Slaughterhouse Five Analysis

In order to illustrate the devastating affects of war, Kurt Vonnegut afflicted Billy Pilgrim with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which caused him to become “unstuck in time” in the novel. Billy Pilgrim illustrates many symptoms of PTSD throughout the story. Vonnegut uses these Slaughterhouse Five negative examples to illustrate the horrible and devastating examples of war. The examples from the book are parallel to real life experiences of war veterans, including Vonnegut’s, and culminate in a very effective anti-war novel.

     In “How to Tell a True War Story” O’Brien explores the relationship between the events during a war and the art of telling those events. O’Brien doesn’t come to a conclusion on what is a true war story. He writes that one can’t generalize the story as well. According to O’Brien, war can be anything from love and beauty to the most horrid

The Silence of the lambs (1991) is in doubt a film which demonstrates a well-constructed horror film. The film, ranging with scenes, shots, and frames that were well constructed to be identified as horrific. The films cinematography shifts the films narrative and impacts the film, especially the film’s frames. It seems reasonable to suppose that from the film’s frames and of those of the characters expressions, they shape the film’s genre to be horrifying, psychological, and thrilling and they guide viewers towards where the film’s narrative will lead to. Therefore, even a single or series of frames in the film such as Hannibal Lecter’s evil smile, Buffalo Bill opening the door, Hannibal Lecter standing in his cell, and the dialogue between Agent Starling and Hannibal Lecter, act collectively to represent and symbolize claims about the film.

Kurt Vonnegut is able to put a man’s face on war in his short story, “All the King’s Horse ”, and he exemplifies that in a time of war, the most forgotten effect on nations is the amount of innocent lives lost in meaningless battle due to unjust rulers fighting each other against a nation’s will. As Americans, we are oblivious to the fact that we have people fighting every day for our country. In addition, we ignore the fact that we do a lot of collateral damage and hurt innocent people unintentionally in order to get what we want. Vonnegut shows the reader in Pi Ying’s own sadistic way of demonstrating how he feels about war brings attention to the point that war, while unruly and cruel, is nothing

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 design of this novel was structured from Kurt Vonnegut’s own World War II experiences. The one experience that seemed to stand out the most in the novel was the Dresden air raids. Vonnegut saw the air raids as senseless, so every time Vonnegut is describing the raids in the novel we see a distinct pattern, Vonnegut uses his novel to depict to the reader a feel of senselessness every time the bombing is mentioned. As a witness to the destruction, Billy confronts fundamental questions about the meanings of life and death. Traumatized by the events in Dresden, Billy is still left lost with no answers. Although his life as a working family man is considerably satisfying, he is unable to find peace of mind because of the trauma he suffered in Dresden. (Vonnegut,

In the first chapter, which serves as an introduction, Vonnegut directly addresses the reader, pointing out his attitude towards war. The author makes it clear that he sees it as something ugly and horrifying, however, it seems like he is resigned to the fact that war will always exist. In one passage Vonnegut recounts a conversation with real-life director Harrison Starr. When Vonnegut explained that he was working on an antiwar book, Harrison said “You know what I say to people when I hear they’re writing anti-war books? ... I say, ‘Why don’t you write an anti-glacier book instead?’”(3). Vonnegut informs the reader that what Harrison meant by these words of course, “was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers”(3). In this quote, Vonnegut’s compares war with the glaciers. There has always been war just like there have always been glaciers. But there will not always be glaciers since they will all eventually melt and when they do, we will suffer. We are unable to live without glaciers, and we are unable to live without war either. No matter how great his anti-war novels are, Vonnegut doesn’t expect them to change society since he already knows that war is unstoppable.

War is a dangerous game, many people would likely agree to this, however, very few have ever seen a battlefront. The truth is that war, no matter how awful we can imagine it, is always exponentially worse. In Timothy Findley’s The Wars, Robert Ross, the protagonist,­ faces a situation that he finds difficult to come to terms with, and when faced with a similar situation later on in the novel, he must take drastic measures to reconcile the uncertainties of the past situation. Timothy Findley suggests, through the life of Robert Ross, that one’s need to reconcile the uncertainties of past experiences dominate our actions when such situations come up again in our lives. In the words of Hiram Johnson, a US Senator during the First World War,

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.

