Slaughterhouse Five Literary Analysis - 890 Words

Baruch Spinoza once said â€Å"Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason, that men believe themselves free, simply because they are conscious of their actions and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined.† He compared free-will with destiny and ended up that what we live and what we think are all results of our destiny; and the concept of the free-will as humanity know is just the awareness of the situation. Similarly, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five explores this struggle between free-will and destiny, and illustrates the idea of time in order to demonstrate that there is no free-will in war; it is just destiny. Vonnegut conveys this through irony, symbolism and satire. Time concept is a complex idea that†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations,† (85) And Vonnegut even test this by giving Billy the ability time traveling. Although Billy travel in time, he cannot change what happened in the past. In fact he sees his death, but can’t do anything to change it. â€Å"I, Billy Pilgrim will die, have died and always die on February thirteenth, 1976† (140) This unchangeable of time shows that proceed from past to future and nothing can change the sequence of this progression. This is like the domino’s movement its movement determined by the laws of physics everything is bounded in each other if you take one domino out than the movement will stop in this case if we change the past there will be no future. Ironically even Tralfamadorians do live in time, they still struggle against constraints on their free-will and this is almost hilarious for us humans who believe that we actually have free-will and can change our future. As a conclusion Kurt Vonnegut planned to juxtapose the free-will and the Tralfamadorian belief determinism by using symbolism. One of the most significant rule in determinism concept is whatever you do you cannot change your destiny. In Slaughterhouse Five Kurt Vonnegut, touch on this rule in the first chapter by using irony. The irony is Derby survived the entire war, including the bombing of Dresden but he has been shot because of a teapot â€Å"A whole city gets burned down, and thousands and thousandsShow MoreRelatedLiterary Analysis Of Slaughterhouse-Five1983 Words   |  8 PagesInitially published in 1969, Slaughterhouse-Five is a novel that defies labels and genre conventions. It is at once a post-modernist science-fiction book set in an imaginary world, but also a semi-autobiographical anti-war treatise. Considered as Vonnegut’s masterpiece, the novel follows the travels through time and space of its protagonist, Billy Pilgrim. Billy is always going back-and-forth to the firebombing of Dresden in eastern Germany, on February 13, 1945, an event he witnessed and from whichRead MoreThe Story o f Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut641 Words   |  3 PagesThe story of Slaughterhouse Five is about a man named Billy Pilgrim who goes through a series of strange events throughout his life time. And it all starts when he is in a war in Germany. Billy is resentful towards the war and he makes it clear that he does not want to be there. During the war, he becomes captured by Germans. Before Billy is captured, he meets Roland Weary. When captured, the Germans took everything from Weary, including his shoes so they gave him clogs as a substitute. EventuallyRead MoreKurt Vonnegut and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder810 Words   |  3 Pagessiblings. He enlisted in the army while at Cornell, and from there the army transferred him over to Carnegie Institute of Technology and then to the University of Tennessee, in which he studied mechanical engineering. One of his most known works, â€Å"Slaughterhouse-Five†, was about a soldier in World War II, much like himself, and the jo urney’s he goes through after, during, and before the war. Billy Pilgrim, the main character in the story randomly travels through time, and is abducted by aliens who see everythingRead MoreStyle Analysis of Kurt Vonnegut on Slaughterhouse Five1623 Words   |  7 PagesThough war is a traumatizing and miserable experience, it may also be able to move and inspire people to write a brilliant piece of literature. One example, for instance, is Kurt Vonnegut who may have been stimulated by the war, thus writing Slaughterhouse Ââ€" Five. Though one may categorize this piece as science fiction or even auto - biographical, it can also be interpreted as an anti Ââ€" war piece. Because Vonnegut is classified as a post modernist, one can take into account all the details, suchRead MoreCoping with War: A Comparison Between Slaughterhouse Five and A Farewell to Arms1630 Words   |  7 PagesEarnest Hemmingway once said Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justi fied, is not a crime. (Ernest Hemingway: A Literary Reference) War is a gruesome and tragic thing and affects people differently. Both Vonnegut and Hemmingway discus this idea in their novels A Farewell to Arms and Slaughterhouse Five. Both of the novels deal not only with war stories but other genres, be it a science fiction story in Vonnegut’s case or a love story in Hemingway’s. Despite all the similaritiesRead MoreKurt Vonnegut : A Hybrid Of Science Fiction And Satire1716 Words   |  7 Pagesdifferent genres to create something new. Vonnegut’s work is a hybrid of science fiction and satire. Satire is an author’s way of saying he/she feels that something is subpar, Vonnegut does just this in most of his works, such as Slaughterhouse Five, and Harrison Bergeron. â€Å"Any analysis Kurt Vonnegut’s work runs the risk of being too heavy-handed and ponderous to do justice to writing that has self-consciously chosen the path of the lightweight, t he naive, and the comical.† (Rigney). This is true becauseRead MoreThe Mom2180 Words   |  9 PagesPeriod: 6th |Grade Level Course: English III AP | |Timeline:   25 Days |Lesson Unit Title:  Slaughterhouse Five/AP Test Blitz | |Stated Objectives: |Which subject-specific TEKS are going to be addressed in the lesson unit? | |TEKS AddressedRead MorePoststructuralist Analysis Of Slaughterhouse-Five. Poststructuralism1603 Words   |  7 PagesPoststructuralist Analysis of Slaughterhouse-Five Poststructuralism is a form of psychoanalytic theory. It is the study of the natural development of the psyche to structure. In this critical analysis, Lacanianism will be the focus. â€Å" Lacan’s psychoanalytic work is often evoked to explain how power works, why the individual - the subject - is so extraordinarily susceptible to power† (Bertens, 161). What this form of poststructuralist psychoanalysis can do is explain someone’s behavior by deconstructingRead MoreWhat is The Meaning of Free Will in Life Essay1571 Words   |  7 Pages Free will is the idea in which individuals can have the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate, and this idea of free will served as a prevalent theme in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Vonnegut illustrates the absurdity of no free will in Pilgrim’s world through the book’s nonlinear structure and unorganized plot. The novel is constructed as a series of inconsistent flashbacks and future incidents through the eyes of the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim. Billy Pilgrim is ableRead MoreSlaughterhouse Five Essay example1842 Words   |  8 Pagesdistraught civilians. Regardless of the age of the people entering war, unless one obtains the mental capacity to witness numerous deaths and stay unaffected, he or she is not equipped to enter war. Kurt Vonnegut portrays the horrors of war in Slaughterhouse Five, through the utilization of satire, symbolism, and imagery. The main occurrence in the novel was the nonsensical bombing of the culturally enriched and beautiful city in Dresden, Germany. On February 13, 1945 amidst World War II this city was