Slaughterhouse Five By Kurt Vonnegut: A Literary Analysis
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
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begins the novel as the narrator, describing (Verbal) the development of writing his “anti-war” book which (Wh-structure) takes place in Dresden – the city that was bombed in 1945 during World War II (Wicks 329). Vonnegut’s prominent novel begins with a unique introduction, using (Verbal) engaging and strangely humorous chapters, as well as consistent literary devices like strong character development and dark humor. As much detail as Vonnegut includes in his novel about time, life, death, and the illusion of free will (Parallel Structure), Hill’s movie lacks the depth in the meaning of these major themes. Nevertheless, the 1970’s film visuals portrays more emotions to certain scenes, such as the Dresden firebombing (Concession). After reading (Verbal) and comparing (Verbal) Slaughterhouse Five, as both a reader and a viewer, I found noticeable differences between how the themes of the story were communicated in both productions. Unlike any other book I have read, Vonnegut begins his novel by introducing (Verbal) himself and the purpose of writing the book to his readers in the first chapter (Vonnegut 1-28) in which (Wh-Structure) readers meet Mary O’Hare – the important woman who (Wh-Structure) inspired Vonnegut to write Slaughterhouse Five. Mary, instead of supporting (Verbal) Vonnegut’s decision to write the book, uncovered the horrifying truth behind a book written about war: “’You’ll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you’ll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we’ll have a lot more of them. And they’ll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs’” (Vonnegut 18). Mary O’ Hare believed that books and movies encouraged war, so to make amends, he agreed to make it an anti-war book, focusing on the impact war made on an individual soldier. The absence of conversation between Mary O’ Hare and Vonnegut discussing the making of his novel in the chapter one eliminates the author’s originality from the film. Hill’s viewers were thus unable to grasp the author’s insights and purpose of the anti-war story. After surviving six months as a prisoner of war, there was no doubt that Vonnegut would return home with several symptoms of PTSD (Wicks 330). “Vonnegut has said that the novel ‘was a therapeutic thing. I’m a different person now. I got rid of a lot of crap” (McGinnis 56). The purpose of writing his novel was to remember and record his memories of World War II and the bombings in Dresden, so he can, in his own way, let go and move on from the stress felt by not sharing his experiences. Vonnegut admits the extreme difficulty in writing a book about a massacre (Vonnegut 24), and that his book, if ever finished, will be a complete failure. Despite the author’s struggles, his desires to share his experiences motivated him to continue writing (Concession). Unfortunately for movie directors, it is impossible to incorporate every detail from a book into a movie, including Vonnegut’s riveting description of the story’s major themes – time, life, death, and the illusion of free will (Parallel Structure).
In both the movie and the book, the protagonist, Billy is constantly time traveling between past, present, and future. According to Kilgore Trout, a science fiction author in the novel, Billy’s ability to travel through time is a mirroring example explained in Trouts book, Maniacs in the Fourth Dimension (Concession). “It was about people whose (Wh-Structure) mental diseases couldn’t be treated because the causes of the diseases were all in the fourth dimension, and three-dimensional Earthling doctors couldn’t see those causes at all, or even imagine them” (Vonnegut 132). Therefore, Kilgore Trout was one of the influences on Billy’s strong belief in the Tralfamadorians. Vonnegut is able to create a time travel with specific, vibrant details of Billy’s experiences reliving different moments throughout his lifetime. What I enjoy the most was how apathetic Billy is exhibiting hardly any feelings or emotions towards being able to travel through time; he “…is spastic in time, he has no control over where (Wh-Structure) he is going next, and the trips aren’t necessarily fun” (Vonnegut 29). In both the novel and the film, Billy was only able to time travel in return to painful or familiar moments relating to a moment he was currently …show more content…
living in the present. For example, Billy was abducted after leaving his daughter’s wedding held “in a gaily striped tent in Billy’s backyard” (Vonnegut 91). During Billy’s trip to Tralfamadore, he time travels back to World War II, when he, along with other prisoners of war, were being transported in trains. The Germans marked the trains with orange and black flags to avoid air strikes. In this scene readers notice that the colors orange and black are similarities between the moments he is time traveling from and the moments he has time traveled to. Without a narrator, Hill was unable to provide his audience with explanations explaining the sudden change in scenes. Instead, he utilizes Montana Wildhack – a motion picture star (Vonnegut 168), who (Wh-Structure) arrived in Tralfamadore soon after Billy did – and mentions time travelling to Billy a few times. Since Hill