Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five

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Kurt Vonnegut’s anti-war science fiction novel entitled, Slaughter House Five otherwise known as “The Children’s Crusade” or “A Duty Dance with Death,” is a classic example of Vonnegut’s eccentric and moving writing capabilities.Originally published in 1969, Slaughterhouse-Five pays tribute to Vonnegut’s experiences in World War Two, as an advanced scout in the 106th infantry division, a prisoner of war and witness to the firebombing of Dresden on February 13th, 1945 in which 135,000 people were killed, making it the greatest man-caused massacre of all times.This novel illustrates the cruelties and violence of war along with the potential for compassion in human nature and all that it encompasses. In the novel Vonnegut introduces a boy named Billy Pilgrim who is a young and inadequately trained soldier.Throughout the course of the novel, Billy jumps back and forth through his present and past life.The reader is under the impression that Billy is slightly eccentric as he begins to talk about a distant fourth dimension planet named Tralfamadore to which he is abducted to on occasion...

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