Kurt Vonnegut Essay

Kurt Vonneguts impertinent, Slaughterhouse Five appe atomic number 18d on the list of snip magazines 100 all epoch best English language novels since 1923. Written in 1969, this novel is considered a classic and is likewise kn mystify as angiotensin converting enzyme of his best works. Slaughterhouse -Five spans the different sentence periods of the life of Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist. Vonnegut witnessed the Bombing of Dresden in foundation War II, and this novel demos the aftermath of the war. Vonnegut uses while travel as the plot device to portray hu slice conditions from an unusual perspective.He was a pris mavinr in the dispute of Bulge in December 1944 in Dresden, Ger piece of musicy as a large number scout. In all likelihood, the bombing of Dresden saved him from being sent to the Auschwitz boast ch yellow-browns. Vonnegut was among the few survivors that were taken as prisoners to a slaughterhouse during the war and he worked in a meat-locker under this slau ghterhouse, making diet supplements for pregnant women . The rubric refers to the slaughterhouse where Billy stayed as the prisoner of war. Vonnegut combines science fiction elements along with human conditions in the aftermath of the Dresden bombing, to drive the confidential information.Slaughterhouse-Five is the story of a man Billy Pilgrim who has come unstuck in time. This term refers to his live a plane crash where he suffers a minor headland damage. Vonnegut has created a satire on fatalism. He believes that no matter how incommode the situation of a man is he has the power to create his own reality through the sheer power of imagination. Billy Pilgrim experiences different time periods of his life especially his experiences of the World War II. The seemingly random contingency of his life structures the thematic elements of the novel in an unraveling order.The novel examines many events in Billys life. This includes the death of his wife, his capture by the Nazis in Wo rld War II, and the unfortunate bombing of Dresden, which alike became the inspiration of this book. The major etymon comprises of the narrative that depicts Billys difficult times in Dresden, the subaltern theme that runs through is his easy and affluent life as an oculist in the city of Illium, upstart York, which is a fictional stand-in for Troy, New York, the city of Schenectady, New York.This is the place where Vonnegut has based just about of his novels. The fiction runs collimate to the story of Vonneguts own transition from the depressing years of 1930s, which was also the time period when The Great Depression occurred, to a well to do existence that followed. The satirical essence of the novel is portrayed by the instant phrase, so it goes which Vonnegut uses to describe death and dying whether it is of man, animal or the bubbles of champagne. He uses it to downplay the fact of mortality making it sound humorous and routine. round would say that his writings be cre epy, but the fact is that he wrote beautiful, outlandish and horrifying novels replete with apparition humor, and that delineate him apart as a unique writer. In Slaughterhouse Five he uses words and phrases such as, mustard gas and roses to describe the rotting smell of a corpse, and the wind of an alcoholic. This novel explores the idea of fate, freewill and illogical nature of human beings. In the inaugural chapter the narrator apologizes about the fact that the novel is so compact and jumbled and jangled and then goes on to explain the fact that there is nix intelligent to say about a massacre.The satirical tone and the dark humor is the alibi, which he uses to describe the horrific aftermath of bombings and war in general. There are three themes that he uses in Slaughterhouse Five. The first and fore some theme is the- War. He writes about the contrasts of war which is tell apart, beauty, humanity, innocence, humor etc. In Slaughterhouse Five just like his many anter ior novels, he says that war is bad for us and it is better to love one another and live in peace, than have wars.However, she doesnt use love as the contrast of war, since Billy Pilgrim was not shown as a man who is madly in love with his wife. Yet he chose to depict it in a light yet effective manner. An interesting contrast Vonnegut uses in his novels are differences between the characteristics of men and women. Men are shown as merciless and ready to he engage in war any time, and the females are the shields, playing the shock absorbers effect capably, as they are invariably engaged in trying to dissuade men from getting into wars.Women in Vonneguts novels are more humane, loving and have strong wills. The most compelling theme is that we as people are like bugs confine in an amber and there are no whys to it. In a sequence in the novel, when Billy is trapped in Tralfamadorin Flying dishful he asks, wherefore me? . Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because th is moment simply is . Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber? Billy was asked, and he recalls that he in fact had a paperweight in his office, which was a blob of polished amber with three ladybugs trapped intimate it.Billy answers in affirmation and he is told Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why. (ibid pg. 76-77). This extraterrestrial experience of Billy is exemplary of the fact that we are physically stuck in this world with no alternative over our circumstances. In Vonneguts novels there are no set themes or plot that follows the story of heroes, heroines or villains. As Ernest W. Ranly says that all the characters in Vonneguts books are comic, pathetic pieces, juggled about by some unknown faith, like puppets. (Riley, 1974, pg. 54).Vonnegut himself says in his book Hocus Pocus that if there is no one to take the blame for the bad happenings in the book, it can only mean that the villain is God Himself or Herself or It self or Whatever (Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus, 1990). Another material theme is that there is no spend, only man. Being a soldier is a myth as a soldier is just a puppet of war used to do as the war demands. He doesnt remain a human being anymore. Vonnegut expresses this thought most noticeably in this extract from the novel from the time when Billy was jailed in Dresden.When the three fools found the communal kitchen, whose main job was to wee lunch for workers in the slaughterhouse, everybody had been waiting for them impatiently. She was a war widow. So it goes. She asked Gluck if he wasnt awfully young to be in the army. He admitted he was. She asked Billy Pilgrim what he was supposed to be. Billy said he didnt know. He was trying to keep warm. All the real soldier are dead. She said. It was true. So it goes. (Vonnegut 1969. Pg. 159). Another obvious theme is that death is inevitable.It also goes on to explain that life goes on, no matter what happens and who dies. The phrase so it goes occurs one hundred and six times throughout the novel it happens every time someone dies, to take away the seriousness of death and impart a humorous quality to its inevitable graveness. This book has different meanings for different people, as everyone would be likely to interpret its subtle messages in their own way. The point that Vonnegut wanted to make was that no matter what happens , we should retain our humanity.