Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut-The Story 2
The book Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut is a book on the experiences of World War 2. Billy Pilgrim, the main character of this book happened to be among the military soldiers participating in this war. As a soldier, not adequately trained appears in various events that surrounds his life in Dresden. The of the book, Kurt Vonnegut organizes this events in an abnormal chronological way as he fragments the events in relation to time, characters, and the structure to combine his non linear story. This paper will focus on the abnormal chronology of the events in the book slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut.
Events
From the book, Slaughterhouse-Five, the initial details that the readers get about Billy is that he pays unsystematic visits to every event during the war period (Bloom 11). The experiences that Billy goes through are episodes that do have chronological obligations. This reflects the structure of the book that has the beginning, body and the conclusions, not placed traditionally. The author of the book says that Billy has, "come unstuck in time.†From this phrase, the author turns the time from something intangible to something tangible and therefore uses this as a fix to his own purpose (Federhen 44). The use of the word "unstuck†by the author implies that Billy is free. Apparently, Billy and Vonnegut achieve a certain level of freedom. In other words, Vonnegut and Billy have no limitations with time and the author, Vonnegut can place the character, Billy in a period of his choice. This makes the book have an effect of collage that makes the pieces and bits of the life that Billy has. However, the author of the book brings the events that occur in Billy’s closer. At one point, Billy is walking through the forest and at some point waits for his father at a public pool for his swimming lessons (Gulani 16).
The author uses abnormal chronological of time to keep the memories of the bombing that occurred in Dresden fresh in the minds of the readers (Bloom 20). Whenever Billy makes an account of Dresden, the readers gets the picture of Dresden. In other words, the reader gets the first hand information of the Dresden massacre and relatively has the distance of the happenings. From the order created by Vonnegut, there is no present, past, and the future in the novel. The image of the time created by the author, "time existing at once†happens to be the lesson that teaches from the Tralfamadorians aliens (Bloom 26). Aliens in Tralfamadorian have a similar way of observing time just like humans or human way of observing "a stretch of the Rocky mountains.†Aliens have a special way of observing things in the universe. They can tell when something bad will happen and Billy takes the Aliens style of observing things. Vonnegut uses this way organization to capture the mind of the readers. To some extent, the author asserts his capabilities of drawing attention of the readers to his literature by adding a phrase, "so it goes†whenever death strikes (Gulani 9).
However, Vonnegut repeats the phrase, "So it goes on†several times. The use of this repetition is to emphases the death calamities because of bombing in Dresden (Bloom 45). On other hand, the use of repetition emphasizes the experiences in the slaughterhouse. Therefore, the reader can understand that, Vonnegut uses the postmodern language to fuse the meaning of kind of phrases in the opposite way. The author does this to show the readers the struggles he makes by agreeing to the negative aspects of his life. Afterwards, the author lives a reality after experiences the bombing in Dresden although, the writer worries about losing his compassion after those experiences. In the first chapter, Vonnegut says’, "I have seen lots worse than that in the war†(Federhen 22).
Why the Slaughterhouse-Five Story Matters
Kurt Vonnegut makes the plot of this story in a unique way. Indeed, he abandons the traditional way of storytelling through drastically changing the chronology(Gulani 20). This style allows the author to reflect the disjoining realities of Billy Pilgrim avoiding the conventional plot of the story. In his style, he derives an anti-plot and a non-hero style. Traditionally, most stories the main the characters as the heroes. Vonnegut abandons the normal position of a hero in tradition discarding the literal hero. In other words, the main character does not act but instead acted upon by the other characters. The main character in Slaughterhouse-Five is the victim of destiny and does not have the motivation that is beyond normal survival. Therefore, the author creates a picture of powerful forces against the main character to all participants of the war or rather the characters in the book(Gulani 22).
On the aspects Little Green Creatures in Flying Horses, the author creates a scientific fiction. This is the most interesting part of the story as it leaves readers in a bizarre and a more distracting state(Bloom 27). For instance, during the war, the kidnappers abduct Billy from nowhere. Thereafter, the kidnappers take Billy in an alien place, the zoo where he encounters a movie star. From the plot of the book, Vonnegut does no display the alien stories and therefore, the reader of the novel cannot create imagery although Billy could highlight the fictions and connect them with similar plots in the book. Despite Tralfamadorians being real or not, they are coping mechanisms that necessitates Billy to accept the empty tragedies. Instead, Billy clings to the theory of the Tralfamadorians talking of life and death as it occurs to the lives of human beings(Gulani 30).
From the organization of the events in the book Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy makes an important person as a character(Gulani 33). In most events, the author focuses on POWs as Billy. Billy is his first name and not William. This name makes him more childlike but his last name, Pilgrim indentifies him like a voyager with one poignant exception. In other words, Billy is a pilgrim that does not have a purpose. However, other events in this book makes Vonnegut appear like a character in his own literature. This appears first in semi-autobiography and on the last chapters of his book and more frequently in the body of his literature. The author uses this style to remind the readers of the novel that, most events are true and that he was part of the experiences(Gulani 33).
In this book, there are events beautiful to remember. Some of these events include Pilgrim’s visit his war friend, Benard O’Hare, where they talk about Dresden. O’Hare’s wife surprises Billy through her hostility on seeing Billy again. O’Hare’s wife curses Billy regarding his book, which she claims portrays wars as glamorous. This is true for most books and movies but Billy promises her that, his book will not include parts in Sanatra. After the end of the war, Billy uses a green cart, pulled by two horses and ride back home(Gulani 34).
In conclusion, the abnormal chronological organization in Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut goes far beyond sub division of events of his literature into portions. Vonnegut chronological order clarifies the main character, Billy to demonstrate the theory of Trafalmadorians in relation to time. On this aspect, the author maintains the events in slaughterhouse and the bombing as current atrocities. The events in this novel intertwine to give Vonnegut’s literature uniformity, which at a glance appears to move in all directions. However, this is how Vonnegut organizes hi work and successfully achieves it. The abnormal chronological organization of the book forces the readers to view Vonnegut literature as a whole.
References
Bloom, Harold. Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-five. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2009.
Federhen, David. Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five. Ravensburg: GRIN Verlag, 2003.
Gulani, S Vees. "A Psychiatric Approach to Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five." Studies in Contemporary Fiction (2003 ): 12-25.