Slaughterhouse Five
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Transcript of Slaughterhouse Five
ENG-216 Literary Analysis Essay #2
Topic #3 Slaughterhouse Five
Themes of Slaughterhouse-Five
Vonnegut’s frank descriptions and matter-of-fact writing style belie the depth of
Slaughterhouse-Five. He uses repeated phrases, verbal rhythm, and repeating narrative structures
to affect the reader more than his subdued tone would cause us to expect. Vonnegut’s detached
observations and descriptions ridicule the absurd nature of the behavior of the people in the book
and of our own commonly held beliefs. The themes the story is centered on are gently, but
continuously poked into our consciousness through gradually explained ideas, by directly
associating disparate situations, and by the repeated use of symbols, phrases and descriptions.
The unconventional format of Slaughterhouse-Five is a symbol in itself. It is an analogy
to his inability and the inability of the novel as a medium to properly express his experiences or
say anything intelligent about them. Vonnegut mocks the structure of novels by writing the first
chapter as himself, rather than including these thoughts in a preface or foreword, before the
“fictional story” began. In the first chapter he summarizes the entire book without much fanfare
and even tells us the first and last lines of the story. The structure of the novel is “jumbled and
jangled”(12) jumping from one time to another at random. Vonnegut breaks the fourth wall by
inserting himself into the fictional story, while he himself is the narrator. The way he tells the
story is like the way Billy tries to deal with his own experiences. The novel is something like a
Tralfamadorian novel, a “clump of-symbols” read “all at once, not one after the other”(48). Their
explanation is a fitting description of Slaughterhouse-Five:
There isn't any particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects.(48)
The almost clinical descriptions that Vonnegut uses are symbolic of his inability to
understand his experiences and are echoed in the character of Billy Pilgrim who walks through
his life impartial to almost everything. Billy rarely shows emotion, “He never got mad at
anything. He was wonderful that way (48).” Some of the descriptions sound like the descriptions
the Tralfamadorians give about life on earth who also have trouble understanding the way
earthlings act. In this way Vonnegut wrote an anti-war book without specifically denouncing
war. He just describes some of the horrible things that occurred and lets us draw our own
conclusions.
He does something similar when he explains the philosophy that Billy and the
Tralfamadorians share. Their fatalistic idea that we are just “bugs trapped in amber”(42) is like
his own refrain when he relates someone’s death, “so it goes”(5), and what the birds say in
response to a massacre, “Poo-tee-weet?”(13). It seems to indicate acceptance that we are
powerless to do anything about our world. The Tralfamadorian concept of time as fixed and free
will as non-existent and Billy’s framed prayer,
GOD GRANT ME
THE SERENITY TO
ACCEPT THE THINGS
I CANNOT CHANGE (34)
say that it is impossible to prevent bad things from happening, so it doesn’t make sense to fight
them. They believe we should “Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones(65)”. It
almost seems as if Vonnegut is suggesting resigned acceptance and disaffection in the face of
atrocity. Here again Vonnegut lets us draw our own conclusions, showing us Billy Pilgrim and
allowing us to decide if we should live the same way.
It’s my belief that the novel is a denouncement of senseless death. Like those who died in
the war and the deaths of Billy’s father, wife, father-in-law, and Billy’s own death, Vonnegut
laments the senseless deaths of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King:
Robert Kennedy, whose summer home is eight miles from the home I live in all year
round, was shot two nights ago. He died last night. So it goes.
Martin Luther King was shot a month ago. He died, too. So it goes.
And every day my Government gives me a count of corpses created by military science
in Vietnam. So it goes.(115)
Vonnegut repeats the phrase, “so it goes”(5) to express sorrow, loss, anger, and frustration at the
tragedy of senseless death, but lacks any other way to relate it.
Works Cited
Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five. New York: Dell Publishing, 1991.