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Feminism In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five

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Kurt Vonnegut’s “anti-war” book Slaughterhouse-Five written in 1969 was considered to be inappropriate on many levels. Some parents at Drake High School even felt this book should be burned in their school's furnace due to the “obscene” content. (Kurt Vonnegut’s Powerful 1973 Letter…). This book, along with a lot of Kurt Vonnegut’s writing was in the dark humor category with many underlying themes and messages. Although some of his ideas are rather confusing and elaborate, his views on feminism through the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, are clear. Through Billy’s eyes, women are sexualized and useless, this along with many of his other views make him an anti-hero in this novel. Kurt Vonnegut’s intelligent writing style allows readers to see the …show more content…

Women’s rights have always been a questionable topic. Typically, women were viewed as naturally weaker than men and expected to be silent and the caretaker in the family. The idea of feminism has been around for quite some time and many people have been considered to be a part of this movement. In 1848, the first Women’s Rights Movement Convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York and was run by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. (Women’s Rights National Historical Park…). Along with Mott and Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Sojourner Truth have all been considered some of the “mothers” of feminism. Those who are now involved in this movement have been impacted by these women whether they know it or …show more content…

To most people, Kurt Vonnegut’s love life was less than ideal. His first marriage to Jane Cox ended in a divorce after failing to live up to the standard of holding a close-knit relationship with her and her extended family. In a way, Jane hated being lonely and Kurt didn’t feel responsible for being the only one that could keep her from feeling that way. His first marriage ended in a divorce. His second marriage was to Jill Krementz who was almost twenty years younger than him. They adopted a daughter and she ended up being the reason that they didn’t get a divorce after Jill had an affair in the early 90’s. (Montagnino,

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Throughout Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut intertwines reality and fiction to provide the reader with an anti-war book in a more abstract form. To achieve this abstraction, Kurt Vonnegut utilizes descriptive images, character archetypes, and various themes within the novel. By doing so, he created a unique form of literature that causes the reader to separate reality from falsehood in both their world, and in the world within Vonnegut’s mind. Vonnegut focuses a lot on the characters and their actions in “Slaughterhouse Five.”

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Seamlessly blending fact and fantasy, Vonnegut creates a bittersweet smoothie of the novel Slaughterhouse-Five. As his father comments, Vonnegut never wrote a story with a villain in it – and Vonnegut responds that he had learned that “there was absolutely no difference between anybody .. Nobody was ridiculous or bad or disgusting” (8). This reflects his own ideas on his later experiences of World War II, of surviving the firebombing of Dresden and being held as a prisoner of war by the Germans.

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The book Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut is perceived as being controversial; it was once placed on some schools' banned reading lists. Numerous parents disagreed with much of the content presented in the book. It is perceived as being too inappropriate and vulgar to certain audiences because of the language used and the topic of sex. Because it does contain mature topics, this book should be banned for grades below high school, but it should also not be a reading requirement for high school students.

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However, the horror of WW2 occurred, which Kurt Vonnegut fought in. Around this time also, was when the great depression was sprouting and destroying many companies and families. WW2 and its events that occurred, was most inspiring to his writing “The Slaughterhouse-Five”. During the war, Vonnegut and his POWs were about 60 feet underground inside a slaughterhouse meat locker when the ground above him was bombed. With 60,000 people killed in the accident, Kurt and his POWs survived.

