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. In his
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The virtues mentioned in the prayer are as follow: acceptance, courage, and wisdom are contrasted using Billy’s life events. These events contradict the reading of the prayer; the author conveys the idea that there is no hope for those who believe in God and he even mocks the serenity prayer using his main character Billy as an instrument. The novel makes the readers believe that not everyone may be capable of acquiring the virtues mentioned in the serenity prayer, giving the impression that God does not listen or may not even