Conflict In Slaughterhouse Five

727 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: A long reflection about Adam and Eve

In the anti-war novel Slaughterhouse five, we follow Billy Pilgrim in his travel through time. Slaughterhouse five is narrated in the style of the Christian Bible where we have the creation, the man’s fall, the crucifixion and the resurrection. Kurt Vonnegut addresses the issues of war and its destructiveness through the use biblical stories such as Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden and the pillar of salt in order to find meaning to his and Billy Pilgrim’s life. One of the first biblical stories used by Vonnegut is the story of Lot’s wife, which is mentioned in the Genesis and the New Testament. She is forced to leave the town of Sodom with her family after being threatened by the townspeople. Lot’s wife ignores the Angel’s demands to leave …show more content…

In chapter three, a German corporal wearing a pair of golden cavalry boots claims that “if you look in there deeply enough, you’ll see Adam and Eve”. As Billy Pilgrim is waiting he “stared into the patina of the corporal’s boots, saw Adam and Eve in the golden depths, they were naked. They were so innocent, so vulnerable, so eager to behave decently” (p.67-68). By creating this moment, Vonnegut shows the reader that even if the normal linear time frame of a novel should push the characters to evolve, Billy’s nonlinear time frame that he seems to have, is looking backwards to Adam and Eve hence letting the reader understand his eagerness in pursuing innocence and the idea of an orderly world where people want “to behave decently”. It represents his deepest wish at this point in time, as well as comprehending that men like Billy Pilgrim and Corporal Campbell are not at peace in their mind because they are always after knowledge and perpetually try to learn more. This relates once again to Adam and Eve that have lost peace and the Garden of Eden because of the similar thirst of knowledge. We can start to understand that his ‘jumps in time’ are Billy’s way to escape a hard and cold reality that he is not capable of facing mentally or physically at such young …show more content…

Billy Pilgrim escapes to his own Eden, Tralfamadore in order to overcome the problems he is facing. Vonnegut shows that Billy uses religion as a way to protect himself from society and the dangers science created along with the fatalist society he lives in. By creating new religions and using biblical stories, based on societal values to find meaning in his life. Vonnegut tries to share his fear of mankind destruction by using myths for the reader to grasp that if people keep following the current set of rules established by society like Billy, it will bring them to their downfall, which is shown by his state of mind. We can observe that he uses biblical stories and religion in order to guide people as well as making a satire of the present world, which seems to be mainly based on science. Furthermore, Vonnegut chooses to make Billy appear as he did, in order for the reader to sympathize with him and really understand the impact war had on him, both during where we can see that he escapes through his ‘time traveling’ and after when he is physically hurt and also treated very poorly by his family who think he has a mental

Show More
Related

  • Reality And Fictionism In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five

    762 Words  | 2 Pages

    Slaughterhouse-Five is a story of Billy Pilgrim 's capture by the Nazi Germans during the last years of World War II. Throughout the narrative, excerpts of Billy’s life are portrayed from his pre-war self to his post-war insanity. Billy is able to move both forward and backwards through his life in a random cycle of events. Living the dull life of a 1950s optometrist in Ilium, New York, he is the lover of a provocative woman on the planet Tralfamadore, and simultaneously an American prisoner of war in Nazi Germany. While I agree with Christopher Lehmann-Haupt that Slaughterhouse-Five effectively combines fact and fiction, I argue that the book is more centralized around coping.

    Read More

  • Billy Pilgrim Character Analysis

    639 Words  | 2 Pages

    Though he was able to escape war unharmed, Billy seems to be mentally unstable. In fact, his nightmares in the German boxcar at the prisoners of war (POW) camp indicate that he is experiencing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): “And now there was an acrimonious madrigal, with parts sung in all quarters of the car. Nearly everybody, seemingly, had an atrocity story of something Billy Pilgrim had done to him in his sleep. Everybody told Billy Pilgrim to keep the hell away” (79). Billy’s PTSD is also previously hinted when he panics at the sound of sirens: “A siren went off, scared the hell out of him. He was expecting World War III at any time. The siren was simply announcing high noon” (57). The most prominent symptom of PTSD, however, is reliving disturbing past experiences which is done to an even more extreme extent with Billy as Slaughterhouse-Five’s chronology itself correlates with this symptom. Billy’s “abduction” and conformity to Tralfamadorian beliefs seem to be his method of managing his insecurity and PTSD. He uses the Tralfamadorian motto “so it goes” as a coping mechanism each time he relives a tragic event. As Billy struggles with the conflict of PTSD, the work’s chronological order is altered, he starts to believe

