Overview Of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five

“I’m pro-choice, I’m for assisted suicide, I’m for regular suicide, I’m for whatever gets the freeway moving – that’s what I’m for. It’s too crowded, the planet is too crowded and we need to promote death.” This quote of Bill Maher, the host of HBO Real Time, can be successfully tied in a worldwide issue – population control. Consistently improving, the medical treatment that people have nowadays has beaten the old age. With limited source, what should human beings do in order to control the population? Kurt Vonnegut Jr. implicitly addressed to that scenario in his work, 2BRO2B, with the writing style that he developed through his life experiences and that conveys a metaphor of the modern world.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was born on November 11th,

The audience noted Vonnegut for his “satirical, postmodern techniques that emphasized the horrors and ironies of 20th-century civilization.” Moreover, Vonnegut’s perception of a “fatalistic, modern humanist” worldview helped him produce the work that cemented his reputation – Slaughterhouse Five, an antiwar novel which is marked as a modern day classic. Another work of his, “Cat’s Cradle,” successfully employs a metafictional style (The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica). Influencing the society with his writings, Vonnegut even sparked some novelists’ literary career. For instance, Novelist Walter, who was a National Book Award finalist, became a writer because of Vonnegut. According to Walter’s words, “with compassion, humanism and great humor, Vonnegut made many writers to realize the potential of a writer in the face of 20th century horror” (The Associated Press). He not only affected several skillful writers but also several generations of teens. People believed that he was the icon who “made the world funnier and more exciting” (The Associated

The story demonstrated the problem of overpopulation and implicitly asked the readers to ponder “how to have birth control if old age no longer exists?” In accordance to the plot, one birth must be exchanged with one death, that is, an adult dies for a baby to be born. The story began with Wehling’s dilemma of choosing one of his triplets to live or finding two more volunteers, besides his own grandfather, to exchange their lives. He was then triggered by the doctor’s indifference of the individuality, so instead of letting his grandfather sacrifice his life for the newborn, Wehling shot both the doctor and the hostess, and eventually ended his own life for the triplets. Ironically, the doctor and hostess, first described that the baby who live is a result of “warranted sacrifice” (Tozer), were dead at the end of the story. 2BRO2B is a “quirky, absurdist tale with a harsh bite,” written by Vonnegut with his “twisted worldview” (DiChario). The government control presented in his writings, in this case – Dr. Hits and hostess Duncan – is a “recurring theme in Vonnegut’s short fiction” (Tozer). The government took charge of the Federal Bureau of Termination and served as an antagonist against individuality. Dr. Hits believed that lives are interchangeable and lack individuality as the painting, The Happy Garden of