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To understand the history of past cultures, it is imperative that both sides are heard. Many novels continually showcase this new outlook on history. Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, demonstrates the New Historicism perspective with subjective accounts, reflections of the time it is written, and lack of the opposing side ’s outlook. To begin, New Historicism is showcased by subjective accounts that are apparent in developing the

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The next example of Intertexuality Vonnegut chose to incorporate in Slaughterhouse-Five proves acceptance of war and death as inevitable part of life. Serenity prayer is used twice in the novel: firstly it appears as a framework hanging on Billy’s office wall and for the second time Vonnegut sees it on the inside a chain locket hanging around Montana Wildhack’s neck. Vonnegut’s incidental incorporation of visual materials puts him at the beginning of more recent experimentations in intermediality from the combinations of photographs and text in the novels of W. G. Sebald to the combinations of text and drawings in the graphic novels of Art Spiegelman and Joe Sacco. In the following image is the drawing of the pendant worn by BillyPilgrim’s Tralfamadorian lover above her naked breasts: Fig.2. Illustration of serenity prayer on Montana Wildhack’s locket from Slaughterhouse-Five (used by permission of Dell Publishing, a division of Random House, Inc.)Page 139 Vonnegut knew that through different narrative techniques he can tell his readers how the author feels apart from that he also knew that using illustration as a narrative technique describes the readers what you want them to see.

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Trout uses science fiction and its different elements such as cognitive estrangement and structural fabulation in order to build a metaphor that guides the reader into thinking about an aspect of society that the author wants to criticize. This communicative piece intends to portray social criticism in the way Vonnegut does it, but taken to our reality and analyzing aspects we want to condemn. We opened the book on chapter nine and decided to write our own new plot as if Billy Pilgrim was the one reading it. We wrote the text and inserted it as part of the chapter in order to adhere it to the rest of society’s criticism seen in the book in the very best Vonnegut style. In order to interpret Vonnegut’s intentions and purpose of social criticism throughout Slaughterhouse Five, specially in chapter nine, it´s necessary to understand science fiction and its elements.

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Billy is very pathetic and puts no effort into doing anything in his life. Not only does he evade fixing his heater or dealing with rodents in his house, but he doesn't even put appropriate clothes on; he has no self worth. By evading simple things, Vonnegut demonstrates Billy’s lack of interest and how that leads him to do nothing of importance in his

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With a roller coaster of a life, from the highs of literary success, to the lows of his time in Dresden, Kurt Vonnegut had work that was decade-defining, serving as an outcry for the antiwar youth of the 60’s and 70’s, leading to an impact that is still felt today due to the credibility he lended the genre of

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Vonnegut’s writings and views on the world were the results of his childhood and time at war which left scars and memories in the mind of Vonnegut which shaped who he was as a person. Mentions of Vonnegut throughout the literature world acclaim him for his unique voice and thoughts on heavy topics. His ability to make readers think about present issues while still understanding the material is what personalized his works. Vonnegut is seen as one of the greatest authors in history and his works are studied and reviewed throughout the modern school curriculum. Without Vonnegut literature would have never been the same, he is one of the most influential and sensational writers of all

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Kurt Vonnegut is a well-known and influential American writer, known for his unconventional and experimental writing style. Vonnegut was born in 1922 and died in 2007, he studied biochemistry at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He left in 1943 to enlist in the army for World War II, and he survived the firebombing of Dresen in 1945. After the war, he worked in public relations and hated it so much that he started writing fiction about how awful it was. Vonnegut uses fantasy as well as science fiction to portray dystopian, yet eerily similar worlds to ours to display underlying gross nature that is our current day and age.

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As a narrator of Slaughterhouse-Five Vonnegut writes articulately,

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Kurt Vonnegut is able to zoom in on a variety of social issues we face today, such as the

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Storytelling has been the epitome of human expression for thousands of years. Along with musicians and artists, talented storytellers use their work to share ideas with others, often in an effort to evoke emotion or to persuade people to think similarly. Every element in a story is carefully crafted by the author in order to communicate a desired message to his or her audience. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut incorporates irony into the story to express his belief that fighting wars is illogical.

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But what these people fail to grasp is Kurt Vonnegut’s real intention. He tries to subvert practices such as pornography that dehumanize (254). Kurt Vonnegut deliberately uses flat, objective language like a social scientist. Pornography destroys the beauty of the human spirit. Kurt Vonnegut rediscovers new ideas in the paintings of Karabekian.

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