Slaughterhouse Five Critique

Slaughterhouse Five was written by Kurt Vonnegut. This book is the result of Vonnegut’s efforts to write a book that accounts for his experiences in World War II. In this fictional novel all the recounted war stories, except the time travel, are Vonnegut’s personal war experiences of his combat in Europe. But the book is not about Kurt Vonnegut. Slaughterhouse Five is a story fowling a young to old Billy Pilgrim, but not necessary in that order. Billy is a subject of alien experimentation who now has contact to a higher level of knowledge than the rest of the human race. Or he is a man with a broken brain full of false memories and no grasp on the real world. His accounts of alien planets and time travel are the mystical and mysterious part

of the plot. However, an underlying story of World War II remains. Vonnegut’s position on the war is made clear in the first chapter, but some parts of the book will make the reader reconsider this stance the Vonnegut takes on it being an anti war book. So even though Vonnegut considered it to be anti war, the fact that he doesn't criticise the basic concept of war is argument enough to claim that Slaughterhouse Five has a pro war message.
Hypothetically speaking, the message that a book gives can differ from the author's perspective, to the readers. When an author has a message to give using their book as the messenger, the message is usually is very clearly given and received by the reader just as the author intended it to. In the very first chapter Vonnegut clearly states that the book that he is writing about World War II is an anti war book in this conversation with Mary O’Hare, the wife of one of Vonnegut’s war buddies:
'You'll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you'll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs.' So then I understood. It was war that made her so angry. She didn't want her babies or anybody else's babies killed in wars. And she thought wars were partly encouraged by books and movies. So I held up my right hand and I made her a promise 'Mary,' I said, 'I don't think this book is ever going to be finished. I must have written five thousand pages by now, and thrown them all away. If I ever do finish it, though, I give you my word of honor: there won't be a part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne. 'I tell you what,' I said, 'I'll call it The Children's Crusade.' (Vonnegut 14)
This conversation with Mary O’Hare, whom the book is dedicated to, shows that he intended to not let his novel glorify war in any way.

This is proof that the message that Vonnegut’s intended message for the book was to show that was grizzly, fought by babies, and not glorious like shown in much of the media that was produced about the war those days.

Another piece of evidence that Slaughterhouse Five has an anti war message, rather than a pro war one is the way that Kurt Vonnegut describes how World War II was fought and describes the lives of the soldiers on the front line of combat. He describes how the soldiers didn’t even have proper fighting equipment:

When Billy joined the regiment, it was in the process of being destroyed by the Germans in the famous Battle of the Bulge. Billy never even got to meet the chaplain he was supposed to assist, was never even issued a steel helmet and combat boots. This was in December of 1944, during the last mighty German attack of the war. Billy survived, but he was a dazed wanderer far behind the new German lines. Three other wanderers, not quite so dazed, allowed Billy to tag along. Two of them were scouts, and one was an antitank gunner. They were without food or maps. Avoiding Germans they were delivering themselves into rural silences ever more profound. They ate snow. (Vonnegut

32)
They didn’t even have food, Billy didn't even have boots. These soldiers were not in any way gloriously fighting for their country. They were are sad little group of ragged soldiers who didn't even really know where they were going. They were lost. The description of Billy’s World War II experience is unpleasant at best and absolutely horrific at worst. This is good proof that Slaughterhouse Five is an anti war book. Especially in comparison with the macho and glorious films and books that were being made about the war at the same time as Slaughterhouse Five , these pieces of media made war seem like a brave and heroic quest, while Billy Pilgrim’s involvement in World War II was depicted as meek and pitiful, witch is good cause for the reader to consider Slaughterhouse Five as an anti war book.
The concept of “anti war” is used in Slaughterhouse Five through means of showing that the sliders weren't well prepared or equipped.

THat they didn't have what they needed to fight a good war. But that gives the impression that there is a good kind of war. War is war, and the way Vonnegut writes this book, give the impression that war would, or could be good and just with the certain parameters and requirements. To be an anti war book, Vonnegut would have to be more focused on talking about how the concept of war is bogus, and should not be engaged in, no matter the circumstances. This is a short but extremely valid argument that almost discredits all previous arguments for Slaughterhouse Five being an anti war book. The fact that is doesn't discourage the act of war itself makes it a pro war

book.
The book: Slaughterhouse Five has both pro war and anti war themes amongst its pages, but the pro war outweigh the anti war. However, one may find that the stance on war in the book doesn't matter much to the story. For the question of Billy's credibility and the story of his amazing journeys are the more interesting and wonderful focal points of the book.