Slaughterhouse Five Themes

Mind-bending and mind-twisting. Vonnegut’s style dances around a singular timeline philosophers still contemplate about. Effortlessly, he applies his non-heroic story to the character “Billy Pilgrim”, who with an awkward body and odd personality, endures numerous hurls through his own timeline. As the star victim of Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Pilgrim pilgrims through time in different directions. The mere act of closing his eyes could have him back in the hospital waiting in line for his daily medication or sitting on a train about to depart for New York City. After World War II, his inner machinations move according to the disrupted harmony that the aerial bombs of Dresden threw off. Eyes are the windows to the soul, but Billy’s

Left untreated, Billy Pilgrim slowly loses himself to the experiences that build up to his death. It was the children’s crusade, a title Vonnegut considered to parallel how the youth were taken from their homes in order to defend their country. Their stories were erased and it was said that their roles in a new Hollywood film could be glorified by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne, “or some of those other glamorous, war loving, dirty old men” (Vonnegut 18). However, war is dirty. Frank Sinatra cannot execute the role of a fatigued soldier who “tore himself up, throwing up and throwing up” (Vonnegut 274) or “cremates with flamethrowers right were [dead soldiers] were” (Vonnegut 274). Experienced by 22 year old Billy Pilgrim, it could easily have been forced into 18 year old Roland Weary’s mind, except he suffered through his gangrene caused death crowded by malnourished soldiers in a train cart. When Edgar Derby is caught stealing from the ruins of Dresden, his punishment is immediate death, which Pilgrim

Here, he is thoroughly accepted by his peers because they live under the same set of rules, as well as arriving for the same set of mutual reasoning. When Pilgrim is released however, he is smothered with ostracization from his family and peers alike. Only when he materializes onto the alien planet of Tralfamadore is he treated with a non-oppressive type of exclusion. Primarily, it is Barbara who rejects his mental illness by fearing his interactions with daily activities. She is constantly embarrassed by his uniqueness awarded to him by the war he was coerced into. Rung with the implied request to “just act normal” causes Billy’s mental state to deteriorate further. Trauma accompanied by faint voices repeating self-deprecating comments construes more than just the epitome of mental illness, but elucidates the idea that without the support of others, a person cannot support themselves with a mental illness. Valencia Merble, his soon-to-be bride “was one of the symptoms of his disease” (137), entailing misinterpretations he cannot help, even revealing he “didn’t want to marry” because she was ugly (137). Unlike Ted, the lack of a support system confines Pilgrim to what his subconscious tells him to do. Because Slaughterhouse Five, “lacks of any detailed treatment of Dresden” (Creasy), it makes the main focus of the