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Slaughterhouse Five Satire

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In his novel Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut illustrates the life of Billy Pilgrim as he is unstuck in time in order to ask, “What is the point and validity of Christianity if it only leads to pain and suffering?”, to which he answers that there is no point or validity to it through his emphasis on violence and cruelty in Christianity, juxtaposition with Tralfamadorian beliefs, and satire and mockery of Christian values. Using cruel, violent imagery ironically indicative of Christianity, Vonnegut emphasizes the pain and suffering of the religion’s figurehead and ultimately the hopelessness it leaves its followers. Billy was taunted by a picture of “an extremely gruesome crucifix” his mother hung over his childhood bed even though “Billy …show more content…

Vonnegut’s strong language reveals his true dislike for Christianity through their irony. The crucifix is usually a symbol of hope to Christians and a source of pride that their all-powerful God would sacrifice His Son to save the sinful people of the world. Vonnegut purposefully ignores this aspect of the symbolic image and intentionally draws attention to the gory, gruesome nature of Christ’s death. “Nearly every day of his childhood”, Billy “contemplated torture and hideous wounds” the seemingly cruel image portrayed scarring this image as the symbol of Christianity in his mind for the rest of his life further causing Billy to wonder the point and validity in Christianity (Vonnegut 48). As the picture focuses on the agony of Christ’s death, to Billy the Christian God becomes associated with pain of death and faithlessness causing him to believe “He …show more content…

Plainly put, the Tralfamadorians believe “There is no why” and that events just happen because they are meant to happen that way (Vonnegut 97). The purpose of Christianity, on the other hand, is to give a “why” to life through the existence of God and their living to serve him. Although, according to Vonnegut, serving and following God only leads to pain and suffering. Moreover, the Tralfamadorians believe “when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past…” which is a great variance between the two belief systems (Vonnegut 33-34). Christians believe in Judgement Day after death and living eternity in either Heaven or Hell depending on God’s ultimate ruling. In Christianity, the past ends with the moment; it does not last forever and neither do people. One of the greatest discrepancies between the two is the figurehead because “On Tralfamadore, says Billy Pilgrim, there isn’t much interest in Jesus Christ”. Tralfamadorians find “Charles Darwin- who taught that those who die are meant to die, that corpses are improvements” the most engaging in his beliefs and do not claim a figurehead (Vonnegut 268-269). Where the ideology of the Christians revolves around the past actions of a man God claimed as his son, Tralfamadorians rely on no such basis. Both belief systems align with the Serenity Prayer, “God grant me the serenity

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