Slaughterhouse Five Critical Analysis

In the novel Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut writes about World War ||. While writing about the reality of war, Vonnegut also writes about Billy Pilgrim's life both before and after the war, and from his travels to the planet Tralfamadore. Billy is able to move both forwards and backwards through his lifetime in an unpredictable cycle of events. Since Slaughterhouse-Five's central topic is the horror of the Dresden bombing, Billy comes across many questions about the meanings of life and death. Throughout the novel, Vonnegut uses irony and understatement to transfer the message that events in life are inevitable. These events may be negative, but it is important to focus on the positive memories instead. As the second chapter approaches,
Vonnegut writes that Billy is, "a funny-looking youth—tall and weak, and shaped like a bottle of Coca-Cola." Throughout the novel Billy acts awkward and nervous, because he never knows which part of his life he is going to be in next. The Tralfamadorians see time as there being no point in trying to change anything because everything is already predetermined and there is no free will. The Tralfamadorians leave sort of a philosophy to Billy, to tell everyone that it is okay to suffer and that everyone will die eventually, so there is simply no point in trying to change anything. Therefore not dwelling on the past but looking forward to what positive aspects life brings in the future. Since Slaughterhouse-Five is going back and forth into Billy's life, everything is happening simultaneously. The novel portrays the difficulty of recounted traumatic experiences which describe how the reality of war contributes to people's lives before and after. Vonnegut uses a huge understatement throughout the book "So it goes", to heighten the horror for every death that has occurred. Vonnegut uses this understatement to show that life and death are inevitable. It is also what Billy learns from the