More handpicked essays just for you.
Academic critical analysis of slaughterhouse 5
Critical review of slaughterhouse 5
Slaughterhouse five perspectives
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Historically, people have always explored the concept of time and free will, and how it relates to humans. Writers further their plots and develop their characters by exploring the constraints of free will and time. Throughout Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut ponders individual freedom within his own life and his protagonist’s life. Vonnegut uses a complex narrative structure to emphasize his belief that individuals are free to make decisions, but their decisions cannot change the inevitability of certain events and the overall lack of control they have over their lives.
Vonnegut uses various time jumps in order to emphasize his belief that individuals are free to make decisions, but their decisions do not affect the lack of
…show more content…
control they have over their lives. Billy Pilgrim’s first experience of time jumping occurs when he “had stopped in the forest. He was leaning against a tree with his eyes closed. His head was tilted back and his nostrils were flaring… This was when Billy first came unstuck in time. His attention began to swing grandly through the full arc of his life, passing into death, which was violet light. There wasn't anybody else there, or anything” (Vonnegut 43). For the first time, Billy faces his own death. While standing in the forest, he experiences his life move from birth to death all before his eyes. His choice to stand alone in a forest did not matter as it was his fate to experience this time jump and begin a full understanding of his life. Vonnegut’s use of violet light is also very important to Billy’s understanding. The color violet relates to the third eye ‘Chakra’ and extraordinary perceptions. Billy’s understanding of death and life is beyond ordinary and helps him understand the predetermination of certain events. When the Germans capture him, Billy “traveled in time, opened his eyes… Billy had fallen asleep while examining a female patient who was in a chair on the other side of the [optometer]” (Vonnegut 56). Billy closes his eyes and “when he opened them, he was back in World War Two again” (Vonnegut 58). After a German photographer humiliates him, “Germany dropped away… [and] Billy was on his way to a Lions Club luncheon meeting” (Vonnegut 58). The unpredictability of this timing confuses Billy as the events have no correlation. His time jumps backwards and forwards do not follow any order because time is not linear. This explores the concept that each time jump leaves him in a completely different condition. He has no choice of where he will end up, but he must accept it. Vonnegut's choice to state that “Billy had fallen asleep” helps demonstrate the lack of control he has over his own life as he would not intentionally fall asleep while working with a patient. Also, Billy jumps time when he closed and opened his eyes to show how it occurs in the blink of an eye without any control. Literary critic James Lundquist states that Vonnegut’s outline of Billy Pilgrim’s life helps “build irony and to bring out the sudden and often absurdly sad changes in Billy’s life that makes his time-tripping largely a survival reaction” (Lundquist 50). The ridiculous events that make Billy Pilgrim's life so overwhelmingly sad were, are, and always will be predetermined. Vonnegut briefly describes Billy’s entire life, the good and the bad, in order to show the apparent sadness and humanness that Billy deals with through his life. Naturally, it makes sense, according to Lundquist, that Billy’s time-trips(or jumps) are a mechanism to rationalize the illogical happenings that encapsulates Billy’s innocent and unfortunate life. Vonnegut’s use of time time trips emphasizes his belief that individuals are free to make decisions, but their decisions cannot change the lack of control they have over certain events in their lives. In addition to the use of time jumps, Vonnegut’s use of repetition emphasizes his belief that individuals are free to make decisions, but their choices cannot alter the predetermination of particular events and the overall lack of control they have over their lives. Prior to telling Billy Pilgrim’s story, Vonnegut explains his reasoning for Slaughterhouse-Five which includes the description of many deaths. Vonnegut speaks of his taxi cab driver’s mother, who Vonnegut never met, who was “incinerated in the Dresden firestorm. So it goes” (Vonnegut 2). While Vonnegut never knew this woman, he points toward the idea of an inevitability of death. He describes her death simply without any emotional connection as the diction of incineration makes it clear that there is nothing left of her. This general apathy towards death is consistent throughout the book and shows Vonnegut’s belief of accepting events that are unchangeable. While death was common in Vonnegut’s life, it was similarly present in Billy’s life especially as his father “died in a hunting accident during the war.
So it goes” (Vonnegut 24). The repetition of “so it goes” continues with the brief description of Billy’s father’s death. There is a significant irony as the war is the most deadly event during this time, yet the father dies while hunting, a sport where he inflicts death upon others. Regardless of if the death occurs in his own life or his character’s life, Vonnegut shows the same emotional indifference or resignation. While Vonnegut uses the phrase syntactically as repetition, it stands as a motif that helps develop a major aspect of the narrative structure. In a 1977 interview with The Paris Review, Vonnegut describes the gruesome task of going “into basements and shelters to get the corpses out… an ordinary basement usually, looked like a streetcar full of people who'd simultaneously had heart failure. Just people sitting there in their chairs, all dead… We brought the dead out” (Vonnegut 80–81). Similar to Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut has very gruesome experiences with death. While both were lucky survivors, they still have traumatic memories that impact their life. Vonnegut’s description of the horrors he dealt with first hand help explain his overall indifference to death within his own life and his character’s life. Vonnegut’s use of repetition emphasizes his belief that individuals are free to make decisions, but their choices cannot alter the predetermination of particular events and the overall lack of control they have over their
lives. In conjunction with consistent repetition, Vonnegut uses chaotic chronological concepts in order to emphasize his belief that individuals make decisions for themselves, but their decisions cannot change the inevitability of specific events and the complete lack of control they have surrounding their lives. At any point or moment of Billy’s life, he might time jump without any control. Even when Billy “has gone to sleep a senile widower and awakened on his wedding day. He has walked through a door in 1955 and come out another one in 1941. He has gone back through that door to find himself in 1963. He has seen his birth and death many times, he says, and pays random visits to all the events in between” (Vonnegut 23). While Billy may time jump when awake, he may also time jump when asleep, which shows that his experience of time happens in multiple ways. This idea of him living a non-chronological time span helps expand the story’s narrative structure. Also, this presents the idea that while 1955, 1941, and 1963 are completely different points in Billy’s life, they are all connected as he walks “through that door” to each event. The implication of all time existing simultaneously at different points is crucial as Billy moves from his senility to his wedding(a time of vitality in his life). Billy can neither choose where he travels to or when he travels. The randomness of his visits to fixed moments shows that, regardless of his decisions, he will eventually visit the entirety of his life. When the Tralfamadorians explain the ultimate fate of the universe, they tell Billy that it is one of their one pilots who presses a button that destroys the universe. According to the Tralfamadorians, "He has always pressed it, and he always will. We always let him and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way" (Vonnegut 117). The idea of letting someone destroy the universe they inhabit seems vastly unethical when discussing the idea of free will. However, in the eyes of the Tralfamadorians, time will always have it this way. The Tralfamadorians ignore the repercussions that will evidently arise from their actions(or lack of actions) because the universe’s destruction occurs in the past and the eventual future. Since the Tralfamadorians seemingly understand this idea, the predestination of time leads them to have a learned resignation over events that are out of their hands regardless of how involved they are. The use of passive voice when describing how the “moment is structured” shows the detachment and from the situation and the lack of control. The use of parallelism emphasizes the concept of the pilot always pressing the button regardless of the moment existing in the past, present, or future. This eventually relates to Vonnegut’s own story throughout the book as he comes to accept the futility of trying to stop war as there will always be war because there has always been war. According to literary critics Robert Merrill and Peter Scholl, the use of Vonnegut’s chaotic chronological concepts emphasizes “that the Billy Pilgrims of the world are better off saying everything is beautiful and nothing hurts, for they truly cannot change the past, the present or the future. All they can do is survive” (Merrill and Scholl 59). Billy Pilgrim becomes more and more complacent of his unfortunate life situation, and begins to accept his existence for what it is rather than trying to improve it. Scholl and Merrill recognize the futility of someone in Billy’s situation trying fix their destiny. Rather than trying to rationalize how terrible the past, present, and future is for Billy, he can merely move through each moment without any feeling and hopefully survive what presents itself in his life. Vonnegut’s use of chaotic chronological concepts emphasizes his belief that individuals can decide for themselves, but their decisions cannot change the inevitability of specific events and the complete lack of control they have surrounding their lives. Vonnegut uses a complex narrative structure to emphasize his belief that individuals are free to make decisions, but their decisions cannot change the inevitability of certain events and the overall lack of control they have over their lives. Kurt Vonnegut explores individual freedom within Billy Pilgrim’s life and his own life throughout Slaughterhouse-Five. Like Vonnegut, many authors develop their plots and enrich their characters by pondering the constraints of free will and time. While the concept of time heavily influences a lot of authors, it has been interesting humans, in general, for a long time.
This is said after every death, no matter who it is or what happened. "When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in the particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is 'So it goes, '" (Vonnegut 27). Even Pilgrim’s own father past from a hunting accident, but Pilgrim states “so it goes” afterwards. Pilgrim nullifies the effects and sorrow of death by making it seem like a regular occurrence and feeling no remorse for it any longer. This helps him cope due to the fact that there were so many deaths that happened in the bombing of Dresden and making it seem, to him, not bad at all. If death still had an effect on Pilgrim, he’d be in tremendous pain due to his war experience. He was caught behind enemy lines, became a POW, saw his friend get executed for stealing a tea-pot, survived the severe bombing of Dresden, and after all this trauma, he is supposed to go back to his normal life of an average American working 9-5 and supporting a family of 4. No I don’t think that it is quite possible, which is why Pilgrim goes to such extreme measures to cope with his
Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-five (1969) has been acclaimed by scholars for decades specifically for Vonnegut’s iconic, albeit unusual use of voice, cohesion, and rhythm. In Slaughterhouse-five Vonnegut uses a very unique voice that has come to define most of Vonnegut’s work, specifically his use of dark humor, meta-fiction, informality, disassociation; and the famous line, “So it goes” that appears 106 times in the novel. Vonnegut’s cohesion, or more accurately lack thereof, is unique to Slaughterhouse-five as the story is told in a nonlinear order that uses various flashbacks, time travel, and “sticking” in and out of time and space to tell the tale of the main character
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
“Free will is the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion” (Dictionary.com). The novel Slaughterhouse five portrays the idea of not having free will. The award winning author, Kurt Vonnegut, tells
Kurt Vonnegut's manipulation of time and place adds a science- fiction element to Slaughterhouse-Five. Structarally, the novel is far from traditional.
Vonnegut's writing style throughout the novel is very flip, light, and sarcastic. The narrator's observations and the events occurring during the novel reflect a dark view of humanity which can only be mocked by humor. At the beginning of the novel the narrator is researching for a book he is writing. The book was to be about the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and the lives of the people who created the bomb. The narrator travels through the plot of the story, with characters flying in and out, in almost a daze. He is involved in events which are helplessly beyond his control, but which are inevitably leading to a destination at the end.
One can only imagine the intense emotional scarring that one would suffer after exiting an underground shelter with a dozen other men to find a city destroyed and its people dead, corpses laying all around. These feelings are what prompted Kurt Vonnegut to write Slaughterhouse-Five as he did. The main character of this novel mirrors the author in many ways, but the striking similarity is their inability to deal with the events of Dresden on the night of February 13, 1945. Section Two- Critical Commentaries Kurt Vonnegut's work is nothing new to critics, but Slaughterhouse-Five is considered to be his best work.
Vonnegut says, "so it goes. " It's as if he's saying that that kind of thing happens all the time and since no one can stop it we shouldn't get all worked up about it.... ... middle of paper ... ...
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.
Fate is “something that unavoidably befalls a person; fortune; lot,” while free will is “the doctrine that the conduct of human beings expresses person choice and is not simply determined by physical or divine forces.” Kurt Vonnegut uses Billy’s experiences in Slaughterhouse-Five to display the idea that free will is all but an illusion; all decisions in life are made by influences, whether from within or from
Kurt Vonnegut uses a combination of dark humor and irony in Slaughterhouse-Five. As a result, the novel enables the reader to realize the horrors of war while simultaneously laughing at some of the absurd situations it can generate. Mostly, Vonnegut wants the reader to recognize the fact that one has to accept things as they happen because no one can change the inevitable.
Slaughterhouse Five is not a book that should be glanced over and discarded away like a dirty rag. Slaughterhouse Five is a book that should be carefully analyzed and be seen as an inspiration to further improve the well-being of mankind. Vonnegut makes it clear that an easy way to improve mankind is to see war not as a place where legends are born, but rather, an event to be avoided. Intelligent readers and critics alike should recognize Vonnegut’s work and see to it that they make an effort to understand the complexities behind the human condition that lead us to war.
Throughout his career, Kurt Vonnegut has used writing as a tool to convey penetrating messages and ominous warnings about our society. He skillfully combines vivid imagery with a distinctly satirical and anecdotal style to explore complex issues such as religion and war. Two of his most well known, and most gripping, novels that embody this subtle talent are Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five. Both books represent Vonnegut’s genius for manipulating fiction to reveal glaring, disturbing and occasionally redemptive truths about human nature. On the surface, Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five are dramatically different novels, each with its own characters, symbols, and plot. However, a close examination reveals that both contain common themes and ideas. Examining and comparing the two novels and their presentation of different themes provides a unique insight into both the novels and the author – allowing the reader to gain a fuller understanding of Vonnegut’s true meaning.
“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.
Throughout the Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut displays the clash between free-will and destiny, and portrays the idea of time notion in order to substantiate that there is no free-will in war; it is just destiny. Vonnegut crafts this through irony, symbolism and satire. And he successfully manages to prove that free-will is just a hoax that adopted by people that cannot percept time fully.