Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House Five

A known problem in today’s society is the tendency to avoid problems by ignoring them. This has been mocked and satirized by the media, studied by scientists, and become an almost humorous staple in modern culture. However, none of the reactions to this problem have come close to solving it. In Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut tell the story of a war veteran, Billy Pilgrim, who jumps around time and is kidnapped by an alien race called the Tralfamadorians. He delves into themes of war and morality while offering a look into the mind of veterans after they return from war and how it affects them. Vonnegut explores humanity’s destruction of the Earth with a similar morbid yet dryly humorous approach in his poem Requiem. In both texts, Vonnegut

“who took us to the slaughter house where he had been locked up at night as a prisoner of war.”

In the book Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr, Billy Pilgrim is the main character, the protagonist of the novel. The novel is focused on the four sides of Billy. The first being his life as a WWII soldier. The second, his present, which is a very boring life as a husband, father, and optometrist in Ilium, New York. The third is his time travels from past to future, and the fourth is his life as a prisoner on the planet Trafalmadore.

Throughout slaughterhouse five Billy Pilgrim lives a metaphorical life that exhibits the destructiveness of war, destroys the concept of time and death. Kurt tells his war experience through the fictional life of Billy Pilgrim who has come unstuck in time. Billy is unstuck in time because he was dragged through life in a way that had no sequence. The point of view of my novel is omniscient, since the author is both the narrator and part of the story.

For a novel to be considered a Great American Novel, it must contain a theme that is uniquely American, a hero that is the essence of a great American, or relevance to the American people. Others argue, however, that the Great American Novel may never exist. They say that America and her image are constantly changing and therefore, there will never be a novel that can represent the country in its entirety. In his novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut writes about war and its destructiveness. Vonnegut tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, an unlikely hero, mentally scarred by World War Two. Kurt Vonnegut explains how war is so devastating it can ruin a person forever. These are topics that are reoccurring in American history and have

“War is hell” goes the commonly used phrase. While conducted with a purpose in mind, many believe war to bring nothing but violence and death. In the history of mankind and combat, men have committed many abominable acts against one another as a means to an end. The bombing of Dresden, Germany, one of these loathsome deeds, while seldom mentioned and not widely known, remains one of the deadliest air raids in history. Just as in all largely fatal events, the survivors reflect upon the unbearable guilt and emotions they have experienced. Billy Pilgrim, the main protagonist In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five, serves as Vonnegut’s vehicle to communicate his feelings and contemplations as a survivor. Throughout the story, Pilgrim, or the reader encounters an animal that Vonnegut uses to convey the range of emotions and incidents that humans are subject to as a result of war.

Throughout the course of the novel Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, the reader is walked through the morbid but engaging life of Billy Pilgrim, a character who experiences many dreadful tragedies such as war. The way Vonnegut structures this novel is scattered and not told chronologically because we experience Billy Pilgrim’s life just as he does without suspense or logical order. Shortly after Pilgrim going to war in 1944 he becomes “unstuck in time” which simply means that he experiences different moments of his life at various moments of his life knowing exactly what will happen. He discovers that free will is nothing but a misinterpreted illusion that only the Tralfamadorians can truly understand because they perceive that everything that will happen has already happened since all time is recurring.

Kurt Vonnegut, an American author, explores the traumas and glamorization of war through his anti-war book: Slaughterhouse 5. In this book, the main character, Billy Pilgrim, tells about his time in Dresden serving in the army and the people he met while fighting for America. During the war in Dresden, Pilgrim experiences traumatic events that cause him to return home with PTSD. The PTSD eventually takes control of Pilgrim’s life and relationships. Pilgrim realizes this and understands that he should have never joined the army.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut brings the reader through the memories of Billy Pilgrim, a POW who survived the bombing of Dresden, of his life before, during, and after the war. The use of science fiction is used often in the book. Although it is a book about Billy's memories of the war, Kurt Vonnegut uses the existence of the Tralfamadorians, a species of aliens who watch over the earth, to represent Billy’s inability to understand a world engulfed in war. The book as a whole points out the idea that war is unpreventable and that war doesn't do anything but harm. The ending of the book is “Poo-tee-weet?”, which is what a bird asks him.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was born on November 11, 1922, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Vonnegut graduated from Shortridge High and later continued his studies at Cornell University before being drafted into World War Two. He was sent to Europe and then captured in the Battle of the Bulge shortly after arriving. When Dresden, Germany was firebombed by the Allied Forces, Vonnegut and other POWs were safe underground in an airtight slaughterhouse.

Written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. His book took close to twenty-three years to finish, due to a internal strife. His book was still in writing during the times he went back to Europe to visit the old battlegrounds he had once fought in. Vonnegut served the during World War 2 and was a American P.O.W., to the town of Dresden, where he and other captured American prisoners were forced to do work. During the years he was captured he lived in an underground made facility. During his stay, Allied Forces fire bombed Dresden, close to 100,000 people were killed. The times he was trapped in Dresden, and the friendly fire attack and the obliteration of close to hundred-thousand people left emotion scars. The visits back to Europe,

Slaughterhouse Five Thematic Book Review Kurt Vonnegut is often considered one of the greatest American authors of the twentieth century. His unmatched style and prose set him apart from all others. Vonnegut describes real situations and works through difficulties in his own life by writing, as weird and odd as his books are. In Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut describes some of his personal experiences along with mixing in science fiction to get his points and ideas across. In writing this book, Vonnegut intended to describe the true horrors of war and how they affect a person’s mind.

As stated in the first chapter and implied by its secondary title, Slaughterhouse Five is, at its core, an anti-war book. Before we even enter into the life Billy Pilgrim, we are given a quick look at the bleak reality of war, how it is often over-glorified by the aging military officers who document it; we are reminded that these wars are fought by the young, hence The Children’s Crusade. Entering Billy’s life, we see a sharp contrast to this preliminary theme: he seems to show no concern for his life or any distress when his son joins the military. His story is fragmented and disjointed, concurrent with his emotional instability, which serves to give us a sense of Billy’s disorientation within his life. The beginning, middle and end of the

Kurt Vonnegut combines satire, imagery and an anecdotal style to talk about complex issues such as science, religion, sex, socialism, pacifism and tradition. He used his writing to convey messages and warnings to society about these issues. Slaughterhouse-five is one of his most well known novels. In this novel Vonnegut uses fiction to portray shadowy truths about human nature. Billy pilgrim is the main focus of Slaughterhouse-five; through him and other characters Vonnegut portrays his beliefs about free will and predestination. He is strongly anti-war; this is present right from the start of the novel. In Slaughterhouse-five Vonnegut uses Billy as a warning to society about having the belief that everything is predetermined and therefore inevitable. Vonnegut wants his readers to think independently and question all the beliefs of the world.

George Roy Hill's movie adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughter-house Five is a fairly accurate version that stays relatively close to Vonnegut's own vision. Throughout Vonnegut novel Billy Pilgrim, a WWII soldier who was captured by the Germans and held captive as an American POW (prisoner of war), demonstrates several extreme compulsive tendencies due to the horrific events he witnessed as an American POW victim. After reading of Billy’s experiences, I did not have faith in the movies ability to accurately present Vonnegut's own personal feelings. On the contrary, after seeing George Hill's movie adaptation of Slaughter-house Five, I felt that the he did an extremely nice job in keeping with what Vonnegut had intended to be seen