The Use of Fragmentation in Slaughterhouse-Five

1478 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: What are the literary devices in slaughterhouse-five

The Use of Fragmentation in Slaughterhouse-Five

In the novel Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut uses

fragmentation of time, structure and character in order to unify

his non-linear narrative. Vonnegut's main character, Billy

Pilgrim, travels back and forth in his own life span "paying

random visits to all events in between" (SF 23). The result is

Billy's life is presented as a series of episodes without any

chronological obligations. This mirrors the structure of the

novel which has a beginning, middle and end but not in their

traditional places.

The first piece of information that is given about Billy is

that he has "come unstuck in time" (SF23). With this sentence

Vonnegut has turned time from the intangible to the tangible and

thus he is now able to use it to fit his own purposes. By using

the word "unstuck", Vonnegut implies that Billy has now become

free. Consequently, Vonnegut's narrative, as well as Billy, has

achieved a freedom of sorts. Vonnegut will not be tied down by

the conventions of time; now he will be able to place Billy in

any time frame he chooses. Vonnegut moves Billy rapidly,having

him experience a mere fragment of his life before whisking him

off again. This creates a collage effect in the novel, which is

made up of bits and pieces of Billy's life. By fragmenting

Billy's life like this, Vonnegut is able to bring the events that

comprise his life closer together. One minute Billy is marching

through a forest and the next he is waiting at a public pool for

his father to teach him how to swim. This co nstant fragmentation

of Billy's life serves, ironically, to unify Billy's character

for the reader. By going back and forth in Billy's life the

reader is able to see a whole picture of what Billy is actually

like instead of just one fragment of his personality.

Vonnegut also uses time fragmentation in order keep the

Dresden bombing fresh in the reader's mind.

Show More
Related

  • Catch-22, by Joseph Heller

    1368 Words  | 3 Pages

    Catch 22 is a story about the different personalities that can be involved in a war. Out of all the different archetypes, the three I’ve chosen are John Yossarian, Albert Tappman, and Milo Minderbinder, although, not in that order. The first character being analyzed is Yossarian, the unwilling hero of this book. Although the book labels Yossarian as the main character, he constantly tries to coward out of going to battle. The second character that will be described is Milo Minderbinder, the archetypical business person of Catch 22.He runs the camp mess hall and controls what everyone in the camp is buying, selling, and eating. Milo is constantly trying to control or manipulate the economies around him, and after he gets a large commission from Germany to bomb his own camp. This gets him in trouble with every economy he’s dealt with, and in order to “help the syndicate”, he has to give up all of his profit. The last character that will be discussed is Albert Tappman, the Chaplain, who is best known as the corrupted innocence. Although he is one of the main characters, Al is the most neglected and, the least noticed. He receives the most trouble from the other characters in the book such as the daily verbal abuse from Corporal Whitcomb, and the confusing conversations with Colonel Cathcart. By the end of the book, he also begins to question his own faith and starts bringing lies and violence into his life after the death of Nately. Every character has their own story, and by describing three of the most differential archetypes in the story, the main story is explained better.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Kurt Vonnegut's Novel 'Slaughterhouse-Five'

    754 Words  | 2 Pages

    Someone breaks something? So it goes. Somebody dies? So it goes. Throughout Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Slaughterhouse-five”, “so it goes” was stated 106 times expressing the general sense of acquiescence to the way things are. The author made that the catchphrase to show that bad things that occur should be accepted, because there is nothing that can be done to change it, bringing in the idea of fate. Vonnegut made very big examples of using “so it goes” with people that went through these types of events, the Tralfamadorians that the main character Billy Pilgrim encountered, and the story from the Gideon bible that was alluded to in the novel.

    Read More

  • Summary Of Kurt Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse-Five'

    1430 Words  | 3 Pages

    “How nice – to feel nothing, and still get full credit for being alive” (Vonnegut 50). In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut introduces the genuine danger war implements on the innocent minds of soldiers by introducing Billy Pilgrim as a prisoner and Dresden bombing survivor. Kurt Vonnegut’s anti-war novel appropriates around a science fiction theme where Billy Pilgrim becomes “unstuck” in time. This allows Billy to experience his life disorderly.

    Read More

  • Margaret Thatcher: Britain's First Female Prime Minister

    671 Words  | 2 Pages

    Margaret Hilda Thatcher was Britain’s first female Prime Minister, leading England for almost eleven years. Nicknamed “ The Iron Lady” associated with her inflexible politics and strong mind , she had created policies that are now know to be called “Thatcherism.”Born on October 13,1925 in Grantham, England, Margaret grew up in a conservative home into a family of grocers and was introduced to politics through her father who was a local businessman and a member of the town council. Margaret married Denis Thatcher in 1951 and a year later welcomed their twins Carol and Mark Thatcher .

    Read More

  • Time Unstuck: Coping Mechanisms in Slaughterhouse-Five

    1360 Words  | 3 Pages

    Imagine experiencing the events of your life in a random order. How would you view your life if it seemed more like a collection of moments rather than a story? In Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim is a chaplain’s assistant during World War II who claims to be "unstuck in time." Billy seemingly jumps from one moment in his life to the next without his control or consent. Billy also believes that aliens, known as Tralfamadorians, abducted him. These events may seem silly considering all of the serious and grim experiences that Billy faces in the war, but they are far from comical. Billy Pilgrim 's time travels and experiences on Tralfamadore are not real experiences, but rather coping mechanisms Billy has created.

    Read More

  • Catch-22

    1274 Words  | 3 Pages

    Catch-22 is perhaps Joseph Heller’s best known work. Catch-22, published in 1961, is a satire which depicts America’s counter-cultural antiwar attitudes. One terrifying aspect of Catch-22 is life and death is controlled not by the men in the squadron, but by the frightening bureaucracy which continually defies logic in order to achieve their own personal gains. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 is somewhat autobiographical; emphasizes the literary elements of characterization, conflict, and structure of a novel; and has received extensive and through criticism.

