<br>
<br>The way Kurt Vonnegut structures Slaughterhouse-Five aids in the portrayal of the theme that time is relative. The novel is broke down into two parts: Vonnegut 's story about the novel and the life story of Billy Pilgrim. The life story of Billy Pilgrim which is "presented as a series of episodes with no chronological order" . This mirrors the structure of the novel which has a beginning, middle, and end but not in there respective places. (Dawley 1) Billy states numerous times in the novel that he has become "unstuck in time" and that the time travel periods "aren 't necessarily fun". (Vonnegut 23) While the reader never leaves the main plot line of the fire-bombing of Dresden for very long, Billy still travels a lot
. Billy "has seen his birth and death many times" and "all the events in between". (Vonnegut 23) The reader learns that "the things Billy Pilgrim" cannot change are "the past, the present, and the future". (Vonnegut 60) Many of the time warps are to his later-life as an optometrist. During his life as an optometrist he marries one of his professor 's daughters. Even though Billy knows ahead of time, because he has "seen" the future before it happens, he knows that he is only marrying her to get funding from her father to start his own company. More of the time travels Billy has take him to his time on the planet Tralfamadore. Billy says that the aliens abducted him on his daughter 's wedding night and returned him a few milliseconds later, but actually spend many months on Tralfamadore because the Tralfamadorians can also see in the fourth dimension, time, which allowed them to keep Billy for what seemed like longer than what he was actually there. While on Tralfamadore, Billy learns to accept his life as it is dealt to him because nothing that happens to you damages you forever. Since time is relative, and your life is like a mountain range, your death ,birth, and all the events in between are nothing more than peaks in a range of mountains, irremovable and able to be visited numerous times.
<br>
<br>The point of view that Slaughterhouse-Five is written from also affects the way the reader fells about time after reading the novel. Since the story is narrated by a omniscient being that is everywhere with Billy Pilgrim, the reader gets a first hand account of every event in his life. Also Billy is very relaxed and accepting all things around him. A good example of this is Billy 's habit of following every death with "so it goes". (Vonnegut 69) The repetition of this phrase not only de-emphasizes death, but also helps Vonnegut assert control over the readers response after a death. (Dawley 2) The way Billy describes the war as if it is still going also directly relates to his repetition of "so it goes"and his acceptance of the relativity of time. After seeing the clean shaven Americans at the camp, Billy realized how young they were and was shocked, saying,"My God, it 's the Children 's Crusade!" (Vonnegut 91). This shows Billy 's view of war as irrelevant and of no practical use except in the extermination of some mother 's child. He believes that people are no better off, as far as getting along, then when they started the war. Because of his beliefs about war, Billy lackadaisically goes through it accepting everything that happens to him because of it. For example, when Billy is picked up by the wondering group of soldiers he is expected to be the first one to die and accepts that and even tells them to leave him because he would just get them captured or killed. The ironic thing is that the two scouts that abandoned Billy and Roland because they were loud and clumsy ended up being killed by what Billy said were, "Three inoffensive bangs" that "came from far away". (ClassicNote 1). This shows Billy 's acceptance by the bangs that caused his comrades deaths being inoffensive; whereas, if you ask any veteran of war, no shots are inoffensive even if a fellow person is not killed by it. Billy also visits the planet Tralfamadore in the book. His trip to Tralfamadore explains to the reader how he got his point of view on time. The Tralfamadorians see in four dimensions (time being the fourth); whereas, humans only see in three. The Tralfamadorians try to explain to Billy that time is like "a stretch of the Rocky Mountains" and that "all time is time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations" and that taken moment by moment, a person will find that "we are all ... bugs in amber". (Vonnegut 85-86) To the Tralfamadorians, "the heavens are filled with rarefied, luminous spaghetti" (Vonnegut 87) where humans see only stars. Billy and Vonnegut 's own philosophy about life and time is that death is too important to ignore, yet is nothing to fear, and that the reader should accept the unchangeable course of life and of death, and not look back as Lot 's wife did, and enjoy the good moments and bad as well that life brings to us. (Dunstan 1)
<br>
<br>Slaughterhouse-Five gives the reader insight on the meaning of life, time, and war. The thought of humans being able to view their lives moments concurrently and not linearly is erroneous to the reader, yet Kurt Vonnegut brings into the reader 's head the idea of time being relative and only existing in human 's imaginations.
<br>
<br><b>Works Cited</b>
<br><li>ClassicNote. Insanity of war in Slaughterhouse-Five. 29 Jan 2001. <<a href="http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/slaughterhousefive/essays/insanitywar.html">http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/slaughterhousefive/essays/insanitywar.html</a>>.
<br><li>Dawley, Jason. The use of Fragmentation in Slaughterhouse-Five. 29 Jan 2001.
