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Slaughterhouse-Five By Kurt Vonnegut: A Literary Analysis

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Before taking this class I never thought how war can be so destructive. I understood that a lot of horrible things happen, innocent lives are taken away, homes are destroyed and people are left with nothing. But to actually sit down and look at horrific pictures from 100 years old, and looking at pictures from today’s world and realize it’s the same aftermath. The thought of war can just be scary overall. War is destructive, while its during and after, or even 30 years later. War is like a scar, once it cuts you, you will be scared forever, and every time you look at that scar it will remind you of how it happened. The photograph I chose to help me compare and contrast Kurt Vonnegut “Slaughterhouse-Five” is AP photojournalist Horst Faas, War …show more content…

But, maybe Billy wasn’t aware that he was actually affected by his experience in war, where he might be hallucinating the world of Tralfamadorians in order to escape a world destroyed by war. “Slaughterhouse-Five is like a puppet-show where we can see both the puppet (Billy Pilgrim) and the puppeteer (Kurt Vonnegut). If Billy is just a puppet, then that makes Kurt Vonnegut our protagonist.” (The Cambridge companion to war writing) Kurt Vonnegut also served in the war, and suffered from depression not only due to the war, which was the cherry to the ice cream, but also because his mother committed suicide, his sister died a day after her husband died. I feel Vonnegut wrote this book which actually represents his life in the real world. Billy was a character that represents him. “It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it’s always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like “Poo-tee-weet?” I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee” (Vonnegut, pg.19) Vonnegut isn’t happy being involved with war because he believes it causes nothing but destruction. He also mentions how he didn’t want he’s children finding the enemies death satisfying because just the thought of death something horrifying you shouldn’t even wish it on your enemy. Not only does Kurt and other soldiers believe war is destructive but also, Stephen Crane who wrote “War is

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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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To regular citizens not attending within the war, they might see to soldiers as an act of heroism. In the first chapter, Vonnegut goes and visits O’Hare where he meets his wife -Mary O’Hare, who seemed angry with the idea that Vonnegut is going to write some heroic war story. On page 15, it states “It was war that made her so angry. She didn’t want her babies or anybody else’s babies killed in wars.” It means that it is expected of many that you would die in battle.

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In the novel Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, Billy Pilgrim experiences time differently from any other person. Instead of experiencing time in a linear fashion, Billy jumps randomly throughout all of the events in his life. It is this random experience of time that allows Vonnegut to enforce the themes of senseless violence and the illusion of choice. Billy first comes unstuck in time during his military service in World War II.

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What is the cost of war? Millions of people have died for their country, or a different cause, without being able to say goodbye to their loved ones. Those who do return to their homes after the war, suffer from not only physical, but emotional and psychological scars. In Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five the protagonist Billy Pilgrim, a veteran who struggles with PTSD, believes he is traveling in time. In one second Billy could be in his office as an optometrist, the next he could be fighting in the war.

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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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Billy was confused about what had just happened to him, “Billy licked his lips, thought a while, at last; ‘Why me?’’. The tralfamadorians responded to billy, “‘Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why. ’”(Vonnegut 77). This was a stressful and frightening event for Billy, he had no answer to why he was being taken.

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Each story he told always had some kind of bitterness to it and things were rarely ever sweet. However, there is some kind of reason behind this. It is known that Billy has retold his story, or revisited his life a good amount of times. He has done this after the war, and the war never has a positive impact on people. With that being said, the reason that Billy’s life story is so negative is due to the cruelty of the war.

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He knew it was unavoidable so it let his life take its course without him trying to interfere to prevent what should happen. On the other hand, Billy seems to act on his own desires with how he will not let people interfere with his life and how he wants to live it. Again, Vonnegut does this so both sides of the argument can be supported and seen for his own audience to develop their very own opinion about the

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