Slaughterhouse-Five is a novel written in troubled times about troubled times. It is one of the most compelling anti-war novels in American history. Kurt Vonnegut‚ the writer of this novel‚ uses his own experiences to tell a story about World War II. He was a prisoner of war during the firebombing of Dresden. Dresden is a city in Germany that was firebombed unexpectedly in 1945 as a warning to the Russians. Between 35‚000 and 135‚000 people were killed in the bombing. Vonnegut believes war is bad
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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
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Religion in Slaughterhouse Five Ruihan Guo 2013/11/12 Vonnegut’s contempt for religion manifests itself in Slaughterhouse Five. It is illustrated in the first quotation about the role of religion in Billy Pilgrim’s life and the second quotation absurdly likening the origin of Christianity to “a gift” (139) from an outer space visitor. In the first quotation‚ Billy Pilgrim shows how he uses religion as a blind support in his life and an absolute denial of free will that absolves him from responsibility
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Another reason that Slaughterhouse-Five has been misinterpreted results from a comment that Vonnegut makes in the opening chapter. He relates a conversation he had about Slaughterhouse-Five: Over the years‚ people I ’ve met have often asked me what I ’m working on‚ and I ’ve usually replied that the main thing was a book about Dresden. I said that to
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Bernhard V. O’Hare‚ return to Dresden in 1967 with funding from the Guggenheim Foundation. They ride a taxi on the way to the Dresden slaughterhouse that served as their prison. Vonnegut and O’Hare converse with the cab driver about life under communism while on their way. It is to Gerhard Müller‚ and O’Hare’s wife‚ Mary‚ that Vonnegut dedicates Slaughterhouse-Five. Müller later sends O’Hare a Christmas card with
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Slaughterhouse Five is a confusing book to read because of the strange occurrences and frequent time traveling. Over the course of the book‚ Billy experiences some very strange things that aren’t common or even real things that a reader would see in their life. First‚ Vonnegut discusses the Trafalmadorians at length. He describes them as "two‚ feet high‚ and green‚ and shaped like plumbers’ friends. Their suctions cups were on the ground‚ and their shafts‚ which were extremely flexible‚ usually
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Is Slaugherhouse Five a Lie? Billy Pilgrim demonstrates all of the indicators of PTSD after struggling to deal with the pain and suffering that he went through. This story is actually about a man who went through traumatic experiences and is using aliens as a way to explain them.This lines up very well with the assessment of Billy Pilgrim’s mental health from his daughter. It is safe to say that Billy Pilgrim is at least suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Billy Pilgrim is the main character
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War is a tragedy that nobody wishes to participate in‚ yet it is an ever present occurrence throughout the duration of time. Slaughterhouse Five‚ written by Kurt Vonnegut‚ is an antiwar novel but ironically doesn’t fixate on war itself. Traditionally‚ antiwar novels focus on the tragic deaths that occur‚ but this novel follows a survivor of the war‚ Billy Pilgrim. As a young adult‚ Billy is forcibly drafted into a war that he has no ambition to fight. With Billy’s lack of military skills he is quickly
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To begin‚ Slaughterhouse 5 was‚ for me‚ a difficult book to understand. The first time I read it‚ I became too enraptured by the time travel and aliens to look intently at what the book was about.The second time through‚ I saw a conglomerate of details I had missed‚ but each one of them just caused me to like the book further. Though Slaughterhouse 5 ended up being a heavier topic book than I had originally thought I still enjoyed many of the components of the book such as the style‚ the important
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madness is “mental delusion or the eccentric behavior arising from it.” Yet Emily Dickinson wrote: Much Madness is divinest sense to a discerning Eye. Novelists‚ such as Kurt Vonnegut Jr.‚ have often see madness with a “discerning eye.” In Slaughterhouse-Five‚ Vonnegut conveys madness through Billy Pilgrim‚ a traumatized war veteran who believes he has become “unstuck in time”. Pilgrim’s life after the war consists of periods of his life‚ in no chronological order‚ printed together in disarray that
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