<br><li><<a href="http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/4953/kv_fragmentation.html">http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/4953/kv_fragmentation.html</a>>.
<br><li>Dunston, Brittany. Destruction of Dresden, destruction of Vonnegut 's dream. 29 Jan 2001. <http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/4953/kv_dream.html>.
<br><li>Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five. New York:Dell, 1991.
Cited: /b> <br><li>ClassicNote. Insanity of war in Slaughterhouse-Five. 29 Jan 2001. <<a href="http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/slaughterhousefive/essays/insanitywar.html">http://www.gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/slaughterhousefive/essays/insanitywar.html</a>>. <br><li>Dawley, Jason. The use of Fragmentation in Slaughterhouse-Five. 29 Jan 2001. <br><li><<a href="http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/4953/kv_fragmentation.html">http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/4953/kv_fragmentation.html</a>>. <br><li>Dunston, Brittany. Destruction of Dresden, destruction of Vonnegut 's dream. 29 Jan 2001. <http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/4953/kv_dream.html>. <br><li>Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five. New York:Dell, 1991.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
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…
- 362 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
Vonnegut then recounts his postwar life and explains how he encounters ignorance about the immensity of Dresden’s destruction and that when he contacted the U.S. Air Force for information, he discovered that the happenings of the Dresden War were still kept top secret. In 1964, Kurt took his daughter and her best friend with him to visit Bernard in Pennsylvania. He met Bernard’s wife, Mary who was disgusted by the fact that Kurt would probably portray him and Bernard in the book as men instead of the “babies” they had been. Kurt then promised to call the book “The Children’s Crusade” and Mary was happy. Later that night he read about the Children’s Crusade and the earlier Dresden bombing of 1760. While teaching at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop he landed a three-book contract. Slaughterhouse-Five would be his first, but it will be jumbled because there is nothing intelligent to write about a massacre. Relating back to when he visited Dresden again, he tells how in his hotel, his perception of passing time became distorted, as if someone were playing with the clocks. He then stated to readers that after writing his war book, he will not look back and he will write more fun books. The first chapter indicates that he wrote it after his war book , because he ends the chapter by stating how his novel will begin, and how it will…
- 517 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
In the middle of the Vietnam War, Kurt Vonnegut published Slaughterhouse-Five. The book is considered a piece of fiction by many, yet there are several parallels between the main character, Billy Pilgrim, and the author himself. Vonnegut enlisted in the United States Army in 1942 and later fought in the Battle of the Bulge (Biography). Vonnegut’s personally experienced the horrors of war leading to him having an anti-war view which brought meaning to his novel.…
- 598 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
This independent reading assignment is dedicated to Slaughterhouse-Five, written by Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut experienced many hardships during and as a result of his time in the military, including World War II, which he portrays through the protagonist of Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim. Slaughterhouse-Five, however, not only introduces these military experiences and the internal conflicts that follow, but also alters the chronological sequence in which they occur. Billy is an optometry student that gets drafted into the military and sent to Luxembourg to fight in the Battle of Bulge against Germany. Though he remains unscathed, he is now mentally unstable and becomes “unstuck in time” (Vonnegut 30). This means that he is able to perceive…
- 428 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
As we begin our epic journey in the science-fiction novel Slaughter-House Five, we are struck with an unfamiliar phrase. "Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time." But what does author Kurt Vonnegut mean by that? We soon discover that this idea of becoming "un-stuck in time" is major theme in this novel. Our protagonist, Billy, jumps to different points in his life at unexpected points in time. At time we find ourselves with him going through Germany in World War II. At other times, he is celebrating his wife's birthday or even telling the world publicly of his travels through time,. The theme of time used in this novel, is not necessarily in the chronological sense, but in the sense that we may need to think about that there is more than one possible way to view our lives by seeing them in different segments in random orders.…
- 923 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
In the novel Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, Billy Pilgrim experiences time differently from any other person. Instead of experiencing time in a linear fashion, Billy jumps randomly throughout all of the events in his life. It is this random experience of time that allows Vonnegut to enforce the themes of senseless violence and the illusion of choice.…
- 329 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Slaughterhouse Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Dirty Dance With Death was written by Kurt Vonnegut and originally published in March of 1969. It’s a dark humor science fiction story that exactly fits Vonnegut's writing style: funny, astounding and makes you question the human race as a whole. The book follows a the lifespan Billy Pilgrim of Ilium, New York. He grew up to be an optometrist,served his country at war, got married, had children and aged to an old man. But his life was not ordinary at all. The books focuses on his experiences serving in World War Two, and his unintentional and unexpected time travel through his own life. Billy Pilgrim’s war experiences are told in an unusual way in comparison to the other books and movies being made about war…
