Themes In Kurt Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse Five'

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.

Kurt Vonnegut himself is a rhetor having written “Slaughterhouse - Five” as anti-war propaganda. His use of rhetoric works effectively as it shows the struggles of a man who has to live with after-war effects as well a great number of deaths which are shrugged off.

Ask a child how they would describe a soldier, they would describe them as brave, strong, and just, but unknown to these children. These valiant heroes of justice are at a ripe old age of eighteen. The media portrays soldiers in a way to make them seem like they are stoic and strong fighters that are the servants of Mother Liberty. In Vonnegut’s book, Slaughterhouse-Five, he conveys a message through the experiences of Billy Pilgrim and his pilgrimage around time and space, with the masterful use of diction and irony.Vonnegut’s message is that war is a horrific place not properly described by the media and not meant for the wrongly portrayed soldiers.

Throughout the novel Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut we focus on three motifs/themes to define whether or not it is an anti-war novel. Through the anti-war illusion of free will theme and the “so it goes” motif we are able to make clear assumptions. The illusion of free will, “so it goes” and the presence of the narrator and gruesome images of war throughout the play defy Vonnegut’s idea that “writing an anti-war novel is the same as writing an anti-glacier novel” clearly stating that he is not writing against war. We further question the authorial intentions due to the fact the Vonnegut portrays both science

He dropped out of college, witnessed the bombing of Dresden, was captured by the Nazis, took in his niece after his sister died from cancer and her husband from a train accident. Yet all of this became the product of the bestselling book Slaughterhouse Five. Recognized for Vonnegut’s reaction to World War Two and humanity’s capability for destruction, he never could have written it without having to witness the war and acknowledged what he had seen. Vonnegut needed to have the push to motivate him to write his book and change the world. From reality to the world of fiction, adversity makes people stronger.

Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., is the tale of a World War II soldier, Billy Pilgrim. His wartime experiences and their effects lead him to the ultimate conclusion that war is unexplainable. To portray this effectively, Vonnegut presents the story in two dimensions: historical and science-fiction. The irrationality of war is emphasized in each dimension by contrasts in its comic and tragic elements. The historical seriousness of the Battle of the Bulge and the bombing of Dresden are contrasted by many ironies and dark humor; the fantastical, science-fiction-type place of Tralfamadore is, in truth, an outlet for Vonnegut to show his incredibly serious fatalistic views.

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

Kurt Vonnegut was a man of disjointed ideas, as is expressed through the eccentric protagonists that dominate his works. Part cynic and part genius, Kurt Vonnegut’s brilliance as a satirist derives from the deranged nature of the atrocities he had witnessed in his life. The reason Vonnegut’s satire is so popular and works so well is because Vonnegut had personal ties to all the elements that he lambasted in his works. Vonnegut’s experience as a soldier in WWII during firebombing of Dresden corrupted his mind and enabled him to express the chaotic reality of war, violence, obsession, sex and government in a raw and personal manner. Through three works specifically, “Welcome to the Monkey House,” “Harrison Bergeron,” and Slaughterhouse-five,

Kurt Vonnegut is most well known for his extensive use of satire and irony to ridicule human nature. His reasons for using those specific literary devices resulted from the hardships he encountered in life. Although Vonnegut’s life was seemingly miserable, he used it as a template for his books in order to guide his audience to understand life and its meaning, that structure is most prominently seen in Slaughterhouse-Five.

Through his novel, Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut poses an ancient question: Are we masters of our destiny, or are we simply pawns of fate? The medium through which Mr. Vonnegut presents this riddle is death. Death is the central point to which all action in the book connects. The story is primarily about the death of 135,000 German civilians in the bombing of Dresden narrated by Billy Pilgrim, a man who experiences death from every viewpoint, a man who survives many life-altering experiences, and attempts to find a way to cope with all that has happened to him. Through his discussion of death, Vonnegut examines free will, morality, and war though the point of view of a man “unstuck” in time.

Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five illustrates the struggles of war and peace, the loneliness that comes from alienation, and the apathy that follows war. Vonnegut’s experiences and struggles of the war in Dresden provoke him the write about his awful experiences. Billy Pilgrim is a master of disguise. He serves as a superb mask at Vonnegut hides behind in order to get his message across to the reader without scaring them away with boring lectures. Vonnegut also uses Billy, the protagonist of the story, to show what he experienced in his past. The ideas of loneliness and apathy from war are also displayed throughout the story of Billy Pilgrim that represents some of what Vonnegut went through in his life. Billy has a hard time grasping control of his life, especially since he is unstuck in

“Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America not on the battlefields of Vietnam.” (Marshall McLuhan). Slaughterhouse Five, but Kurt Vonnegut is about Billy Pilgrim who gets stuck with “the ability to time travel”, after a tragic accident and relives different days in different orders. He experiences the war all over again and in reverse. By Vonnegut having Billy Pilgrim experience the war in reverse, he is not glorifying the war, but instead making it so there is no bad guys and that all is good because now there are only good guys. The anti war message is showing that there are forgotten wars, that we as americans were active and that others have a viewpoint.

The attempts by scholars to define Vonnegut’s style of writing lean toward the belief that his work may be modern, postmodern and postmodern humanist (Davis). Accordingly, following the postmodern lean, Davis describes Vonnegut’s fiction as “lies that enable a humanism of practice.” (Davis). Decidedly anti-war, Vonnegut refused to glorify his most hurtful memories of World War II. His writings took on a common thread of sharp wit and satire. Hilariously, he made fun of his world and attempted to teach a lesson regarding society’s quirks and highlight what he thought about society.

Another way that Vonnegut takes an effective stand ¬against the destruction caused by war is the use of Symbols and Symbolism. A lot of the symbols in Slaughterhouse Five are so subtle ¬that they are sometimes unrecognizable. However, their

Vonnegut seems anonymous while also clearly identifying himself when he, the narrator, says: "That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book” (125). Vonnegut was captured by Germans at the Battle of the Bulge and transported to Dresden. The narrator begins the story describing his connection to the firebombing of Dresden and his reasons for writing Slaughterhouse-Five. He then segues to the story of Billy Pilgrim: "Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time", thus the transition from the writer's perspective to that of the third person, omniscient narrator.