Slaughterhouse Five By Kurt Vonnegut

The literary criticism of ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ and the Comforts of Indifference, written by Barry Chabot is a critical essay that explores deeper into the meaning behind the eccentric story of Billy Pilgrim, and its creator Kurt Vonnegut. Billy Pilgrim’s indifference is an extension of Vonnegut attempting to come to terms with the violent nature of man. However this “comfort” is suggested to be “cruelly inadequate” and described to be an “opiate of the terminally weary”, (Chabot n.p.) and that the solace Billy Pilgrim finds in indifference only serves to help accommodate him to the atrocities of the world rather than standing up to them.

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.

War is the third topic that is heavily satirized in Slaughterhouse Five. First, Billy almost gets killed because he is time-traveling. Second of all, Vonnegut always says “so it goes” (12) whenever someone dies, so it sort of mocks death. Also, he is given a woman’s jacket when he becomes a POW and it mocks his position in the war also. On the nights of February 13-14 in 1944 the city of Dresden, Germany was subjected to one of the worst air attacks in the history of man. By the end of the bombing 135,000 to 250,000 people had been killed by the combined forces of the United States and the United Kingdom. Dresden was different then Berlin or many of the other military targets which were attacked during World War II because it was never fortified or used for strategic purposes and, therefore, was not considered a military target. At one point, Billy watches a war movie about WWII. He watches it regularly, showing how reality is.

Vonnegut calls upon his personal experiences to create his breakthrough work, Slaughterhouse Five. Vonnegut expresses his own feeling on war, family, and free will through the non-linear narrative of the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim. His experience as a soldier and death within his family are mirrored into Pilgrim’s character.

People allow adversity to rid them of hope. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut highlights the pitfalls of mankind in their perception of love, death, war, and societal norms through the unusually clear lenses of Billy Pilgrim. Pilgrim’s acceptance towards life relieves him of the weight of the world; however, even Pilgrim is unable to remain indifferent about war. Billy Pilgrim encounter with the Tralfamadorians granted him an extraterrestrial way of thinking.

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

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.

Many people view soldiers in war to have nothing more than a duty that they must perform; so they see war as being outrageous or ridiculous. In the novel Slaughter House Five (1968),written by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Billy Pilgrim, who is a soldier in World War II, is captured and becomes a prisoner of war. Billy is seen as the protagonist. He is moved to various prison camps until he finally ends up in Dresden. Dresden is bombed and leads to the freedom of Billy Pilgrim. The novel is written in the 1960's, and therefore, the story is told with flashbacks of the war. There are also other time changes in the novel when Billy is time warped to the planet Tralfamadore by the

Kurt Vonnegut seems to portray the protagonist of Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim, much like himself, a war participant and truth seeker. In the novel Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut characterizes Billy Pilgrim as a war survivor with PTSD(Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). In doing so, Vonnegut uses tone to reveal the extremely violent and unruly nature of war and flashbacks to show how war causes Pilgrim to lose touch with reality.

In Slaughterhouse Five, the main character, Billy Pilgrim, becomes “unstuck in time,” (Vonnegut). Billy’s mental state takes a drastic turn after witnessing the bombing of Dresden during World War II. In the novel, Kurt Vonnegut uses the fantastical notion of time travel to portray the negative effects on the soldiers who fight in wars.

Kurt Vonnegut’s anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse Five, illustrates the ghastly experiences within World War II and the journey through the universe and time of the main character, Billy Pilgrim. Although war is a sensitive subject in most cases, Vonnegut’s sarcastic, dark humor on the matter helps bring light to the fact that war is horrendous. Slaughterhouse Five demonstrates the reality of war throughout its major themes, historical accuracy, and Kurt Vonnegut’s personal experiences within World War II that shines light on the horrendous acts of war that has plagued an abundant amount of countries for centuries.

Irrational behavior is a huge part of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-five because Billy Pilgrim’s character and the plot line are shaped by it throughout the book. The spastic ordering of his life story and the thorough belief that he was abducted by Tralfamadorian aliens are what shape this book’s story and Billy’s way of life. Although unreasonable, his behavior can be considered justified because of the time he spent in World War II. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, is common in veterans and, in Billy’s case, very serious. Billy is not at fault for the reaction his brain has to certain situations or that he suffers from flashbacks, sleep complications, and emotional numbness. PTSD is responsible for and justify Billy’s delusions and aberrant behavior.

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 utilizes the fire bombing and destruction of Dresden during World War II to exemplify this theme. Hundreds of thousands of people died, including the lives of thousands of innocent people, by this useless act of violence. Throughout the novel, Billy is reminded of the horror of the Dresden bombing. This destruction also affected Billy who wasn’t functionally as he would normally before the war. The war substantially disrupted Billy’s own existence.

Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five is a powerful novel that showcases the unconventional brutalities of war. As Vonnegut attempts to recount the violence surrounding the bombing of Dresden during World War II, an underlying motif of how the war has affected the lives of soldiers becomes prevalent through Vonnegut’s writing style. The storyline is presented in a nonlinear structure with the main character, Billy Pilgrim, being transported through different timelines and worlds at a moment’s notice. Vonnegut blends this unorganized arrangement with literary techniques such as repetition and dark humor to convey how detached the Pilgrim gets from society as his life progresses after the war. Slaughterhouse five struck a chord with many readers since it was published during the height of the Vietnam War and the atrocities of war were being realized by many, thus leading Vonnegut’s tale to