- 1035 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
In the novel Slaughterhouse- Five by Kurt Vonnegut, the story of Billy Pilgrim is used to explore numerous themes regarding life and war. Vonnegut’s appalling war experiences in Dresden guided him to write on the horrors and tragedies of war. All through the progression of the novel Slaughterhouse-Five, the reader is conveyed through the life events of Billy Pilgrim, a character who survives the Dresden firebombing and countless other tragedies. Oddly, Billy discovers ease in the concept that free will is an illusory belief, and that nothing can be done about any of the surrounding misfortunes that happen during his lifetime, or throughout any lifetime. He conveys his opinions and validates them with a claim of alien abduction, and therefore…
- 214 Words
- 1 Page
Good Essays -
We all know that, world war II, was a hard disastrous time in history,but in the story slaughterhouse-five we learn from another perspective of the author who was sent in for the battle of the bulge and witnessed the bombing of Dresden. The author had many experiences from which he had with world war II, he shows what happened and could have been his thoughts throughout the narrator Billy Pilgrim. First, Slaughterhouse five says different themes and how they relate to war. Secondly, there's many events from when the author Kurt Vonnegut’s life that made him feel this way about the war. Lastly, and the attitude of Vonnegut towards war and how it affected the narrator. This novel of Vonnegut’s seemed to help him with his experiences through…
- 1060 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
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.…
- 431 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Kurt Vonnegut 's Slaughterhouse-Five and Joseph Heller 's Catch-22 use similar motifs to convey their common anti-war message. Although it is truly difficult for any author to communicate the true nature of war in a work of literature, both novels are triumphant in their attempts to convey the devastating experience. The authors ' analogous writing styles, themes, and motifs run parallel to one another. Both Slaughterhouse-Five and Catch-22 incorporate irony, exemplify the idiocy and folly of military institutions, and convey a similar theme throughout their story lines.…
- 1206 Words
- 5 Pages
Powerful Essays -
Slaughterhouse-Five is fictional and not written with many shocking, colorful descriptions of atrocities, which occurred during WWII as Elie Wiesel 's Night. The science fiction parts of the book are over emphasized. One does not get a truthful account of the happenings of WWII from Slaughterhouse-Five. The Tralfamadorian 's science fiction aspects of the novel dull the anti-war theme. Their beliefs coerce Billy to forget about the war; the Tralfamadorians tell Billy, "one thing Earthlings might learn to do, if they tried hard enough: Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones" (Vonnegut 117). They also tell Billy, "we spend eternity looking at pleasant moments;" they cannot do anything about the awful times, so they ignore them (Vonnegut 117). The climax of the novel is the fire bombing of Dresden; the reader is aware of this from the start, it is stated in the first chapter. The description of the bombing it is short; one could almost miss it. Billy does not travel back to the event nor does he re-live it, like he does many other less important events. The book 's climax is supposed to be the fire bombing of Dresden;…
- 2683 Words
- 11 Pages
Powerful Essays -
The semi-autobiographical nature of Kurt Vonnegut’s work is shown in Slaughterhouse-Five. In this novel, the protagonist Billy Pilgrim closely mirrors Vonnegut, specifically regarding Dresden. Billy Pilgrim is an unassuming man that is drafted into the war before he can finish school, exactly like Vonnegut. Pilgrim is thrust into the Battle of the Bulge with very little training, and ends up becoming captured by the Germans and eventually taken to an underground slaughterhouse in Dresden to help produce…
- 1750 Words
- 7 Pages
Powerful Essays -
Suddenly, he is playing a round of golf, and is back on the Trafalmadorian spaceship after picking up the ball. These transitions are all very sudden, with seemingly random descriptions of mundane events in Billy's life (Vonnegut 84-85). The rapid transitions while traveling through time can easily make a reader lose track of what is going on if they are not paying complete…
- 427 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
For example, “Billy is spastic in time, has no control over where he is going next, and the trips aren't necessarily fun. He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next” (29). This quote illustrates that Billy has lost control over the most foundational constant we come to expect in life, which is time. He also feels phony in living his own life. This lack of caring about who he is makes Billy a non-familiar hero for a novel. For instance, “The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist” (33-34). Even if it is true that death is only brief moment in a person’s life, it draws us to ask the question if we can or can’t cry at funerals. The time we spent with the specific person that passed away will determine if we can or can’t cry at their funeral. Every great moment is eternal in Billy’s life. Lastly, this was when Billy first came unstuck in time. His attention began to swing grandly through the full arc of his life, passing into death, which was violet light. There wasn't anybody else there, or anything. There was just violet light—and a hum” (54). Billy is faced with the probability of his own death for the first time. He can see his life literally flashing before his own eyes. The novel takes the idea of flashbacks that are traumatic and run with it. It all depended on how Billy used his time to make himself a better person and try his best to move on from this huge incident that has played a huge role in his…
- 921 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays