Character Analysis of Slaughter House Five
Character Analysis of Slaughter House Five
In Slaughter House Five, Billy Pilgrim finds himself unstuck in time jumping between several periods of his life. Travelling between his experience as a prisoner of war in World War II to his suburban family life in the 1950s and 1960s, and his experience as a human specimen in an alien zoo on a distant planet, Billy seemingly has no control over these transitions.
REVIEW
Vonnegut's writing has always defied traditional classification and Slaughterhouse-Five is a prime example of this as it combines a mix of social satire, science fiction, anti-war sentiment as well as great deal of autobiographical detail. The full title-page of Slaughterhouse Five is perhaps the most revealing and apt description of the book in addition to giving us some insight into the author's mind-set behind its creation.
Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade - A Duty-Dance with Death By Kurt Vonnegut
A fourth-generation German-American now living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod [and smoking too much], who, as an American Infantry Scout Hors De Combat, As a prisoner of war, witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany, "The Florence of the Elbe," a long time ago, and survived to tell the tell. This is a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamadore, where the flying saucers come from. Peace.
Billy Pilgrim's "telegraphic schizophrenic" shifts from one period of his life to another is his own defence mechanism in dealing with (or avoiding dealing with) the traumatic experiences in his life. Vonnegut has acknowledged that the only way in which he could tell his story of surviving the fire-bombing of Dresden was in this fragmented manner and that it refused to come out as a linear story when he attempted to tell it as such.
What is amazing to me about Slaughterhouse Five is that Vonnegut manages to fit so much into one story. While writing a brilliant satire on the absurdity of war on par with Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Vonnegut also manages to put a human face on the tragedy at Dresden and expose one of World War II's darker moments to the general public in an accessible form.
While the fragmented nature of time in the novel is largely a thematic device used by Vonnegut to contrast the different events in Billy Pilgrim's life, Vonnegut also contemplates the nature of time and fate in the...