Vonnegut : An Outlook On Fate

To many authors, writing functions as a way to express themselves. Within the plot of novels and the stanzas of poetry authors are expressing their opinions and beliefs often in an attempt to influence their readers. Some writers use their works to spread a message of positivity; others wish to criticize societal values. The American writer and humorist Kurt Vonnegut uses much of his writings as vehicles for social criticism. Two such works that exemplify Vonnegut’s opinions are the novel Slaughterhouse- Five and the short story “Harrison Bergeron”. Slaughterhouse- Five is the tale of a war veteran named Billy Pilgrim who not only survived the bombing of Dresden, but also claims to have been abducted by aliens and can travel in time. “Harrison

Where innumerous catastrophic events are simultaneously occurring and altering the mental capability of its viewers eternally, war is senseless killing. The participants of war that are ‘fortunate’ enough to survive become emotionally distraught civilians. Regardless of the age of the people entering war, unless one obtains the mental capacity to witness numerous deaths and stay unaffected, he or she is not equipped to enter war. Kurt Vonnegut portrays the horrors of war in Slaughterhouse Five, through the utilization of satire, symbolism, and imagery.

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.

Many writers in history have written science fiction novels and had great success with them, but only a few have been as enduring over time as Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. Slaughterhouse-Five is a personal novel which draws upon Vonnegut's experience's as a scout in World War Two, his capture and becoming a prisoner of war, and his witnessing of the fire bombing of Dresden in February of 1945 (the greatest man-caused massacre in history). The novel is about the life and times of a World War Two veteran named Billy Pilgrim. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut uses structure and point of view to portray the theme that time is relative.

Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five contains important implications for psychoanalytic criticism. These implications are portrayed in the behavior of Billy Pilgrim, a World War II veteran whose life is full of traumatic experiences. Even a reader not reading this novel through a psychoanalytic lens can conclude that Billy’s life is full of traumatic experiences and being unstuck in time. Through a psychoanalytic lens we can see that Billy is merely trying to save himself from remembering those traumatic experiences through repression, the expunging from consciousness. The psychoanalytic concept of repression is so pervasive in the novel that, through a psychoanalytic lens, it seems to be the only reason for Billy Pilgrim’s continued existence.

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.

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

Again, Matheson points out the problem immediately by saying, “the first… [problem] is encountered in the unusual opening chapter where Vonnegut, apparently speaking as himself, gives an account of the novel’s genesis that cannot help but strike us initially as being carelessly written”(Matheson 1). Matheson is not fond of Vonnegut’s work, he not only dislikes the fact that there is not a single meaning to the book, but also the creative and eccentric style Vonnegut used in writing Slaughterhouse-Five. Slaughterhouse-Five is semi-autobiographical; the first and the last chapters are written in first person, and there are many similarities between Vonnegut’s life, and Billy Pilgrim’s life. In the first chapter Vonnegut identifies himself as the author when he is speaking to his friend on the phone by saying, “‘Listen— ’I said, ‘I’m writing this book about Dresden’”(Vonnegut 4). Critics seem to dislike the use of first person and the identification of the author because it is “irrelevant…[and leads] nowhere”(Matheson 1). The first person point of view comes back in the last chapter when Vonnegut says, “Robert Kennedy, whose summer home is eight miles from the home I live in all year round, was shot two nights ago”(Vonnegut 210). Vonnegut uses first person not to be annoying to critics, but to remind the reader that he experienced all of the events in his book, “more or less”(Vonnegut

“Fate is a misconception, it's only a cover-up for the fact you don't have control over your own life.” –Anonymous. In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughterhouse-five, an optometrist named Billy Pilgrim becomes unstuck in time uncontrollably and constantly travels between his past, present, and future. Since Pilgrim is unable to control his time warps, he is forced to re-live agonizing moments such as watching his wartime friend Edgar Derby executed for stealing or going through the Dresden bombing repeatedly. However, he is also able to visit pleasant moments like speaking as president in front of the Lions club or his honeymoon with his wife, Valencia. Vonnegut’s use of repetition and vision of war, time and death are crucial to Pilgrim as he

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.

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.

Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five is an interesting but complicated novel about a man bouncing through time and space. The novel is a satire with elements of science fiction, although Kurt Vonnegut incorporates into the plot some of his actual experiences as a World War II soldier and prisoner of war. Vonnegut’s lead character and protagonist is Billy Pilgrim, a person who time travels throughout the novel. Vonnegut brings the readers along on Billy’s wild and unpredictable journey which goes in several different directions. While this complicates the story, Vonnegut keeps returning to the theme of war by returning Billy back to his time as a soldier during World War II. Vonnegut devotes significant portions of Slaughterhouse-Five to the war theme, capturing the zeitgeist of World War II through vivid and highly accurate depictions of key events such as the Battle of the Bulge, the use of boxcars to transport prisoners of war, and the bombing of Dresden by the Allied forces.

In Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut explains his experience of the World War II bombing of Dresden, Germany. Vonnegut's creative antiwar novel shows the audience the hardships of the life of a soldier through his writing technique. Slaughterhouse Five is written circularly, and time travel is ironically the only consistency throughout the book. Vonnegut outlines the life of Billy Pilgrim, whose life and experiences are uncannily similar to those of Vonnegut. In Chapter 1, Kurt Vonnegut non-fictionally describes his intentions for writing the book. Vonnegut personally experienced the destruction of Dresden, and explains how he continuously tried to document Dresden but was unsuccessful for twenty-three years after the war. Vonnegut let

Kurt Vonnegut is the author of the book Slaughterhouse Five. Of course it was controversial, and still is. The first chapter addresses the conflicts of creating such a novel in the first chapter of the book. In the book Harrison Starr questioned Vonnegut asking if his book were to be a war book. Vonnegut said it was and Starr “Why don’t you make an anti-glacier book instead?” (4). Vonnegut believed what Starr meant by that was wars, like glaciers, are as unpredictable and unstoppable. (4). As one gets farther into the book it completely changed dynamics. The novel then goes into the story of Billy Pilgrim instead of the autobiographical view from the first chapter. The three main literary elements in which will be focusing on analysing is theme,

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