Although it does seem arbitrary on a superficial scale, it is a perfect depiction of what goes through the mind of a PTSD victim. The time manipulation that Vonnegut incorporates into the story’s narration allows for the work’s message to shine through: that war was the cause of this psychological disturbance that ripped through the minds of Billy Pilgrim and other war survivors

In the novel Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, a fictional character named Bill Pilgrim is used to depict the various themes about life and war. Vonnegut went through some harsh times in Dresden, which ultimately led to him writing about the tragedies and emotional effects that come with war. By experiencing the war first handed, Vonnegut is able to make a connection and relate to the traumatic events that the soldiers go through. Through the use of Billy Pilgrim and the other characters, Vonnegut is able show the horrific affects the war can have on these men, not only during the war but after as well. From the very beginning Vonnegut portrays a strong sense of anti-war feelings, which he makes most apparent through Billy Pilgrim.

Vonnegut reaches conclusions about the war that are different than others. After reading some of Armageddon in Retrospect, it seems that Vonnegut has a personal perspective to the war. He feels sorrow and regret for the killings of people. Vonnegut is a humanist, so he behaves well and does not expect consequences in the Afterlife. Him being a humanist is the reason he reaches certain conclusions about the war. For example, in “Wailing Shall Be in All Streets,” Vonnegut mentions that he would have rather saved Dresden and everyone should feel the same as him about all the cities on Earth. I interpret his conclusion of the war as him thinking it was not necessary to kill many civilians, particularly women and children. This shows that he wants to do good for people and he believes everyone should want to do the same, which seems like what humanists want. Vonnegut’s conclusions are different than other readings, such as Stimson’s. Stimson, Secretary of War, talked about the United Nations succeeding due to providence, meaning they won because God wanted them to win. He ended by saying that they would

That said, his novel reflects his remorse and despondency towards war. Vonnegut's first chapter of his novel… Vonnegut's character Billy also shows many signs of negative responsiveness towards war included in his character development. As the story continues, so does Billy’s progressive schizophrenic diagnosis and exacerbation of its demons. Vonnegut brings to life his rare emotions, displayed through Billy, often revealing a fictional character of Vonnegut himself.

In Slaughterhouse five the author Kurt Vonnegut exemplifies the theme that often time, war can cause lifelong impacts on those exposed to the horrors of war and therefore, we should be aware of the impact of war on one’s character instead of ignoring reality: “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt” (Vonnegut 156) Vonnegut, then, injects the science-fiction thread, including the Tralfamadorians, to indicate how greatly the war has disrupted Billy’s existence. It seems that Billy may be hallucinating about his experiences with the Tralfamadorians as a way to escape a world destroyed by war—a world that he cannot understand. Furthermore, the Tralfamadorian theory of the fourth dimension seems too convenient a device to be more than just a

The novel Slaughterhouse – Five uses the theme of war as black humor or dark comedyBlack humor is seen in describing the main character as a "filthy flamingo" or when Billy attempted to publish his encounter with the Tralfamadorians.. Both are even satirical and are even reinforced by comments such as, "nothing tragic, but inexplicable and absurd" (Novels for Students 270). Thus, the somewhat mocking component of dark humor is yet one more method for thoughts against war to be exposed. The novel, "about war and the cruelty and violence in war" (Vit), was written with no sense of being connected which directly relates to Vonnegut's sentiments with war. Billy is unstuck in time, and the novel goes from one to scene to the next, without any specific order (Novels for Students 264). According to Novels for Students, this being unstuck in time is "a metaphor for the sense of alienation and dislocation which follows the experience of catastrophic violence (World War II)", and also is "a metaphor for feeling dislocated after war" (264). The sense of estrangement and solitude is just one of the many themes in the book. These themes are all tied into one major theme: war (Dunstan). Because the principal theme in the book is war, it is apparent that Vonnegut really wanted readers to know how awful war really was (Quinn).