Slaughterhouse-five is about a man named Billy Pilgrim. Pilgrim was born in 1922 and grew up in New York. He does reasonably well in school. While attending college to become an optometrist he is drafted in to the army. He trains to be a Chaplain Assistant. He is taken Prisoner in the battle of Bulge in Belgium. Right before his capture Pilgrim experiences his first flashback were he sees his entire life flashes before him. The Germans put him into a boxcar to Germany. Once he arrives he experiences a breakdown and get a shot of morphine and experiences another flashback. The POW are transported to Dresden to work manual labor. There is a slaughterhouse that is located in Dresden which become important later in the book. The US bombs Dresden and ended up killing 130,000 people. Pilgrim and some other POW survived this…
Vonnegut’s life had a tremendous impact on the plot of Slaughterhouse-Five. The first few sentence in the book are “ All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true, One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn’t his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. I’ve changed all the names” (Vonnegut 1). Theses first sentences inform the reader right away…
Although many might heartily defend the villainy of Roland Weary or Paul Lazarro, it is clear that the true antagonists of Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse-five are culture, society and history, all of which play a major role in Billy Pilgrim's ascent to death. Characters are not villains; their actions may suggest the contrary, but they are caused by the negative effects of society, which changes with area, culture, which changes with time, and history, which cannot be changed, and yet still yields the same results as the two former.…
The author, Kurt Vonnegut, uses a series of disparate techniques in his writing in order to engage the reader. We travel 64 years into the future, and society as we know it has fallen apart. All things held dear to the heart are gone for good. The men and women of the world have been maimed to the highest extent, and the utmost want for equality has distracted our people from humanism. The tear shed and bitter strife has made citizens hide from the law in foreboding fear.…
"A Launching Pad of Belief: Kurt Vonnegut and Postmodern Humor Kevin Brown Humor critics have argued that satire is not possible any longer, largely due to the horrors ofthe twentieth century and the postmodern belief in the lack of objective truth, especially in relation to morality. Because of these developments, they argue that no moral stance can be taken through satire; instead, satirists now write merely for pleasure, not to instigate any change in morality. Several postmodern authors, including Kurt Vonnegut, however, still attempt to provide moral messages through their writing. John Gardner, for example, attacked existentialism in Grendel.…
Some may believe that war is a necessity to a countries well-being. However, these people do not seem to take the negative aspects of war into consideration. In the novel Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, Vonnegut illustrates that war is something pointless and results in nothing but negativity. There are many quotes used in the novel to try and prove his point.…
There are a lot of things that happened in the book Slaughterhouse Five and in Billy’s lifetime that Billy and the author explain in this book but the author explains the story in a very difficult way. It is hard to follow what happens in the book because of how Billy acts and thinks. He changes location constantly because of his flashbacks from war. In the first chapter it is hard to pick up what is happening because the narrator is speaking and is talking about Billy but when you reach the second chapter that’s when everything starts. Slaughterhouse Five By Kurt Vonnegut was hard to follow at times so this makes it very hard to read because of the constant setting change from New York, to Germany, to the Alien Ship.…
Despite the animated, child-friendly fairytales, Disney has a reputation for making films based on dark stories (Concession). For example, Disney’s 1950’s fairytale, Cinderella, is based off of the Brothers Grimm tale, Aschenputtel (Appositive). Instead of vigorously trying to fit their feet in Cinderella’s glass slipper, one of the evil stepsisters cuts off her toes, and the other her heel in attempt to fit the slipper. In hope to gain Cinderella’s good fortune as queen, the evil stepsisters are brutally pecked in the eyes by birds as a punishment for their immorality. Similar to the story of Cinderella and many movies based on books, director George Roy Hill’s movie strayed away from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughterhouse Five. Vonnegut creatively…
One important theme in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse Five is is war For instance, Vonnegut writes “Do you know what I say to people when I hear they're writing anti-war books? I say, "Why don't you write an anti-glacier book instead?" From this quotation the reader can conclude that…
I think telling a story out of sequence makes the story more effective in conveying its message after you have read the whole story. In the beginning of an out of sequence story you might have a lot of questions on why things are occurring, and why the author would tell you, for example, the end of the story at the beginning of the book. The disorganization of the story would lead the reader to read more carefully to allow him/her to clearly comprehend the message in the story. The author leads the reader to want to read more and more so there won’t be any unanswered questions in the middle of the story. While telling a story out of order might seem more confusing it makes the reader become more aware of what’s going on in the book. When you are more aware, you understand the message more effectively. I think Slaughterhouse Five was written out of sequence to keep the “average” reader from accessing it. When you are an “average” reader you would want a story that goes from begging to end and be very straightforward; not wanting to be confused all the time. Slaughterhouse Five is a brief jumbled up response of Vonnegut’s experience in the Dresden firebombing. Vonnegut specifically wrote it in an out of sequence manner because when he wanted to write it in sequence he was incapable of doing so. He couldn’t write it in order because of his personal struggle to remember the horrific events that he experienced in the Second World War. Billy Pilgrim was the way Vonnegut explained what happened. Vonnegut had Billy go through what he went through without thinking it was him going through all those experiences which made it easier on his part. An “average” reader wouldn’t at all understand that and with all these different events going on with Billy pilgrim time traveling to different events in his life, the reader wouldn’t…
Slaughterhouse-Five has a dark sense of humor that accentuates Vonnegut’s nihilistic view of the human condition. The humor in Slaughterhouse-Five is uniquely dark, twisted, and overly ironic. So it goes.…
“Welcome to the Monkey House” is a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s short stories. Vonnegut is best known for his black humor and he is remembered as a major satirist. His stories contain a boatload of irony and dark humor; they are also not afraid to get into more serious topics. They frequently involve a “twist” at the end that surprises the reader. Vonnegut’s “twists” clarify meaning, alters predictions and causes us to have a different perspective than usual.…
In “2BR02B” by Kurt Vonnegut a man named Edward K. Wehling Jr. and his wife are about to have triplets but he has to sacrifice his grandfather just for one of his children to be able to live because of population control laws in a perfect world. A painter who does not have avery good life in his opinion is painting a portrait of Leora Duncan when Dr. Hitz, who is a very important time came in. He heard about the triplets and eventually has a fight with Wehling because Wehling does not want anyone to die and he shoots Dr. Hitz, Duncan, and himself to make room for his kids. Finally, the painter calls the number 2BR02B which is a number for people who don’t want to live anymore. I say that the best theme presented in “2BR02B” by Kurt Vonnegut…
Like the book’s author, he is captured by the Germans and witnessed the bombing of Dresden. Later in his life, he is abducted by aliens called the Tralfamadorians (“Slaughterhouse-Five” 261). They are the ones who introduce him to the time theory, and how life and death are ultimately meaningless because of it. This novel is also interesting because of how Vonnegut is a character that appears in his own book (264). Themes that appear in the book include alienation, loneliness, free will, apathy, passivity, death, and patriotism (264).…
Roald Dahl may be one of the most brilliant writers in all of history, authoring several childhood classics such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda. Although most of his stories are light and humorous, his darker side shines through with stories like “Lamb to the Slaughter”, an thought-provoking tale of a child-bearing housewife gone mad. Dahl does an amazing job at transitioning from tone to tone through his selective use of imagery, foreshadowing and symbolism.…