GENERAL
1. The plot of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut is centered around Billy Pilgrim's time-traveling escapades. The story, told from Billy's perspective (and sometimes Vonnegut, who has placed himself in the story), skips around between short anecdotal snippets from different points in Billy's life. These parts include his survival of the bombing of Dresden during World War II, his later years after a plane crash, and his abduction by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. Billy's life in the war is the the focal point of the story, but certainly not the only significant part. Through Billy's time-bending journeys, Vonnegut shares his views on a variety of subjects (ranging from antiwar sentiments to what it means to have free will). Told linearly, Slaughterhouse-Five is about a young man who survives a war. He is abducted by aliens from Tralfamador, who place him in a zoo. Tralfamadorians can see the fourth dimension, which means that they view all of time at once--rather than a single instant at a time. When Billy returns to Earth, he tries to share the Tralfamadorian philosophy. He is killed by somebody who swore revenge on him during the war.
2. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut prompts the reader to question whether humans have free will. To what extent is fate predetermined? Is there an inevitability to life? There are also prevalent antiwar themes. However, it would be wrong to pigeon-hole the novel into one genre. Chapter 1 is actually a preface to the story, with Vonnegut explaining in first person the process through which the book was written. One exchange goes like this:
"Is it an anti-war book?""Yes," I said. "I guess."The "I guess" infers that while it is an anti-war book to an extent, that is certainly not the whole of it.
3. The author's tone alternates between mournful and darkly humorous. It is as if Vonnegut knows the world is ending. However, there's nothing he can do about it, so he figures he might as well have some laughs on the way down.
I've finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun. This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt*. It begins like this..."*Earlier, Vonnegut makes reference to the Biblical story in which Lot's wife is turned into a pillar of salt. He comments on how he admires how human Lot is, and so associates that pillar of salt with humanity. In this passage, he is commenting on how the book was destined to be a failure because it was written by somebody who is so extremely human.
It was a pattern. It was a crazy, sexy, murderous relationship Weary entered into with people he eventually beat up. he told them about his father's collection of guns and swords and torture instruments and leg irons and so on.
On the eighth day, the forty-year-old hobo said to Billy, "This ain't bad. I can be comfortable anywhere.""You can?" said BIlly.On the ninth day, the hobo died. So it goes. His last words were, "You think this is bad? This ain't bad."
4. [Textual examples are taken from the Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence 25th Anniversary Edition]
Irony: Given that Slaughterhouse-Five is a satire that employs dark humor, there is irony aplenty.
The dog, who had sounded so ferocious in the winter distances, was a female German shepherd. She was shivering. Her tail was between her legs. She had been borrowed that morning from a farmer. She had never been to war before. She had no idea what game was being played. Her name was Princess.
pg 50
Foreshadowing: Between the time traveling and the fatalistic themes, there is foreshadowing in practically every chapters. In a very literal sense, Vonnegut gives away the end of the story in the first chapter.
It begins like this:
Listen:
Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.
It ends like this:
Poo-tee-weet?
pg 21
Flashback: Again, the time traveling facilitates a lot of flashbacks. They are not always flashbacks in the typical sense, as Billy is literally going back in time, not just remembering it.
And Billy zoomed back in time to his infancy. He was a baby who had just been bathed by his mother.
pg 81
Repetition: The phrase "So it goes" is repeated many, many times in the novel. Vonnegut uses it to drive home the inevitability of death.
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.'"
pg 26
Epitaph: There is one direct reference to an epitaph. Epitaphs in general have great relevance to the story, as it deals so much with death and reflection on the past. Note that the "me" refers to Vonnegut, as he is technically telling the story in the first person.
"Was it awful?"
"Sometimes." A crazy thought now occurred to Billy. The truth of it startled him. It would make a good epitaph for Billy Pilgrim--and for me, too.
pg 115
Postmodernism: Slaughterhouse-Five contains many elements of postmodernism. Most notably, it contains black humor, irony, metafiction, and temporal distortion.
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.
pg 22
Satire: Vonnegut very clearly criticizes war as irrational. In a particularly poignant passage, he describes what a war film about bombing looks like viewed in reverse.
The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. the containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. they used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and the planes.
pg 71
Comedy: Despite the generally dark tone, Vonnegut provides comic relief. At times he dryly mocks his own writing, such as his use of "So it goes."
So Billy uncorked it with his thumbs. It didn't make a pop. The champagne was dead. So it goes.
pg 70
Allusion: In the hospital, there is a short scene in which a character reads The Red Badge of Courage.
Derby sat on a three-legged stool. He was given a book to read. The book was The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane.
pg 94
Surrealism: The novel's psychological and philosophical themes are all wrapped into a bizarre story of aliens and time travel.
"It would take another Earthling to explain it to you. Earthlings are the great explainers, explaining why this event is structured as it is, telling how other events may be achieved or avoided...If I hadn't spent so much time studying Earthlings," said the Tralfamadorian, "I wouldn't have any idea what was meant by 'free will.'"
CHARACTERIZATION
1. Direct Characterization:
Billy was wearing a thin field jacket, a shirt and trousers of scratchy wool, and long underwear that was soaked with sweat. he was the only one of the four who had a beard. It was a random, bristly beard, and some of the bristles were white, even though Billy was only twenty-one years old. He was also going bald. Wind and cold and violent exercises had turned his face crimson. He didn't look like a soldier at all. He looked like a filthy flamingo.
Campbell was an ordinary-looking man, but he was extravagantly costumed in a uniform of his own design. he wore a white ten-gallon hat and black cowboy boots decorated with swastikas and stars. He was sheathed in a blue body stocking which had yellow stripes running from his armpits to his ankles. His shoulder patch was a silhouette of Abraham Lincoln's profile on a field of pale green. he had a broad armband which was red, with a blue swastika in a circle of white.
Indirect Characterization:
There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of an enormous force. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters. But old Derby was a character now. His stance was that of a punch-drunk fighter. His head was down. his fists were out front, waiting for information and battle plan. Derby raised his head, called Campbell a snake.
Unexpectedly, Billy Pilgrim found himself upset by the song and the occasion. He had never had an old gang, old sweethearts and pals, but he missed one anyway, as the quartet made slow, agonized experiments with chords...
Direct characterization is used to provide an initial impression of characters. Vonnegut uses it to establish the general concept of the character (Billy is generally pitiful, Campbell is a weirdly Nazi-fied(?) American). Indirect character is later used to show greater depth to these characters. Vonnegut can more effectively convey complex elements of characters by portraying them in action and allowing the reader to draw conclusions.
2. Vonnegut more or less uses the same ponderous writing style throughout. His descriptions of both events and characters are extremely literal, but they are often hiding subtle meanings. It is in the connotations and associations of these literal descriptions that he communicates his ideas.
3. Billy Pilgrim is a static and round character. There is a surprising amount of complexity to his initially shallow character. Although he seems to repeat himself often, his apparent madness masks some incredibly deep philosophical questions. Following the progression of time as we see it, Billy Pilgrim is surely a dynamic character. However, within the story, time is viewed in the Tralfamadorian sense (every moment of time is viewed at once). Given this weirdly paradoxical point of view, Billy does not actually change from the beginning to the end of the novel--as far as time goes, the beginning takes place at the exact same time as the end.
4. I definitely feel more like I've read a character than met a person, on the simple grounds that the characters are in general so bizarre. Vonnegut writes a lot of "larger-than-life" characters. While the novel deals heavily with humanity, the characters he writes are not intended to be life-like representations. The above example of Campbell is a good example of this. While there may have been some Americans who defected during the war, it is doubtful that any did so in such an extravagant (and colorful!) manner.
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