Tralfamadore Literary Analysis

SlaughterHouse-Five is a book about a man named Billy Pilgrim who is stuck in time, and constantly travels throughout different events in his life. Billy accepts different values and sees traumatic and morbid events differently than others. Billy accepts a way of life that is not perceivable to other humans. Many would argue that Billy’s experiences make him insane, but Billy’s experiences with the Tralfamadorians actually allows him to preserve his sanity, and stay a very intelligent man.

Power and control plays a big role in the lives many. When power is used as a form of control, it leads to depression and misery in the relationship. This is proven through the themes and symbolism used in the stories Lesson before Dying, The fun they had, The strangers that came to town, and Dolls house through the median of three major unsuccessful relationship: racial tension between the African Americans and the caucasians in the novel Lesson before Dying, Doll’s House demonstrates a controlling relationship can be detrimental for both individuals and The Stranger That Came To Town along with The Fun They Had show that when an individual is suppressed by majority they become despondent.

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,

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.

In past years, as well as, in the twenty-first century, African Americans are being oppressed and judged based on the color of their skin. In, A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines, this is the primary conflict that plagues Jefferson’s as well as Grant’s everyday life. By pleading guilty to a murder that he did not commit, Jefferson has to choose to die just as he is, a hog in the white’s eyes, or die a man. On the other hand, Grant, who is his teacher, is faced with being looked down upon by his community all because of his race and status. He is graced with the challenge of turning Jefferson into a man before his execution date. It is only a matter of time before they both realize that they cannot change the past and they have

Many people believe that material things will bring you peace and happiness. That is not always that case though.Everyone at some point in their life had gone through something that they thought would have a major positive impact on their life, but ultimately, it affected them very negatively. These can include anything from money, to power, even to women. Bernard Malamud explains these example in his book, The Natural, with his character, Roy Hobbs. Roy is the Knights star baseball player, when all goes wrong. He starts to chase different women, believing that those people will lead him to happiness in the end. Roy Hobbs is the main character in the book, The Natural, who finds himself in tough situations, and finally discovers that what he wanted from the start, won’t actually make him happy in the end.

In the novel, A Lesson Before Dying by _________, the main character, Grant, is trying to console Jefferson. Jefferson has just been framed for a murder he did not commit, and many believe it is because he is black. Two drunk, white men went into a liquor store, already drunk, and attempted to shoot the owner who, in turn, shot back. In the end of the firefight, Jefferson was the only man standing. When at the trial to convince the jury Jefferson did not actually shoot the people, his attorney realizes his attempts at proving Jefferson’s innocence were futile, and says, “What justice would there be to take this life? Justice, gentlemen? Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this” (8). He is asking the jury to spare the life of Jefferson, by implying that Jefferson is no more intelligent than a hog. The attorney is white, and is voicing the common belief among whites that all blacks are animals. Throughout the novel, Jefferson becomes haunted by the

In Slaughterhouse Five, Earth is a grim, war torn place. The main character, Billy Pilgrim, is haunted by the war throughout the novel. Billy experiences some parts of his past during the war, because of this, events happen simultaneously, outside of the constraints of time. After the war, Billy has a “mild nervous collapse”. His nervous breakdown shows the chaos Earth represents for him. In one scene, Billy is in the middle of a conversation, and a split second later he has finished that conversation and is watching Cinderella (98). The moments in between are wiped from his memory. This scene intensifies the chaos both Billy and the reader associate with Earth. The author enhances the chaotic nature of Earth by changing location on Earth with no warning. At one moment, Billy is honeymooning in Cape Ann, then he’s on a train in 1944, and seconds later he’s back in the war (126-127). Vonnegut does this to clearly show the chaos that is Earth. After Billy returns from Tralfamadore, he sees that the things he learned there were true. Earth

The story of Slaughterhouse Five is about a man named Billy Pilgrim who goes through a series of strange events throughout his life time. And it all starts when he is in a war in Germany. Billy is resentful towards the war and he makes it clear that he does not want to be there. During the war, he becomes captured by Germans. Before Billy is captured, he meets Roland Weary. When captured, the Germans took everything from Weary, including his shoes so they gave him clogs as a substitute. Eventually, he dies from gangrene caused by the clogs. Right before Weary dies, he manages to convince another soldier; Paul Lazzaro that it was Billy’s fault that he was dying so Lazzaro vows to avenge the death of Weary by killing Billy.

The book Slaughterhouse-Five, written by Kurt Vonnegut, is an anti-war book about Vonnegut’s exposure to the vivid events that unfolded during his time at the slaughterhouse in Dresden, Germany and how it affected him. The story is told by Vonnegut through the perspective of the main protagonist, Billy Pilgrim. Billy was a survivor from WWII and the Dresden bombing, but after returning he claims to have traveled through time to explicit memories from life and had been abducted by Tralfamadorians (aliens). However, in the film Slaughterhouse-Five, directed by George Roy Hill, viewers see slight changes to the storyline. Viewers notice that in the opening scene that Vonnegut’s friend Bernard O’Hare and his wife, Mary O’Hare, are never

The exposition in a play gives background information to the audience about the characters and situations the characters are in. Expositions are necessary in plays because without them, audience members would have no clue what is going on. Expositions are also useful in letting an audience know what to expect and see later on in a play. Exposition can occur through action, narration, or dialogue from the characters. In Trifles, by Susan Glaspell, the exposition occurs through action and dialogue. The characters Mrs. Peters, Mrs. Hale, Mr. Hale, the sheriff, and the county attorney all meet up at the Wright’s abandoned farm house letting the audience know that something bad must have occurred at that

This book can be quite confusing if not read with utmost care. Because the main character, Billy, becomes “unstuck in time,” (29) the book does not go in chronological order. That is solely because of this fact one must analyse the plot, making sure one does not get confused. To start out in the explanation of the plot in Slaughterhouse Five one must first look at where the action starts to incline, otherwise known as the rising action. Rising action would be best represented as Vonnegut’s character Billy “was taken prisoner by the Germans” (30). It is here where the rising action is because suspense is created, which locks the reader into the book, which makes them want to keep reading. This is where the reader becomes apprehensive about the characters safety. After the rising action comes the climax of the story. The climax is the moment of the most intensity in the story. The climax includes the reason why this book was written; Dresden. The most intense moment in this book is when Billy Pilgrim traveled to the time that “...Dresden was destroyed.” (226). To the reader this gives them information which they have been waiting for since they Vonnegut first mentioned it. Although a reader could infer what happened to Dresden the reader didn’t know what happened to Billy in Dresden, including whether he was hurt or not. In this case Billy was not hurt because he was “down in the meat locker…[which] was a very safe shelter.” (226). Although since the plot is always flashing back and forth between the present and past the reader knew that Billy did not die. Lastly is the part where all the loose ends are tied up. This is also called the falling action. The falling actions in this book occurs when Billy is about to present his insight on his findings of the subject of death, which the Tralfamadorians taught him. Billy was finally able to conclude that “we will all live forever, no matter how dead we may seem to be…” (269).

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

Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor and critic. He is mainly known for his trilogy that investigates, using fiction, the history of Nigeria. The trilogy begins with Things Fall Apart, followed by No Longer at Ease and ended with Arrow of God. Furthermore, in this critically analytical essay, through a feminist perspective, a chapter of his second novel, No Longer at Ease, published in 1960, will be discussed. The setting of the novel is Lagos, Nigeria and Umuofia, Nigeria during the 1950s, before Nigeria attained independence from Great Britain. The novel, No Longer at Ease begins with Obi Okonkwo on trial, charged for accepting a bribe. However, using flashback, the author takes us back to the point before Obi’s departure

The anti-war story of Slaughterhouse-Five centers on an awkward Billy Pilgrim, a man who travels through time and has had extraordinary experiences on the planet Tralfamadore with its inhabitants, the Tralfamadorians. Pilgrim, like Vonnegut, fought in World War II and was still relatively new to the war when he was taken as prisoner by German soldiers. He too was held in a slaughterhouse underground, which led to his survival of the 1945 Dresden Firebombing, and was also held behind to gather and burn the remains of the dead. Pilgrim claims that on his daughter’s wedding night, he was first abducted by the Tralfamadorians, the aliens that inhabited the planet Tralfamadore. These aliens have a fourth dimension; time. The Tralfamadorians view time as a literal timeline; everything is predetermined, and they can access any point of time at their will. Pilgrim returns to earth and believes that it is his duty to make humans aware of this philosophy, and to spread the Tralfamadorians’ message. By the end of the book, the reader comes to find that the time shifting and extraterrestrial experiences