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Slaughterhouse-Five Postmodern Narrative Analysis

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Introduction

They say that history is written by winners, whereas World War II is the best example of how history is shaped to favor its winners. Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse-Five unfolded the other side of war that history usually neglects.

Most of us had a chance to learn about WWII in our history classes, from John Wayne movies or from historical books. Whereas what distinguishes Slaughterhouse-Five from what we used to read about war its Vonnegut’s representation of real experiences that he had actually lived while he was a soldier, prisoner and survivor of WWII. Vonnegut achieved to write a book about consequences of the war, especially how the war can effect in the human psychic ability and the way how these people cope with reality long after the war …show more content…

Some of the major postmodern narrative techniques used in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five are: metaficion, non-linear narration, intertextuality, irony and minimalism.

My Master thesis will be divided into five major chapters apart from this one. The first chapter presents an overview of Kurt Vonnegut’s life and his works. This chapter provides a biographical account of the author’s life, which plays an important part in understanding the nature and characteristics of his novels. In addition this chapter also discusses the importance of Kurt Vonnegut in American Literature and the most prominent critical opinions on Kurt Vonnegut and in Slaughterhouse-Five.

In the next chapter I will try to define postmodernism and its characteristics that are presented in Vonnegut’s novels.

The third chapter will be a short introduction to a story of Slaughterhouse-Five, what makes it unique and Vonnegut’s difficulties and circumstances to write it. The next part of this chapter deals with the narrator and his point of

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