Billy Pilgrim's Slaughter House Five

Death within the Confines of Slaughter House Five Slaughter House Five represents a novel full of anti-war anecdotes. The novel also includes the effects of postmodernism, the way the world starts to question reality, time, and the social construct to which our society was built upon. Death is a reoccurring theme that this novel revolves around and maintains interest for all accounts of the novel. The readers follow the story written by Kurt Vonnegut and how he implements aspects of death throughout his novel such as blue and ivory feet, “So it goes”, Italicized war details, the bombing of Dresden, and how death effects Billy. Blue and ivory feet is a prominent motif in the novel, it represents death and lifeless dead bodies that increasingly

Before Billy traveled to Tralfamadore and learned that their construct of time was nonlinear and that no one really truly died but existed continually after death. A saying the Tralfamadorians use when addressing death is “So it goes”. Which is a mediocre phrase to say when someone dies. Its interpreted meaning is like saying oh well. there is no remorse, sadness, or anger it is emotionless and stale just like Billy has become. He is the embodiment of “So It goes”. Kurt Vonnegut uses this phrase when writing the scene where Valencia Pilgrim, Billy’s wife, dies of carbon monoxide poisoning. “Poor Valencia was unconscious, over by carbon monoxide. She was a heavenly azure. One hour later she was dead. So it goes.” (234) The evidence against Billy shows that he has no emotion even when his beloved wife dies trying to get to him after his plane crash.“So it goes” is also a phrase that uses an aspect of postmodernism, the bringing together of the higher class and lower class. The phrase levels out the playing field when someone dies so to speak. Everyone is equal when they die, whether it be the prince of Egypt or a pauper working the streets everyone is the same no more no less. As the story progresses the exorbitant amount of deaths that occur during the novel begin to wear on the

It was a bloody war with many civilian casualties. Dresden along with many other battles during World War II faced a high death toll. The city of Dresden, Germany is a small city with many of its soldiers off to war and the city itself causing no threat to the war efforts on both sides. The only war related activity going on there was the Prisoners of war Camps filled with Americans and Russians. The novel Slaughter House Five is an anti-war book and Kurt Vonnegut the author writes about a man named Billy Pilgrim and how he copes with his experiences before and after the bombing on Dresden. Vonnegut is an author based in postmodernism, so the build up to the bombing within the story was very miniscule and there was no intense scene for the readers to hold on to. After the city was bombed Vonnegut writes the infamous phrase, “So it Goes”. This reveals that Vonnegut believes that it was just another stepping stone that impacted the world but not the characters in the story, and even a horrific atrocity like the bombing of Dresden was compared to all the other deaths within the story. The bombing of Dresden was just another death in Vonnegut’s eyes and this represent the era of postmodernism that Slaughter House Five rests in. Dialect between Billy Pilgrim and Rumfoord reveals that, “’It had to be done’, Rumfoord told Billy. ‘I know. That’s war.’