Kurt Vonnegut

To many authors, writing functions as a way to express themselves. Within the plot of novels and the stanzas of poetry authors are expressing their opinions and beliefs often in an attempt to influence their readers. Some writers use their works to spread a message of positivity; others wish to criticize societal values. The American writer and humorist Kurt Vonnegut uses much of his writings as vehicles for social criticism. Two such works that exemplify Vonnegut’s opinions are the novel Slaughterhouse- Five and the short story “Harrison Bergeron”. Slaughterhouse- Five is the tale of a war veteran named Billy Pilgrim who not only survived the bombing of Dresden, but also claims to have been abducted by aliens and can travel in time. “Harrison

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.

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,

Throughout Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut chooses to use special literary techniques that better explain his own encounters in war as well as help his readers bare the horridness of war. Vonnegut adds black humor in his text to benefit readers as well as “an author-as-character” perspective to set barriers and help protect his own memories in the war. Without adding these two specific devices, Vonnegut could possibly have lost reader’s interests in the book or lost his own interest in writing the book.

Kurt Vonnegut writes pessimistic novels, or at least he did back in the sixties. Between Slaughterhouse Five, Mother Night, and Cat's Cradle, Vonnegut paints a cynical and satirical picture of the degradation of society using distortion as the primary means to express himself. In Cat's Cradle, the reader is confronted with the story of the narrator, John, as he attempts to gather material to write a book on the human aspect of the day Japan was bombed. As the

Many people returned from World War II with disturbing images forever stuck in their heads. Others returned and went crazy due to the many hardships and terrors faced. The protagonist in Slaughter-House Five, Billy Pilgrim, has to deal with some of these things along with many other complications in his life. Slaughter House Five (1968), by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., is an anti-war novel about a man’s life before, after and during the time he spent fighting in World War II. While Billy is trying to escape from behind enemy lines, he is captured and imprisoned in a German slaughterhouse. The author tells of Billy’s terrible experiences there. After the war, Billy marries and goes to school to

One of the most reoccurring discussions on Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five seems to be on the meaning of the book. Straight into his

War is a tragic experience that can motivate people to do many things. Many people have been inspired to write stories, poems, or songs about war. Many of these examples tend to reflect feelings against war. Kurt Vonnegut is no different and his experience with war inspired him to write a series of novels starting with Slaughter-House Five. It is a unique novel expressing Vonnegut's feelings about war. These strong feeling can be seen in the similarities between characters, information about the Tralfamadorians, dark humor, and the structure of the novel.

Kurt Vonnegut did a great job in writing an irresistible reading novel in which one is not permitted to laugh, and yet still be a sad book without tears. Slaughterhouse-five was copyrighted in 1969 and is a book about the 1945 firebombing in Dresden which had killed 135,000 people. The main character is Billy Pilgrim, a very young infantry scout who is captured in the Battle of the Bulge and quartered to a slaughterhouse where he and other soldiers are held. The rest of the novel is about Billy and his encounters with the war, his wife, his life on earth, and on the planet Tralfamador.

His works are significantly influenced by that genre, but contain strikingly relevant commentaries about contemporary American society which set him apart from other science-fiction writers. His use of science fiction draws a humorous contrast between the all-important significance of the nature of the universe and of reality, and the insignificance of human life and society. All of his works emphasize the enormous forces acting on his characters, not the least of which is fate. As his writing progressed and matured, this stylistic nuance became more and more evident. In his book Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut describes his own style by means of Tralfamadorians, an alien race for whom time is nonexistent, and whose literature reflects this:

Kurt Vonnegut’s book, Slaughterhouse-Five, an antiwar book that took 23 years to write, is not what he thought it would be. He explained early on to

Through critical analysis, historical research, and textual evidence, a study on Kurt Vonnegut’s background will be conducted in order to display the effects that the era in which he lived had on his writing.

Kurt Vonnegut is the author of the book Slaughterhouse Five. Of course it was controversial, and still is. The first chapter addresses the conflicts of creating such a novel in the first chapter of the book. In the book Harrison Starr questioned Vonnegut asking if his book were to be a war book. Vonnegut said it was and Starr “Why don’t you make an anti-glacier book instead?” (4). Vonnegut believed what Starr meant by that was wars, like glaciers, are as unpredictable and unstoppable. (4). As one gets farther into the book it completely changed dynamics. The novel then goes into the story of Billy Pilgrim instead of the autobiographical view from the first chapter. The three main literary elements in which will be focusing on analysing is theme,

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.