Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five

By witnessing the horrific events of war, it is likely Billy has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder(PTSD), which throughout the novel causes to review and repeat events through his life. Post traumatic stress disorder involves disturbance of sleep and constant

Vonnegut in his opening paragraph discusses the horrors of war. Billy Pilgrim is associated in this environment and is shaped by it. Long after the war, Billy is involved in a plane crash. When the ski instructors search the wreckage, they can hear Billy saying “Schlachthof-funf,” or Slaughterhouse Five. This incident explains just how deeply the Dresden bombing and WWII in general have impacted Billy.

Billy in no means was a rambo-esque type bloodthirsty killer, but more the awkward what am I doing here type instead. The innocent optometrist was once again forced into a stressful situation. He was the topic of deliberate bullying from other enlisted men, reasons being from his inability to sleep through the night, which could be linked directly to his traumatic experiences when he was younger, to the fact he couldn't keep up with the other men while participating in physical exercise. This lead to a group of men being killed which i’m sure didn't help bialys conscious. The stress only added up more when Billy had to experience the bombing of the beautiful city of dresden in a meat locker.

He sees life as meaningless and dissipation. He described the aliens as different from humans, they live free and discard death. When Billy says things about the Trafalmodarians on the radio, his daughter thought that he’s insane, but these aliens actually explicit Billy’s life on Earth. That’s how war affected Billy and made

Billy eventually accepts the views of the Tralfamadorians as the lack of free will is prevalent is his life. He is drafted against his will to participate in a war he has no drive to fight in. He has a notable lack of training, is innapropriately dressed as Cinderella, is generally indifferent about his survival, and yet manages to live while those around him

Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, showcases the theme of time through its unique organization in the timeline of the story and in its mention

As detailed in the novel, they believe in a timeline that has already happened and always will happen. Whether this is a made up idea or Billy somehow actually did meet the Tralfamadorians and learn this, it is very compelling. Vonnegut has made everything tie together in the end showing that Billy has an “unstuck in time” point of view and the reader is able to view a traditional plot/timeline. It is difficult to see exactly when something happened unless the reader pays close attention to the dates listed in the book. However, I suppose the reader doesn't have to know when something is happening to still enjoy it.

It is easy to say that this event in Billy’s life was a traumatic one, and obviously one he thinks about often, since he decides to “travel” back to it. It is possible that Billy was unable to fully understand what this event did to him and with this, is unable find closure with it. This, in a way, foreshadows into Billy’s life as an adult and his ability to deal with adulthood traumas, such as WWII and more specifically the firebombing of Dresden. Childhood trauma is a risk factor which “makes a person more likely to develop PTSD” (National Institute of Mental Health). Since Billy was unable to develop the skills necessary to get past trauma as a child, and therefore

Billy is said to become unstuck in time to different events in his life. He flashes to memories of Dresden, which is the war that he participated in. He also has episodes of his flight crash, he knows how he will die, and how his wife dies. This book is so sporadic, the audience never truly knows when this book is taking place in Billy’s life. Each page could contain three or more different events in Billy’s

Billy knew death was upon him, he was terrified of it, but he knew it was coming. Both men are absolutely scared of war and the outcomes of it but both deal with in very different ways. No matter what situation someone partakes in war, fear always is around, and people always expect the worst,because during war the worst does happen. Men and women go through the what ifs in their brains, just wanting to return home safely.

Vonnegut does not use himself as the main character in order to maintain his conformity to the public opinion of the firebombing of Dresden in WWII. Vonnegut does state that he was actually present during the firebombing, yet tells the story through another person who was supposedly

As an optometrist, Billy is meant to correct the vision of the ill sighted, but ironically, his vision is corrected by time travelling aliens. Another way true sight prevails is through the readers themselves, they decide weather they see Billy’s time traveling abilities as true, or they can argue that Billy is suffering from posttraumatic

I feel like this segment of the book really expresses the novel as a whole. Slaughterhouse Five is meant to be an anti-war book. War often creates grudges and causes people to seek revenge after their enemies. Lazzaro is even heard to be getting revenge on a dog, an animal that many regard as a man’s best friend. I am particularly

Throughout the novel, Billy has specific experiences with horrific warfare

How did Kurt Vonnegut use postmodern approaches to create an antiwar antinovel in Slaughterhouse 5? When Slaughterhouse 5 was published, it could have been considered as an outsider in the literary world. In the midst of the Vietnam war, it was preaching antiwar notions, and in a time where straightforward linear storylines dominated the media, Slaughterhouse 5 presented a challenging nonlinear plot. The nonlinearity in plots would later on become a staple of postmodern literature but Kurt Vonnegut missed the peak of the postmodern era publishing the novel in 1969; a decade before the peak in the 1980's.