    Read More

  • Slaughterhouse-Five and the Psychological Consequences of War

    1382 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five the main character Billy Pilgrim experiences few emotions during his time in World War II. His responses to people and events lack intensity or passion. Throughout the novel Billy describes his time travel to different moments in his life, including his experience with the creatures of Tralfamadore and the bombing of Dresden. He wishes to die during most of the novel and is unable to connect with almost anyone on Earth. The fictional planet Tralfamadore appears to be Billy’s only way of escaping the horrors of war, and acts as coping mechanism. Billy seems to be a soldier with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), as he struggles to express feelings and live in his reality. At the beginning of the novel the narrator proposes his reason for writing the book is to explain what happened in the Dresden fire bombing, yet he focuses on Billy’s psyche more than the bombing itself. PTSD prevents Billy from living a healthy life, which shows readers that the war does not stop after the fighting is over and the aftermath is ongoing. Billy Pilgrim’s story portrays the bombing and war in a negative light to readers, as Vonnegut shows the damaging effects of war on an individual, such as misperception of time, disconnect from peers, and inability to feel strong emotions, to overall create a stronger message.

    Read More

  • Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five as an Antiwar Novel

    2286 Words  | 5 Pages

    When Vonnegut created Billy Pilgrim, he made Billy subject to the experience of the war. In fact, Billy experiences it almost. exactly the same as Vonnegut himself had, including the experiences of being a POW and in the firebombing of Dresden. The. But in Billy's case, Vonnegut writes it with.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five

    1221 Words  | 3 Pages

    War novels often depict a war hero facing off against an enemy, with a winner on the other side. However, Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse Five takes an opposite approach to the telling of a war story. The narrator uses the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, to display his own anti-war sentiment. Vonnegut’s style of writing as well as his characters help to portray the effect of war on individuals and society as a whole.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Slaughterhouse-Five Antiwar Sentiments

    776 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ities from WWII in his experiences at Dresden. Vonnegut’s writing is unique because “the narrator offers a very different kind of war story—one which combines fact and fiction” (Jarvis 98). With the combination of fact and fiction, Vonnegut successfully connected events from WWII to the political references and societal conflicts during the Vietnam War.

    Read More

  • Repetition In Slaughterhouse Five Essay

    521 Words  | 2 Pages

    Slaughterhouse Five, written by Kurt Vonnegut is an anti war novel told by the narrator who is a minor character in the story. Slaughterhouse-Five is the story of Billy Pil­grim, a man who has come "unstuck in time. "The bombing of Dresden is what destroyed Billy. Dresden’s destruction shows the destruction of people who fought in the war: the all the people who died. Some people, like the main character, Billy Pilgrim, are not able to function normally like before because of what they saw, because of their experience. Throughout the book, Billy starts hallucinating about his experiences with the Tralfamadorians: he wants to escape the world which was destroyed by war, a war that he does not and cannot understand. Vonnegut uses the technique of repetition.. The main repetition is “so it goes” which is told after anything related to death, he also uses other repetitions throughout the book. The major theme of the story is the Destructiveness of War. Vonnegut uses repetition to reinforce the theme of the story.

    Read More

  • Influence of Early Lifa and War on Kurt Vonnegut Jr. to Encourage a Generation Against War

    2256 Words  | 5 Pages

    Offit, Sidney, ed. Kurt Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1950-1962. New York City: Library of America, 2012. Print.

    Read More

  • Free Will In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five

    1845 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the novel Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, he talks about World War II and the bombing of Dresden. He writes about this historical event through the character Billy Pilgrim, Billy is drafted into the army at age twenty-one during World War II. He is captured and sent to Luxembourg and then later Dresden as a prisoner. Throughout the novel, Vonnegut constantly ridiculous Billy. He describes Billy as a character that has no individualism and no choice in anything that happens in his life.