    Read More

  • Slaughterhouse Analysis

    1156 Words  | 3 Pages

    Greeley, Colorado is a meatpacking town. You can smell it even before you see it. The people living there are so used to the smell that they no longer can smell it. The hamburgers and any meat you eat from fast food restaurants come from small places like Greeley. It is an example of industrialization because they are the best paying manufacturing jobs. It is a modern day manufacturing factor.

    Read More

  • Utopia by Thomas More and The Prince by Machiavelli

    816 Words  | 2 Pages

    in this purpose is a key to Mach’s view of power. Because it was written for the use of one man

    Read More

  • Exploring the Multifaceted Impacts of Budgets

    824 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to Argyris (1953), “budgets frequently serve as a basis for rewarding and penalizing those in the organization” (Argyris, 1953, p. 97). Further, Argyris (1953) describes a budget as a measuring instrument, which sets goals which mean that people can be measured in this way (Argyris, 1953). People tend to have a problem with this and complain about this part of the budget as no one wants to seem as inefficient. For supervisors, budgets can be a way to put things in writing, and thus vent other unrelated issues (Argyris, 1953). Also, budgets can be considered to be pressure devices to keep employees on track and motivated, while also being pressured (Argyris, 1953).

    Read More

  • Catch 22 Language Analysis

    1596 Words  | 4 Pages

    The disillusionment with the novel Catch 22 has been caused by many factors, such as the completely unsentimental viewpoints of war as described by Heller, as well as a complete disregard of the romanticism of war that was popular during the time due to the heroics of World War II. Catch 22 is a novel heavily reliant on the experience Heller had from his time in the Air Force that presents a tale of war in an entirely new light. It was a highly controversial topic upon its publication, as critics either loved or hated the novel, mostly for the same or very similar reasons. Catch 22 presents a completely new vision of war, replacing ideas of well-known glories with a nightmare of paradox, bureaucracy and extreme violence (Parker-Anderson 1). Much of the glory was tainted by the extreme use of objectionable language throughout Catch 22, which created much conflict amongst teachers and high school board members as to whether the novel was an appropriate addition to school

    Read More

  • What Is Quantum Mechanics Essay

    887 Words  | 2 Pages

    Quantum Mechanics developed over many decades beginning as a set of controversial mathematical explanations of experiments that the math of classical mechanics could not explain. It began in the turn of the 20th century, a separate mathematical revolution in physics that describes the motion of things at high speeds. The origins of Quantum Mechanics cannot be credited to any one scientists. Multiple scientists contributed to a foundation of three revolutionary principles that gradually gained acceptance and experiment verification from 1900-1930 (Coolman). Quantum Mechanics is

    Read More

  • Budget Analysis

    1842 Words  | 4 Pages

    A company's budget serves as a guideline in planning and committing costs in order to meet tactical and strategic goals. Tactical goals such as providing budgetary costs for daily operations, and strategic objectives that include R&D, production, marketing, and distribution are all part of the budgeting process. Serving as a guideline rather than being set in stone, the budget is a snapshot of manager's "best thinking at the time it is prepared." (Marshall, 2003, p.496) The budget is a method in which to reign-in discretionary spending, and will likely show variances between what costs have been anticipated and what costs are actually incurred.

    Read More

  • Slaughterhouse-Five Themes

    499 Words  | 1 Pages

    “I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity” - Dwight D. Eisenhower. Kurt Vonnegut explains even when you don’t write about yourself, you will be writing about yourself. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut is semi-autobiographical novel that depicts the story of Billy Pilgrim and explores the theme of war, and expresses Kurt Vonnegut’s anti-war thoughts. Kurt Vonnegut’s real life experience led him to develop such horrible feelings about war and led him to write about this feeling.

    Read More

  • Abstract: Margaret Thatcher

    1553 Words  | 4 Pages

    In the 1930s, a teenage girl named Margaret began thinking seriously about becoming a chemist and decided to acquire the best possible training in this field. Instead of an ordinary university, her goal was Oxford. The headmistress of her grammar school, Miss Gillies, plainly disapproved her ambition for two reasons. First, the daughter of a local grocer like Margaret had better not try to push herself beyond her proper place in life. Second, five years of Latin was required to pass the entrance exam at Oxford but Margaret knew no Latin at all. Faced with these obstacles, Margaret simply shook her head, refusing to give up. In just a year, her Latin miraculously became well enough to pass the Oxford exam with a high mark.

    Read More

  • Budgeting Essay

    1953 Words  | 4 Pages

    Budgeting is a multi-phased process. For the overall budgeting procedure to be successful, each phase of the process must be executed in the proper manner. Therefore, stringent administrative controls are imperative in the process. If a budget is prepared but no follow-up assessments and evaluations are carried out to establish effectiveness of its implementation, the whole process may go awry and negate the entire purpose of putting the budget in place (Cogan, Timothy, & Allen, 1994). Various types of controls are necessary for a budget to achieve its objectives; these include preventive controls, variance analyses, feedback controls, and internal controls. All these controls must be factored in for the administration and execution of the budget to be effective. Proficient personnel who can identify and mitigate sources of variances in the budget execution process are needed to oversee the process. Allowing the formulated budget to run itself would plunge an organization into a budget crisis. To prevent any such crisis from arising, this paper will look into the features of budget administration/execution that make an organizational budget successful (Lee & Ronald, 1998).

    Read More

More about The Use of Fragmentation in Slaughterhouse-Five

Open Document