Analysis Of The Tralfamadorian Philosophy In Slaughterhouse Five

1671 Words4 Pages

Maddicyn Taylor
Mrs. Berry
AP English IV
26 January 2018 The Tralfamadorian Philosophy in Slaughterhouse-Five During the Second World War, Americans were sent into Germany to fight off nazism, and when they came back home, it was hard for them to transition back to normal life. Vonnegut, the author of Slaughterhouse-Five was one of those soldiers, and in his book he creates a character named Billy who was so affected by war that he claims that he was kidnapped by an alien race who call themselves the Tralfamadorians. Billy is affected by the Tralfamadorian views and to some extent loses his mind by rejecting free will, fantasizing death, escaping war, and dreaming of seeing all points in time at once like the …show more content…

He thinks about all that the Tralfamadorians have taught him, and now he doesn’t agree with war or any other type of large scale conflict. After witnessing the firebombing in Dresden, he believes that there must be a way to prevent actions such as this. War is inhumane, and no human should willingly want to be used as a puppet for the act of war.
In Slaughterhouse-Five, most of the characters are affected by the lack of free will and those that are not affected are often to be sadistic humans. Roland Weary, for example, believes that he is a tough fighter known for his torture techniques and ways of killing people. In reality, he was ditched by soldiers better than him, and he was forced to wander around a forest with Billy, so Weary often makes fun of him (Cox ℙ …show more content…

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Schatt, Stanley. “Stream of Consciousness in the Novel.” Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, Chelsea House, 2007, pp. 57–58.
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