hardly mentions Billy’s ability to time travel in association with his trip to Tralfamadore, I believe that Billy’s power was nonetheless congenital rather than influenced by the four dimensional aliens that captured him. Unable to explain his uncontrollable abilities to his family in the film, Billy opens up to Montana who (Wh-Structure) believes and comforts him. To depict time travel in the film, Hill changes scenes from one to the other with Billy’s slightest movements – closing his eyes, falling, sleeping, etc (Parallel Structure). The depictions of time travel almost look as if Billy was experiencing flashbacks instead of travelling through time. Hill switched suddenly between scenes of Billy, first marching in a line with the other American prisoners of war in Germany, changing suddenly to his home playing with his dog in the front yard. I found these scenes a very confusing change of setting. Nevertheless, reading Vonnegut’s novel prior to watching the movie, made Hill’s depictions of time travel easy to understand (Concession). One of the most noticeable differences between how the themes of the story are communicated is Vonnegut’s famous recurring line, “So it goes.” Billy borrows this repetitive phrase from the Tralfamadorians whenever (Wh-Structure) death, from an Earthling standpoint, is mentioned. “’When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that 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 34). This phrase is what builds Billy’s character. By agreeing with the Tralfamadorians and repeating “So it goes” after every mention of death, Billy is choosing to accept death and move on. However, Vonnegut’s philosophical message is just that: “death keeps life in motion, even the life of the novel” (McGinnis 59). “So it goes” eliminates the initial sorrow usually felt after death is mentioned. Surprisingly, the phrase, “So it goes” is never heard in Hill’s movie production. Since “So it goes” is said so often in the book, the absence of the phrase in the movie had a huge impact on the meaning of death. For example, after the bombs destroyed Dresden, the American prisoners and a few German soldiers rose from the bomb shelter underground to observe the destruction. The German soldier boy dropped his gun instantly after seeing the damage and raced to a burning building in the hope of his family members surviving. Screaming (Verbal) and kicking (Verbal), the boy was pulled out of the burning building in force of acceptation that everyone was dead. This scene managed to interpret death as it is supposed to be interpreted – sad. Therefore, only readers of the novel, Slaughterhouse Five, were fully able to make sense of Billy’s interpretation of death. Reviewing (Verbal) the movie as both a reader and viewer, I found how the book provides readers with different interpretations than the movie did.
Since the novel focused, quite frequently, on time, death, and free will as major themes, readers were given many opportunities to re-think their perspectives on life itself, for “Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future” (Vonnegut 77). One lesson Billy learned from the Tralfamadorians was that there is no why (Wh-Structure). Every moment that has happened or will happen is set in stone by a higher power. Nobody could change their fate because life was already planned for them. Tralfamadorians explained free will to be an illusion of life. Free will had meant that people would have the ability to change their futures and create new plans for their lives, but Tralfamadorians believed that everyone’s life path had been already planned and there were no ways to change that. Therefore, readers focused more on the Tralfamadorian’s lessons rather than the war
itself. Considering (Verbal) most novelists, if available, only assist directors with the screenplays or advice the movie productions following the release of their novel, these films tend to have a significant difference than the novels they are based on. “With each director, with each screenwriter, they want to put their own stamp on it. And it gets further and further away from what the book is” (Flynn, Turning a Book into a Movie: An Author’s Perspective 1) In Hill’s movie he focuses more on the war itself and less on the major themes in Vonnegut’s novel. We as viewers, are exposed to more war scenes than any other scenes portrayed in the book. We are able to see and hear the sorrow and devastating cries of soldier’s upon realizing Dresden has been bombed, and that homes, and families have been destroyed. Instead of shaking the idea of death off our shoulders, we are forced to observe the true meaning of death caused by wars. Even so, the movies had the general idea that Vonnegut was telling his readers (Concession). Both the novel and the movie did a great job telling the story and I enjoyed being able to see how both of them allowed me to see outside of the war and within the war. Still since the book exhibited more detail overall, I favored the writing style more than the movie (Concession). Vonnegut and Hill performed unique ways of structure and style when it came to the chronological order of the story. Whether learning about the story by reading (Verbal) the novel or watching (Verbal) the film, both audiences are able to absorb the story’s context as well as the philosophical lessons taught by Vonnegut and Hill.
