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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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Slaughterhouse-Five Chapter Summary

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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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Senseless Violence In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five

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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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Their similarities between his story and the war come as short interchangeable sentences, such as when Billy is abducted by the Tralfamadorians. Billy asks the Tralfamadorians why they have chosen him, philosophically they respond “Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything?” (Vonnegut 76).

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Throughout Slaughterhouse five by Kurt Vonnegut Billy Pilgrim claims to have been “unstuck” in time. It is apparent that Billy is mentally unstable due to surviving being a prisoner of war, the destruction of Dresden during World War ll, and being forced to clean away debris from the destruction. Billy Pilgrim is often reliving different parts of his life, especially the parts that were most traumatic for him. It can be concluded that Billy Pilgrim did not time travel throughout his life, instead he experienced flashbacks caused by the post traumatic stress he endured from the war.

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Slaughterhouse-Five By Kurt Vonnegut: Literary Analysis

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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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The character of Billy Pilgrim is used in a creative way to help address Vonnegut’s message. Billy believes that he doesn’t have much control over anything in life, and he believes that “among the things he could not change were the past, present and future.”(pg. 60). As we progress throughout the

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Billy goes through similar experiences that Vonnegut did such as being in war, being overworked in a concentration camp, and being in the middle of the Firebombing of Dresden. Billy had a peaceful life in Ilium New York until he is drafted into war. Even in war, Billy learned how to stay peaceful. Like Vonnegut, Billy never carried a gun and almost froze in the cold climate. At the Battle of the Bulge, Billy and three others were captured and brought to concentration camps.

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His desensitization is both an example of his struggles during the war and the PTSD that haunts him every day thereafter. If a soldier were to absorb every horror he saw, he would be incapable of surviving much longer than the war itself. Comparing Billy’s life of misery after World War II to those who were brutally slaughtered begs the question of who had the better end---the man who died young, or the man who, while still alive, doesn’t know how to live? The answer that Vonnegut conveys is that neither man wins. In war, there are no winners.

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Instead of using the war as a stepping stone for growth, Slaughterhouse Five uses the bombing of Dresden to illustrate the absurdity and horror of war. A meaningful quote that provides insight into the true meaning of war is when Billy describes war to be “so short and jumbled and jangled, 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”. Using Billy’s description of war, Vonnegut undermines the traditional, heroic war narratives created by many others at the time, instead using Billy to show the senselessness of war, as well as how it impacts the

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The Reality of War War is depicted as necessary and soldiers are strong and ready for war, but is this actually reality? Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut is the story of a man named Billy Pilgrim who was in the army during WWII at the age of 21. In the novel, Billy is captured by the Nazi’s in Germany. The book follows his story as a POW, his experience during the bombing of Dresden and how the war impacted him and his mind after. Whereas the dominant narrative of war suggests soldiers are strong, mature men and that the enemy is a threat, Vonnegut uses irony to show that, in reality, war is filled with weak, childlike soldiers and the enemy is just like us and nonexistent.

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Have you ever heard that you should not always believe everything you are told? According to many researchers this is thought to be true about one of the most famous novels written by Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five. Many researchers have said that not everything within this novel can be thought to be true because of the trauma that Vonnegut and his war partners had experienced with being some of the prisoners of war. When this book was written people did not know quite what trauma was all about, they did not know that trauma has affects to a person’s mental or emotional state. “Kurt Vonnegut struggled for years to depict his memories of Dresden's infamous firebombing in 1945, due in part to the fact that no specific medical discourse yet

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The combination of the current war and the amount of thought and work put into this book is evident, and that is why it is one of Vonnegut’s most well known works of literature. Slaughterhouse-Five definitely deserves to be critically recognized because the words written on the pages have and always will be relevant. Vonnegut acknowledges it himself, when he says, “All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist”(Vonnegut 27). He knows that war will always be relevant; because it has always existed, it will always

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Written by Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five explores the impact of World War II on soldiers through the perspective of Billy Pilgram who is portrayed as an incompetent and helpless soldier. Throughout the novel, Vonnegut establishes his anti-war sentiments by illustrating the brutality of war in full detail and its lasting effects on Billy as an adult. By narrating Billy’s experiences with PTSD and utilizing vivid descriptions of the war in Vonnegut’s anti-war novel, he establishes his belief that war is unnecessary and destructive. Furthermore, he uses the novel’s title, innocent characterization of the soldiers of World War II, and allusions to children’s stories to construct the idea that the soldiers are children who don’t belong in war.

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