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Literary Devices In Slaughter House Five

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Kurt Vonnegut, who was a prisoner of war during World War II, wrote a popular novel titled Slaughter-House-Five, in which he details the fictional life of Billy Pilgrim. Billy is an optometrist who fought during World War II and witnessed the intense bombing of Dresden, Germany. The entire novel is a commentary on the destructiveness of human-beings and the general stupidity of warfare. In the story, Vonnegut uses specific details, logos, and repetitive diction to describe the obliviousness of the human race concerning warfare and freewill. Vonnegut utilizes specific details to comment on the ignorance of human-beings. At the end of page 117, he writes “We ignore them. We spend an eternity looking at pleasant moments. That’s one thing Earthlings might learn to do... ignore the awful times and …show more content…

People choose to be blissfully ignorant of it. They choose to ignore the mass destruction and death brought on by warfare and choose instead to continue living their lives separate from truth and reality. This line serves Vonnegut’s purpose of showing how oblivious people choose to be concerning war. They would rather choose to ignore the issue rather than confront it. Another example would be where Billy Pilgrim says, “Isn’t there some way you can prevent it? Can’t you keep the pilot from pressing the button?”. This detail helps further propel Vonnegut’s view of freewill and the perception of warfare. This line has the effect of showing that people think that there is some way to prevent or possibly stop warfare, and that

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Examples Of Dialectical Journal For Slaughterhouse Five

616 Words | 3 Pages

Due to Billy and the narrators’ accounts you see the effects of war not only on the soldiers, but also on bystanders. Such as the girls in the bath house in Dresden who were most likely killed from the bombing. I think Vonnegut is showing how much pain war can cause. The predestination versus free will theme pops up most during Billy’s accounts of his times with the Tralfamadorians. The Tralfamadorians see life as all moments are going on at once and will continue on a loop.

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The narrator infrequently states openly: this sucks. However, he indicates that it does. From experiences in the war, Vonnegut has learned that death is something he cannot cease. He has understood that “even if wars didn’t keep coming like glaciers, there would be plain old death” (4). The moral shown by Vonnegut agrees that some things are out of man’s control, however there are things man are able to alter.

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672 Words | 3 Pages

Billy’s use of Tralfamadore and the Tralfamadorians as a Coping Mechanism. The portrayal of war as heroic or glamorous leaves the true nature of war untold. In Slaughterhouse Five the novel follows Billy Pilgrim, who is a World War II veteran that experienced the bombing of Dresden. Forever traumatized, Billy suffers from flashbacks and false memories of aliens and their alien planet, Tralfamadore. Billy uses the planet and people of Tralfamadore to cope with the trauma he has experienced, their beliefs and sayings comfort Billy, which reveals Kurt Vonnegut’s theme, war destroys mental wellbeing, so veterans struggle with assimilating themselves back into society.

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661 Words | 3 Pages

War can be effective and aspire people to various expansions. Kurt Vonnegut was negatively affected by war, to write Slaughterhouse-Five. Vonnegut introduces a man by the name of Billy Pilgrim who served in World War Two. Pilgrim shows the realities of war with an ugly truth; either you are left to die, or you would be traumatized.

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1442 Words | 6 Pages

One of the lessons that he had been taught is that the future was unpredictable as well as unpreventable. What Billy understood this to be was: "there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers. I believe that also. And, even if wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death.” (Vonnegut, 6).

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683 Words | 3 Pages

Every victory over the Nazis brought pleasure to allied troops but also disquietude with how victory had been achieved. This sensation translates well into Kurt Vonnegut's work Slaughterhouse Five. Readers find pleasure in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five with american soldiers giving it their all to do all things good in one of the darkest times in human history. Profound disquietude comes from sources like the the character billy’s first hand account of the American and British fire and explosive bombing of the German city of dresden.

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They always make up any excuse possible just avoid the war. If it is not successful and they are send off into the war they are like in slaughterhouse. Most of the soldiers when they survive the war are somehow effected by all bad they have seen. Vonnegut also describes violence in this book and there’s a lot of it. There’s just too much violence in this world and once Billy’s wife dies it’s weird.

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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.

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Bradbury noticed how there was always a war taking place, and applied this to his novel. In the 50’s, America was just recovering from World War II, and the threat of a nuclear war was becoming eminent. Bradbury states, “The jet bombers going over, going over, going over, one two, one two, one two, six of them, nine of them, twelve of them, one and one and one and another and another and another, did all the screaming for him" (Bradbury 11). Bradbury uses figurative language to make the reader acknowledge how often war is in this society. The novel’s society illustrates that the people didn’t experience trepidation at the thought of war.

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1745 Words | 7 Pages

Kurt Vonnegut enlisted in the United States Army at the time of World War II. He was captured as a prisoner of war where he received much of his literary inspiration for Slaughterhouse-Five. The anti war theme throughout the book is touched on and also rebutted when Vonnegut states, “there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers” (Vonnegut 4). Vonnegut knows he is writing an anti war book but also is aware that wars cannot altogether be halted he is only trying to relay the horrors of war. The number of innocent victims killed by the bombing is alarming and Vonnegut keeping with his anti war theme made it a point to center his novel around the Dresden bombing which increased knowledge of what the historical city Dresden once was.

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726 Words | 3 Pages

So, the message Kurt Vonnegut is showing the reader, is that a society should not glorify war. Thus saying that the killing of innocent civilians is more important than, going to war and not gaining anything. To conclude, Kurt vonnegut uses the theme of war in Slaughterhouse five to show how war has been glorified by the society in which Billy lived in. The glorification of war then led into the bloodshed of many innocent live.

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2081 Words | 9 Pages

Throughout history, many crucial events have touched numerous people in their own way, one of these events being World War II. This war impacted countless people who were affected by the horrendous things that Germany ensued. One person that was impacted by World War II is Kurt Vonnegut. From his experiences in the war, he has written multiple books, one of his books being about his involvement in the Dresden firebombing. Within the book, he uses different literary devices that reflect this historical event.

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1740 Words | 7 Pages

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583 Words | 3 Pages

He strives to capture a “beautiful and surprising and deep” meaning in his book, yet, Vonnegut calls the book a “failure” from the very first chapter, because he has come up with nothing more intelligent and deep to say about war than Poo-tee-weet? (Slaughterhouse Five 28). Although that could be Vonnegut’s intention – to show that war is senseless and ugly. The Tralfamadorians say they only look at the the “marvelous moments” in life and ignore all the sad ones. To them, a good book is one containing only the happy moments.

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