begins the novel as the narrator, describing (Verbal) the development of writing his “anti-war” book which (Wh-structure) takes place in Dresden – the city that was bombed in 1945 during World War II (Wicks 329). Vonnegut’s prominent novel begins with a unique introduction, using (Verbal) engaging and strangely humorous chapters, as well as consistent literary devices like strong character development and dark humor. As much detail as Vonnegut includes in his novel about time, life, death, and the illusion of free will (Parallel Structure), Hill’s movie lacks the depth in the meaning of these major themes. Nevertheless, the 1970’s film visuals portrays more emotions to certain scenes, such as the Dresden firebombing (Concession). After reading (Verbal) and comparing (Verbal) Slaughterhouse Five, as both a reader and a viewer, I found noticeable differences between how the themes of the story were communicated in both productions. Unlike any other book I have read, Vonnegut begins his novel by introducing (Verbal) himself and the purpose of writing the book to his readers in the first chapter (Vonnegut 1-28) in which (Wh-Structure) readers meet Mary O’Hare – the important woman who (Wh-Structure) inspired Vonnegut to write Slaughterhouse Five. Mary, instead of supporting (Verbal) Vonnegut’s decision to write the book, uncovered the horrifying truth behind a book written about war: “’You’ll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you’ll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we’ll have a lot more of them. And they’ll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs’” (Vonnegut 18). Mary O’ Hare believed that books and movies encouraged war, so to make amends, he agreed to make it an anti-war book, focusing on the impact war made on an individual soldier. The absence of conversation between Mary O’ Hare and Vonnegut discussing the making of his novel in the chapter one eliminates the author’s originality from the film. Hill’s viewers were thus unable to grasp the author’s insights and purpose of the anti-war story. After surviving six months as a prisoner of war, there was no doubt that Vonnegut would return home with several symptoms of PTSD (Wicks 330). “Vonnegut has said that the novel ‘was a therapeutic thing. I’m a different person now. I got rid of a lot of crap” (McGinnis 56). The purpose of writing his novel was to remember and record his memories of World War II and the bombings in Dresden, so he can, in his own way, let go and move on from the stress felt by not sharing his experiences. Vonnegut admits the extreme difficulty in writing a book about a massacre (Vonnegut 24), and that his book, if ever finished, will be a complete failure. Despite the author’s struggles, his desires to share his experiences motivated him to continue writing (Concession). Unfortunately for movie directors, it is impossible to incorporate every detail from a book into a movie, including Vonnegut’s riveting description of the story’s major themes – time, life, death, and the illusion of free will (Parallel Structure).
In both the movie and the book, the protagonist, Billy is constantly time traveling between past, present, and future. According to Kilgore Trout, a science fiction author in the novel, Billy’s ability to travel through time is a mirroring example explained in Trouts book, Maniacs in the Fourth Dimension (Concession). “It was about people whose (Wh-Structure) mental diseases couldn’t be treated because the causes of the diseases were all in the fourth dimension, and three-dimensional Earthling doctors couldn’t see those causes at all, or even imagine them” (Vonnegut 132). Therefore, Kilgore Trout was one of the influences on Billy’s strong belief in the Tralfamadorians. Vonnegut is able to create a time travel with specific, vibrant details of Billy’s experiences reliving different moments throughout his lifetime. What I enjoy the most was how apathetic Billy is exhibiting hardly any feelings or emotions towards being able to travel through time; he “…is spastic in time, he has no control over where (Wh-Structure) he is going next, and the trips aren’t necessarily fun” (Vonnegut 29). In both the novel and the film, Billy was only able to time travel in return to painful or familiar moments relating to a moment he was currently …show more content…
living in the present. For example, Billy was abducted after leaving his daughter’s wedding held “in a gaily striped tent in Billy’s backyard” (Vonnegut 91). During Billy’s trip to Tralfamadore, he time travels back to World War II, when he, along with other prisoners of war, were being transported in trains. The Germans marked the trains with orange and black flags to avoid air strikes. In this scene readers notice that the colors orange and black are similarities between the moments he is time traveling from and the moments he has time traveled to. Without a narrator, Hill was unable to provide his audience with explanations explaining the sudden change in scenes. Instead, he utilizes Montana Wildhack – a motion picture star (Vonnegut 168), who (Wh-Structure) arrived in Tralfamadore soon after Billy did – and mentions time travelling to Billy a few times. Since Hill hardly mentions Billy’s ability to time travel in association with his trip to