Slaughterhouse V By Kurt Vonnegut: Literary Analysis

New Historicism is all over the novel. Which is a way of saying that the winner side of history is not the only side being told. Throughout the novel of Slaughterhouse V, written by Kurt Vonnegut, New Historicism is used through Billy Pilgrim and his time-traveling life of telling about his time during World War II. By telling both sides of history, Billy Pilgrim is telling the reader exactly how senseless war is, considering both sides did some pretty bad things in order to win what was wanted. And, by telling both sides of the story, people are able to judge both sides fairly because both sides are significant in history. In the beginning of the novel, the narrator (not Billy Pilgrim) is criticized for writing a book about anti-war. Now, it would make sense that no one in the winning country would read an anti-war book. Why bash the war since it was won, right? Well, Harrison Starr said to the narrator “Do 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?’” (Vonnegut 3) The narrator took this as Harrison saying that wars are easy to stop, but really it was meant that trying to prevent a war is as useless as trying to prevent glaciers. Even though the narrator feels that war is preventable, he believes that it is senseless.

Whether it was over dramatic or they brushed it off like it was nothing. Or they made themselves out to be a big hero when in reality they did nothing but sit in a tent in a green zone. A character in the novel gave his version of what is written as “Weary’s version of the true war story…” (Vonnegut 42). Within this story is an explanation of what happened to the character and his comrades and how they got the nickname “The Three Musketeers”. All to put the fact out there that all sides of the story needs to be heard to exactly know what happened in history. Otherwise, it is biased and one