Allusions In Slaughterhouse 5

A transport for expression and information, but conversely can convey the opposite. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. intended Slaughterhouse-Five to act as his semi-realistic commentary on his experiences in the Firebombing of Dresden; to blend fact and fiction seamlessly into a single publication. Though Vonnegut achieves this, he brings Slaughterhouse-Five to the point where the boundary between the two becomes fuzzy, and suffers a hit to his own credibility as a result, both in universe and in the real world. His allusions to events in the story, factual errors, and the conflicting rules of his own universe cast Vonnegut in a bad light.

Vonnegut provides allusions to other events within the book, as well as to other stories, removing the audience’s focus from the plot. During Vonnegut’s preface to the book in the first chapter, he mentions how he worked at the Chicago City News Bureau. On his first job, he mentions in passing that his reporter contact “was eating a Three Musketeers Candy Bar.” (Vonnegut 9) Designed for the audience to easily disregard, This small detail comes to the forefront when Roland Weary “[calls his group] ‘The Three Musketeers.’” (Vonnegut

Promptly after Valencia’s death, Rumfoord mentions “All [Billy] does in his sleep is quit and surrender and apologize and and ask to be left alone.” (Vonnegut 184) The author creates a reference to the second and third chapters where Billy, right after becoming unstuck in time, does each of these things in succession. The audience can presume that Billy is in some way “talking” in his sleep while in the hospital. A conflict arises though: if Billy experiences out-of-order time, then Billy can not be concurrently at two places at once. Moreover, no mention of Billy ‘traveling’ back to before they were captured. This suggests that the Universe may not have rules regarding Billy’s condition, and also provides another event to fault Vonnegut