Compare And Contrast Slaughterhouse Five By Kurt Vonnegut

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Many plays or novels use two contrasting locations that contrast one another to represent the overall meaning of the work. On example of this would be the novel Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. This novel is an antiwar novel that uses the ideas of calm, serene life to contrast with the chaotic, violent life of World War II to show the destructiveness of war. Billy Pilgrim is a private who has visions that shift from the destruction of war to the structure of peace in society.as Billy witnesses the firebombing of Dresden in Dresden Germany to his peaceful life as an optometrist in Ilium, New York. Other arguments formed by the novel Slaughterhouse-five are “is life free-will or fate” and “what and how does confinement affect ones life.” …show more content…

“The Germans carried the corpse out…. Pilgrim could not sleep on his daughter’s wedding night” (69-72). The connotation death that occurs on page 69 completely opposes the connotation of Pilgrims daughter getting married on page 72. Pilgrims daughter getting married has a positive connotation of building and happiness. The marriages’ connotation derives from the building of a family and start of a new life for two people. The death of the man that pilgrim had met has a negative connotation of destruction and mourning. The destruction of the life is the negative connotation of the death. The positive connotation of the marriage helps allow the destruction and death to show through and be more …show more content…

"They had nine languages between them. They tried Polish on Billy Pilgrim first, since he was dressed so clownishly, since the wretched Poles were involuntary clowns of the Second World War"(196-197). This discrimination in the previous quote shows that views become very opinionated and derogatory against the customs of others. The hatred between each culture that is forced to exist in a state of war is what drives the state of racism that occurs. The Poles were seen as the ones who were helpless and poor, so when someone was seen wearing rags or mismatching clothes, they were assumed to be polish as is exemplified when Pilgrim is asked about the horses on pages 196-197. Germans were seen as a country full of tyrannical human beings that only cared for themselves because of how they treated other nations and cultures such as the Poles. Back to the quote in the second paragraph on page 56, the patient that Pilgrim is helping does not have any aggression or racism towards pilgrim in the exam room as he fell asleep because she was not exposed to the negative effects of war. She shows no hatred toward anyone as it was shown on page

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