Summary Of Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five

Authors of short stories, books, and poems have several different styles available to them as a writing technique. For example, narrative, summary and persuasive are just a few of the different styles that the author utilizes to help the reader better comprehend the meaning of the story. In the book, Slaughterhouse Five, written by Kurt Vonnegut, the author is the narrator and randomly speaks through the main character, Billy Pilgrim about his personal experience of World War II. However, Vonnegut’s approach in this story is not easily identified as the story is neither based on the chronology of events, nor on logic, and the reader cannot analyze the story in the typical way, chapter by chapter or in sequential order. In an attempt to analyze the story, and to fully understand the author’s meaning, the breakdown of the story will be concentrated on several literary devices Vonnegut employs in his narrative technique.

The trip is described through the events in the life of a character named Billy Pilgrim, an optometrist, and a unique theory of time travel. The story begins with Billy Pilgrim being drafted and sent to Europe to fight during World War II. His experience of the war was traumatic and this is what triggered his uncontrollable time traveling. Vonnegut takes the reader back and forth, traveling through time, to events of happiness and sadness in the life of Billy Pilgrim. Vonnegut’s unique sense of writing throughout the story makes it difficult for readers to clearly understand the meaning of this book, as it is not to glorify war or focus on the events of Billy Pilgrim’s life, but it is to show the brutality of