    Read More

  • Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five

    560 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kurt Vonnegut’s anti-war science fiction novel entitled, Slaughter House Five otherwise known as “The Children’s Crusade” or “A Duty Dance with Death,” is a classic example of Vonnegut’s eccentric and moving writing capabilities.Originally published in 1969, Slaughterhouse-Five pays tribute to Vonnegut’s experiences in World War Two, as an advanced scout in the 106th infantry division, a prisoner of war and witness to the firebombing of Dresden on February 13th, 1945 in which 135,000 people were killed, making it the greatest man-caused massacre of all times.This novel illustrates the cruelties and violence of war along with the potential for compassion in human nature and all that it encompasses.

    Read More

  • Kurt Vonnegut and Slaughter House Five

    977 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kurt Vonnegut is one of the favorite dark humorists of the past century. Combining humor and poignancy, he has become one of the most respected authors of his generation. For twenty years, Kurt Vonnegut worked on writing his most famous novel ever: Slaughter House Five. The novelist was called "A laughing prophet of doom" by the New York Times, and his novel "a cause for celebration" by the Chicago Sun-Times. However, Vonnegut himself thought it was a failure. He said that, just as Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back, so his book is nothing but a pillar of salt. Kurt Vonnegut tied in personal beliefs, characters, and settings from his life into the novel Slaughter House Five.

    Read More

  • War and Heroism in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five

    780 Words  | 2 Pages

    What is war? Is war a place to kill? Or is it a place where something more than just killing happens? War, as defined by the Merriam Webster is “a state or period of usually open and declared fighting between states or nations.” War, can also be viewed with romantic ideals where heroes and legends are born. Even the most intelligent of us hold some rather naïve notions of war. Upon reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, intelligent readers have been divested of any romantic notions regarding war they may have harboured.

    Read More

  • Post-War Trauma and Science Fiction in Slaughterhouse-Five

    1207 Words  | 3 Pages

    Eliot Rosewater is the first to introduce Billy to science fiction through the novels lent to him during their time together at the veteran’s hospital. Billy instantly became fascinated with science fiction and the author Kilgore Trout. Rosewater tells Billy his theory on how, “guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren 't going to want to go on living '" (Vonnegut 101). Their unnerving experiences in war would cause them to fabricate something to distract their minds from what they have endured. Kilgore Trout, an unsuccessful science fiction author imagines new and different ways of the world’s proceedings. Billy is fond of Trout’s outlook because it brings him comfort from the disappointing reality of the war. Trout is a wild writer of obscure imaginative science fiction, who writes to reinvent the universe to fit a new set rules, something new and unexpected. Some of the works of Kilgore Trout resemble very closely to what Billy is going through, in terms of the Tralfamadorians and use of the fourth dimension, they can be compared to the place most people who suffer from PTSD go to in their mind in order to escape reality. Trout’s novels that simulate components of Billy’s life are: The Big Board where two humans come in contact with extraterrestrials,

    Read More

  • Why Is Billy Pilgrim Insane

    1051 Words  | 3 Pages

    “Slaughterhouse-Five” is an anti-war novel. It describes a flesh-and-blood world. Main character is Billy Pilgrim, he is a time traveler in this book, his first name Billy is from the greatest novelist in the USA in 19 century’s novel “Billy Budd” ; and his last name is from “The Pilgrim’s Progress” by John Bunyan. Differently, the main character in “The Pilgrim’s Progress” ’s traveling has meaning and discovering, Billy Pilgrim’s traveling just has violence and escape. In the novel “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut ’s main character, Billy Pilgrim is sane and his time travel is half in his mind half is real. He is looked so innocent and weakness, there is a sentence which is spoken by Billy Pilgrim “So it goes.” (2) This quotation shows that a poignant sense of helplessness.

    Read More

  • Imagery In Slaughterhouse-Five

    1027 Words  | 3 Pages

    To show the importance of exercising free will, Vonnegut first employs descriptive imagery. In the scene where Billy is taken aboard the spaceship, the Tralfamadorians ask if Billy has any questions. To this, “Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: ‘Why me?’” (97). Most people would be panicking if they were abducted by aliens, yet Billy’s calm demeanor suggests that he is very unconcerned with his situation and accepts the abduction as his fate. Vonnegut ridicules Billy’s apathetic perspective on life by showing how his unwillingness to change his situation leads to his isolation and senseless lifestyle. To answer Billy’s question, the Tralfamadorians ask him whether he has ever seen bugs trapped in amber. Billy responds yes: “Billy in fact, had a paperweight in his office, which was a blob of

    Read More

More about Conflict In Slaughterhouse Five

Open Document