad ones, but there also some of Billy's greatest moments. Billy has flashforwards where he experiences, new events, although they have not happened yet. Kurt Vonnegut uses flashbacks in “Slaughterhouse Five” to reveal the protagonist's insanity. Billy often

Many writers in history have written science fiction novels and had great success with them, but only a few have been as enduring over time as Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. Slaughterhouse-Five is a personal novel which draws upon Vonnegut's experience's as a scout in World War Two, his capture and becoming a prisoner of war, and his witnessing of the fire bombing of Dresden in February of 1945 (the greatest man-caused massacre in history). The novel is about the life and times of a World War Two veteran named Billy Pilgrim. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut uses structure and point of view to portray the theme that time is relative.

Mrs.Bibbit, Billy’s mother, and friends with Nurse Ratched, is another authoritative figure in the novel. Mrs. Bibbit gains her power by preventing Billy, from becoming an adult. At first Mrs. Bibbit does realize that Billy is an adult and is able to function in society, When his mother tells him he has plenty of time to accomplish things such as going to college, and Billy reminds his mother that he is thirty-one years old, she replies, "'Sweetheart, do I look like the mother of a middle-aged man?'" (Kesey 247). This shows that Billy’s mom does not seem to understand that Billy is an adult that is able to live in the outside world. This Results in him feeling Insecure and he chooses to remain in the ward. “Sure! It’s Billy, turned from the screen... If I had the guts.” (168). This takes place after McMurphy realizes that the men are there voluntary, Billy explains to McMurphy that he could leave at any time if he wanted to but he believes he doesn’t have the guts to go out in society. Unfortunately in the end it is just the fear of his own mother, and Nurse Ratched’s manipulative ways that causes him to take his own life. Another family member who manipulates her "loved one" is Vera Harding, whose control over her husband is similar to that of Billy and his mother.

Slaughterhouse-Five book is antiwar novel, and it written by Kurt Vonnegut. A man named Billy Pilgrim who is unstuck in time, and always goes all relives various occasions throughout his life. Billy pilgrim is a main character in this book. “Billy is born in 1922 in Ilium, New York. He grows into a weak and awkward young man, studying briefly at the Ilium School of Optometry briefly before he is drafted” (Borey 1). Then, after training he sent to the Germany during the war. Billy acknowledges diverse values and sees horrible and morbid occasions in a different contrast to others. Billy experiences acknowledges a lifestyle that is not visible to other people. Many readers would contend that Billy's encounters make him crazy; however,

From the very beginning of Slaughterhouse Five the biggest question is: is it real or delusion? Throughout the book, Billy pilgrim claims to travel through time and be abducted by aliens, but until the later chapters, there is no solid evidence as to whether it is real or just delusion. The truth about Billy’s tale is concealed until near the end of the book when he meets Kilgore Trout and finally some solid evidence shows that Billy’s unusual adventures are just delusions and insanity.

The Slaughterhouse Five novel, is a fictional and nonfictional delight all clashed into one. The author, Kurt Vonnegut, amazingly combines a fictional character’s life with the nonfictional influence of what Kurt himself had experienced. As well as major topics being debated on and dealt with today. Billy Pilgrim takes hold of the story’s main protagonist as a prisoner of war during the Dresden raids in eastern Germany. While reading, I found many relationships in the novel to common concerns, such as time and death; too correlated opinions from other anti-war enthusiasts.

While completing his education, Billy and his wife Valencia fell in love. Valencia was the daughter of the owner and founder of the school. In the middle of Billy’s final year at the Ilium School for Optometry, Billy committed himself to a veteran’s hospital for nonviolent mental patients. While there, Billy was introduced to books by Kilgore Trout, who he later in life became very good friends with. Later, Billy and his wife Valencia had two children, a son named Robert, who is now a green beret and served in the Vietnam War, and a daughter named Barbara. He is lived on by both of his children and their

Billy didn't want to marry ugly Valencia. She was one of the symptoms of his disease. He knew he was going crazy when he heard himself proposing marriage to her, when he begged her to take the diamond ring and be his companion for life (Vonnegut, p.107).

One of the more obvious and clear signs that Billy has gone insane is his claim to be have been kidnapped by extraterrestrial beings known as Tralfamadorians. Billy claims to have been taken by these beings and taken to Tralfamadore, where he spends eternity with Montana Wildhack, a famous “hollywood” actress. Also, from the film version of the story Wildhack’s image makes multiple appearances and every time Billy glances at her image he stares in awe. Taking this into consideration, it is important to note the irony- that he just happened to be kidnapped with his celebrity-crush by the Tralfamadorians. To further prove that Billy made up the story about the aliens, viewers must evaluate how he never mentions how he was captured, or how he managed to escape from Tralfamadore. Instead, Billy magically returns to Earth and then rambles on about the culture and philosophy shown on Tralfamadore. The way of life for the Tralfamadorians was stated by one of the beings which it said, “I am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the

Summary: The author begins by writing about his own experience in Dresden,but when trying to write the story his memory started to fumble. Understanding that he can not write this book by himself he goes to O’Hare to talk about the experiences they faced as war buddies. While going back through the memories of his life we learn he was a police reporter and studying anthropology. After he obtains his information he started to write Slaughterhouse Five.

Slaughterhouse-five strives to remember the tragedy of the bombing of Dresden. Kurt Vonnegut constructs his novel around a main character who becomes “unstuck in time” (23). Billy Pilgrim’s life is told out of order, which gives him a different perspective than the rest of the world. Billy lives through his memories, and revisits events in his life at random times and without warning. Vonnegut introduces Billy Pilgrim to the Tralfamadorian way of thinking about memory and time so that he can cope with being unstuck in time. The Tralfamadorian ideology is set up as an alternative to the human ideology of life. In the novel Slaughterhouse-five, Kurt Vonnegut constructs a reality where memory is unproductive through the Tralfamadorian

Slaughterhouse-Five, a novel written by Kurt Vonnegut, tells the story of the devastating effects of war on a man, Billy Pilgrim, who joins the army fight in World War II. The semi-autobiographical novel sheds light on one of history’s most tragic, yet rarely spoken of events, the 1945 fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany.