Brian Palmer
Mr. Lopez
English 2 Hon.
Per 2.
Analysis of Slaughterhouse-Five
The book, Slaughterhouse-Five, written by Kurt Vonnegut, is a postmodern novel, which tested and challenged me as a reader. The structure of the story is very random in its chronological order, with short passages and paragraphs on one subject, then quickly changing to another having no transitions whatsoever. I think the reason he did this was to portray a soldier’s life during World War II, which was hectic and full of shocking experiences, given the events in the story that were told. This novel also gives a feeling of hopelessness in that the earth has always had wars, and that it can never be stopped. Above all, this anti-war novel gives a soldiers point of view of the sheer atrocities committed by the human race and the cruel massacre of over 135,000 people in the fire bombings of Dresden.
Throughout the text, many sudden changes in the time and setting were made. “Billy blinked in 1958, traveled in time to 1961.” After a chapter, “Billy Pilgrim nestled like a spoon with the hobo on Christmas night, and fell asleep, and he traveled in time to 1967.” When Billy is in 1958, he is busy talking about World War II. Then suddenly travels through time to 1967 and he ends up being kidnapped by aliens from Tralfamadore. When this story changed, my mind had to adjust to each of these changes. The events arise all of a sudden just as a WWII soldier would have situations arise out of thin air in abrupt and sudden ways. This structure gave the point of view of a soldier from WWII in which his state of mind was traumatically changed by images he had seen during the war.
In this novel, Vonnegut exposes the true, unpopular facts about the bombing of Dresden during WWII. Vonnegut was in actually in the military during the war in the 106th infantry division in which he saw the most inhumane act take place upon a city of innocent civilians. He claims that war is not glamorous or in...