Kurt Vonnegut

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Recommended: Slaughterhouse five anti war novel

Kurt Vonnegut

Coming from a German background, the first thing I thought of was the name of a writer that had written one of my favorite books. I went onto the internet to try to find out if he had in fact come from the same origin as my family. This was tough at first because the only thing it revealed was that Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indiana on November 11, 1922 (Grolier Incorporated). After looking to find out where his great-grandfather came from, it revealed that Clemens Vonnegut Sr. emigrated from Germany in 1848 (Shaping the Circle). I picked writing about this writer because he has written one of the most interesting books in my mind, Slaughterhouse-Five which I will use as my topic.

In the book many different adventures take place that makes this novel have a different feel. The adventures that take place happen for a multitude of reasons. It gives this book a twist in a way that you seem to have an outside view of what is going on in the plot. Billy's memories and his stream of consciousness are used to give sensory impressions of his actions and thoughts by his time travel, as well as also provide other details in his life and World War II (Schatt 89).

Billy encounters a sleep-like state when he becomes “unstuck in time (Vonnegut 29)” and this occurs for different reasons. One of the major reasons for Billy to become “unstuck in time” is the atrocities of the Holocaust, together with the firebombing of Dresden, make for such painful memories. “Because of the shock of this event, Billy becomes a perpetual prisoner of war, returning again and again in his mind to this scene (“Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade”).” Within the book, Dresden seems to be the center of all the major action taking place. It is no wonder almost all Billy's thoughts is his remembrance of his wartime encounters during his captivation as a prisoner. Kurt Vonnegut then has Billy put into the sleep-like state in which he only remembers pieces at a time to put his mind more at ease. This method makes the story rather confusing, but puts what is going on more into perspective. It shows how a man that experienced such a catastrophe might have to deal with what he went through by his thoughts (Schatt 88-89).

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