The Use Of Chronological Order In Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five

In real life, humans remember various events in chronological order, remembering things from when they were younger first, and the latest things that they remember coming later in their life. However, in Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, he writes the main character, Billy Pilgrim’s life out of chronological order. This causes readers to alter the way they perceive time in this book. The book is constantly jumping around to different years and events which can make it hard for readers to follow along. Along with writing Billy Pilgrim's life out of order, he also incorporates the Tralfamadore aliens point of view which adds to how he changes the concept of reality. This not only alters how readers view time, but also reality since aliens don’t

This meant that instead of Billy’s life being told in chronological order, his life was scattered and out of order, making it somewhat hard to follow. Billy Pilgrim, born in 1922, is the story's protagonist, grew up in New York and was drafted into the army during World War II. During WWII, Billy saw some horrible, gruesome things such as bombing and shootings. Billy experiences his “time travel” experience during the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium. During his experience, he saw his life flash before his eyes from beginning to end. Vonnegut uses these time travel experiences in the characters to show how traumatic the war was on the soldiers. “The degree to which trauma affects individuals depends on their position relative to the original event” (Wicks 329). This demonstrates that throughout the book, Vonnegut tells Billy Pilgrim’s story out of order in order to distort their perception of reality and what actually happened during World War

This not only distorts readers' perception of time, but also reality. Years later, in 1967, Billy was abducted by aliens who looked like an upside down plunger and just over two feet. These aliens take Billy to another planet called Tralfamadore. While on their planet, the Tralfomadores tell Billy their perception of time and how it does not exist chronologically. This furthers Vonnegut's point of the distortion of reality since the aliens are explaining the difference of how they perceive time compared to Billy’s. To them, time exists in the fourth dimension meaning that if someone is dead, they are only dead at that certain time, not all times. Upon arrival at Tralfamadore, Billy was put in a zoo enclosure by the aliens. This was meant to be similar to the time that Billy spent in prison in Germany during the war. Billy was humiliated both in prison and in the zoo enclosure on Tralfamadore. This demonstrates how Vonnegut challenges the concept of reality by creating a story that incorporates a different planet and aliens that don’t exist in real