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Kurt Vonnegut The Slaughterhouse-Five Essay

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Recommended: American history chapter 13 the great depression

Kurt Vonnegut states, “ I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you can see all kinds of things you can see from the the center” (Vonnegut). Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) is closely associated in the Modernism era. It started up in the early 1900s and ended roughly in 1946. In this time, rapid growth of cities and more advanced housing began. 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. This event was tragic for the inspiration toward Vonnegut in writing this book. A lot of books …show more content…

Clark. This criticism that was a great way of expressing that Vonnegut usually writes about things that happened to him in his past. He was there during the great depression as well as WW2. Vonnegut has a lot of imagery and experiences that he writes about that helps him be more successful as an author. The elements that is wrote about usually include a darker and scarier imagery and setting. To improve the reasoning, here are some quotes provided from the Slaughterhouse-Five. “One guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war” This quote gives a great idea of how it was inside the war, helping to prove that Vonnegut has a darker sense of imagery and setting. Another great quote founded in this book, “It fired. It killed everybody on the gun crew but weary. So it goes”. Explaining one of the horrors that scared Kurt's life, and also a huge inspiration towards writing this

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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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so influential is his large repertoire of writing. Kurt wasn’t always a writer, according to family they all thought he’d be a “Jailbird” or in lifelong service to the military. They were wrong, on February 11, 1950 his first published written work titled “Report on The Barnhouse Effect” was published in Collier’s Weekly (1888-1957, 2012-2012) and had very little feedback instead of critics bashing it’s “non-structured style.” So it Goes. Vonnegut continued to write short stories while living in Gary, Indiana with his uncle who is characterized in his books Bagombo Snuff Box (1999)

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Title: Slaughterhouse-Five Author: Kurt Vonnegut Thesis: Throughout KVs SF, he describes in matter of fact way the psychological impact/effects of the devastation of war and death upon Billy Pilgrim and how he handles it. Through the exploration of Billy Pilgrim’s detached and indifferent thoughts, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five illustrates the coping mechanisms of a World War II veteran with post traumatic stress disorder.

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Time’s Arrow and Slaughterhouse-Five are both novels with an unconventional approach. By defying the expectation that such writing ought to be sombre, they deliver their own brand of mourning. Vonnegut interweaves the horrors of war with the seemingly trivial and absurd to create greater impact. The language, which is so often blunt and direct to the point of vulgarity, takes on a different character in the darker moments. It is transformed into something more childlike and delicate, suddenly capable of conveying the aftermath of a massacre with simple respect.

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