slaughterhouse 5 essays

slaughterhouse 5 essays Kurt Vonnegut attempted to write an anti-war novel after his old war buddy, Bernard O Hares wife, Mary, clearly expressed how disgusted she was with war novels because they glorified something that she thought of as repulsive. Vonnegut undoubtedly has written Slaughterhouse Five as an anti-war novel. He uses the books plot structure, time, and irony to convey a message of antipathy towards war in general and especially to World War Two, in which he fought. Slaughterhouse Five arbitrarily switches from childhood to adulthood. This shows how Billy Pilgrim was incapable of living his life like a normal person. His time in war has scarred him psychologically for the rest of his life. The reader gets tired of being unable to comprehend what is going on, and is forced to imagine what is happening to Billy. Most novels start with childhood and logically proceed to old age, with a few flashbacks. But, in this novel, the protagonist adopts the outlook on life, which aliens who supposedly kidnapped him have. This is the only way he can figure out the unfastened grasp he has on time. This is a result of the war. A bug trapped in amber is used continuously throughout the book as a representation of how all time is trapped in moments that one can revisit these memories anytime he pleases. Vonnegut tries to explain that life is an endless cycle of beginning and endings. So why do human beings always dote on the bad things such as death, divorce, and war? Every time someone dies, another person is born. Every time two people get divorced, two more people are stating their vows to each other. Every time there war, a period of peace and prosperity follows. Whenever Billy Pilgrim is faced with a bad situation in the story, he travels in time, basically ignoring the present situation. This way he lives in the past and the future, in other words, a state of denial. Vonnegut offered a s ...