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Violence In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter-House Five

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During World War Two, the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, lasted two days, and killed 135,000 people. Billy Pilgrim survives this tragedy, and lives to tell the tale. In the novel Slaughter-house Five, Kurt Vonnegut utilizes the worst firebombing in war history to illustrate how violence can take a dramatic toll on someone that is irreversible and life-changing, often to the point of mental illness. Vonnegut writes that it is “a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet tralfamadore.” The main character Billy Pilgrim, who shows signs of schizophrenia, is able to demonstrate how the fire bombing affected Billy’s state of mind. He pursues his illusions by even going on radio talk shows. “Billy insisted mildly …show more content…

Billy is at most satisfied of his marriage to Valencia, and he suffers from an immense amount of close people to him dying horrible, unseen deaths. “Billy didn’t want to marry ugly Valencia. He was on of the symptoms of his disease,” (Vonnegut, 107). Vonnegut describes Valencia as “ugly “ and as “big as a house,” proving the point that Billy is unhappy with their marriage, as well as his own life. Billy’s father dies from a hunting accident- “shot dead by a friends while they were out hunting deer, (Vonnegut, 32). His mother makes him feel cowardly, in the way that she gave him the most precious gift, the gift of life. He is ashamed because he flat out doesn’t want it, and doesn’t appreciate it. When she comes to visit Billy in the hospital, he keeps his head covered while she is there. “She upset Billy simply by being his mother. She made him feel embarrassed and ungrateful and weak because she had gone through so much trouble to give him life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didn’t really like life at all” (Vonnegut, 102). After the war, he was not seeing life as something he was interested in pursuing. Living through any type of violence can change a character for the worst. Billy Pilgrim has witnessed the firebombing of Dresden, which was worse than Hiroshima. Vonnegut utilizes this experience of Billy’s to prove how such an act of violence can alter a person’s

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He brings his experience from the bombing of Dresden and recalls his encounters during the tragedy. Through the subject of Billy, he describes the aftermath of man’s destructive power through the bombing, “It looked like Dresden after it was fire-bombed-like the surface of the moon” (). From this quote, he paints a true sight of war where nothing is left but dust. He relates this event to emphasize the fact that war is a place of sadness and despair and from Billy’s viewpoint he observes the hurtfulness and all the destructiveness of the world when the city of Dresden gets

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after the bombs fell on dresden billy frequently compared the destroyed city to the moon like in this quote when he said,”Nobody talked much as the expedition crossed the moon. There was nothing appropriate to say. One thing was clear: Absolutely everybody in the city was supposed to be dead, regardless of what they were, and that anybody that moved in it represented a flaw in the design. There were to be no moon men at all” (8.26.2). this quote really brings up the devastation and destruction part of war.

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Title: Slaughterhouse-Five Author: Kurt Vonnegut Thesis: Throughout KVs SF, he describes in matter of fact way the psychological impact/effects of the devastation of war and death upon Billy Pilgrim and how he handles it. Through the exploration of Billy Pilgrim’s detached and indifferent thoughts, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five illustrates the coping mechanisms of a World War II veteran with post traumatic stress disorder.

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It brings the reader's into a world of war and death and makes it normal; Many people see death as a bad thing, if they read this book they would be able to see how uncontrollable it is. Vonnegut writes billy as a very quiet, shy person who experiences about as much death as he had in his lifetime. Death and war are both things that no one can control, death happens to everyone one way or another and it’s how you see death that determines how you react to it. In the war Vonnegut and Billy both experience tremendous amounts of lose in such a little amount of time and when you experience that you are no longer in a state of mind where you feel as though death is unnatural and a horrible thing. they simply know what they can’t control and say this “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference.”

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Vonnegut wanted to “try to write my war story, whether it was interesting or not, and try to make something out of it.” Vonnegut wanted to make a significant point across about the horrors of the war stating several times he is currently writing an anti war novel(******). The main character Billy is broken from the war, which is clearly stated in (*******). Showing what Vonnegut went through through Billy described the Dresden bombing as the worst bombing and experience that any prisoner of war had

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First, the setting of this story takes place in the past, present, and the future. The central point of this story; however, is in a city of Germany called Dresden. On the night of February 13, 1945, Allied bombers dropped incendiary bombs on Dresden, creating a firestorm that destroyed the city (Source Cox, F. Brett). Billy, the main character, describes his experience before, during, and after these bombings took place. From the wondrous moments of scouring Dresden, to being captured alive by

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