Tralfamadore, I believe that Billy’s power was nonetheless congenital rather than influenced by the four dimensional aliens that captured him. Unable to explain his uncontrollable abilities to his family in the film, Billy opens up to Montana who (Wh-Structure) believes and comforts him. To depict time travel in the film, Hill changes scenes from one to the other with Billy’s slightest movements – closing his eyes, falling, sleeping, etc (Parallel Structure). The depictions of time travel almost look as if Billy was experiencing flashbacks instead of travelling through time. Hill switched suddenly between scenes of Billy, first marching in a line with the other American prisoners of war in Germany, changing suddenly to his home playing with his dog in the front yard. I found these scenes a very confusing change of setting. Nevertheless, reading Vonnegut’s novel prior to watching the movie, made Hill’s depictions of time travel easy to understand (Concession). One of the most noticeable differences between how the themes of the story are communicated is Vonnegut’s famous recurring line, “So it goes.” Billy borrows this repetitive phrase from the Tralfamadorians whenever (Wh-Structure) death, from an Earthling standpoint, is mentioned. “’When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that 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 34). This phrase is what builds Billy’s character. By agreeing with the Tralfamadorians and repeating “So it goes” after every mention of death, Billy is choosing to accept death and move on. However, Vonnegut’s philosophical message is just that: “death keeps life in motion, even the life of the novel” (McGinnis 59). “So it goes” eliminates the initial sorrow usually felt after death is mentioned. Surprisingly, the phrase, “So it goes” is never heard in Hill’s movie production. Since “So it goes” is said so often in the book, the absence of the phrase in the movie had a huge impact on the meaning of death. For example, after the bombs destroyed Dresden, the American prisoners and a few German soldiers rose from the bomb shelter underground to observe the destruction. The German soldier boy dropped his gun instantly after seeing the damage and raced to a burning building in the hope of his family members surviving. Screaming (Verbal) and kicking (Verbal), the boy was pulled out of the burning building in force of acceptation that everyone was dead. This scene managed to interpret death as it is supposed to be interpreted – sad. Therefore, only readers of the novel, Slaughterhouse Five, were fully able to make sense of Billy’s interpretation of death. Reviewing (Verbal) the movie as both a reader and viewer, I found how the book provides readers with different interpretations than the movie did.
Since the novel focused, quite frequently, on time, death, and free will as major themes, readers were given many opportunities to re-think their perspectives on life itself, for “Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future” (Vonnegut 77). One lesson Billy learned from the Tralfamadorians was that there is no why (Wh-Structure). Every moment that has happened or will happen is set in stone by a higher power. Nobody could change their fate because life was already planned for them. Tralfamadorians explained free will to be an illusion of life. Free will had meant that people would have the ability to change their futures and create new plans for their lives, but Tralfamadorians believed that everyone’s life path had been already planned and there were no ways to change that. Therefore, readers focused more on the Tralfamadorian’s lessons rather than the war
itself. Considering (Verbal) most novelists, if available, only assist directors with the screenplays or advice the movie productions following the release of their novel, these films tend to have a significant difference than the novels they are based on. “With each director, with each screenwriter, they want to put their own stamp on it. And it gets further and further away from what the book is” (Flynn, Turning a Book into a Movie: An Author’s Perspective 1) In Hill’s movie he focuses more on the war itself and less on the major themes in Vonnegut’s novel. We as viewers, are exposed to more war scenes than any other scenes portrayed in the book. We are able to see and hear the sorrow and devastating cries of soldier’s upon realizing Dresden has been bombed, and that homes, and families have been destroyed. Instead of shaking the idea of death off our shoulders, we are forced to observe the true meaning of death caused by wars. Even so, the movies had the general idea that Vonnegut was telling his readers (Concession). Both the novel and the movie did a great job telling the story and I enjoyed being able to see how both of them allowed me to see outside of the war and within the war. Still since the book exhibited more detail overall, I favored the writing style more than the movie (Concession). Vonnegut and Hill performed unique ways of structure and style when it came to the chronological order of the story. Whether learning about the story by reading (Verbal) the novel or watching (Verbal) the film, both audiences are able to absorb the story’s context as well as the philosophical lessons taught by Vonnegut and Hill.