Slaughterhouse Five By Kurt Vonnegut: Literary Analysis

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In Slaughterhouse Five written by Kurt Vonnegut, war and life are two very important aspects. The war that is taking place during this time period in Slaughterhouse Five is World War II. Being in the war can affect many different people in different ways for the good, or for the bad. The war has an affect on two men named Billy Pilgrim, and Eliot Rosewater.
Billy Pilgrim is a chaplain’s assistant. A chaplain in the war’s job is to minister to military personnel, and families working for the military.. Billy Pilgrim’s past comes back for them to relive. As Billy is trying to “reinvent himself” he finds himself frolicking in his childhood at the Grand Canyon (Vonnegut 112). Billy was twelve years old when his mother and father took him on vacation to the Grand Canyon. Billy hated the Grand Canyon is was for certain that he would fall into the Bright Angel Point (Vonnegut 12). Approximately ten days after visiting the Grand Canyon, Billy visited Carlsbad Caverns. “The Caverns had been discovered by a cowboy who saw a huge cloud of bats come out of a hole in the ground” (Vonnegut 113). When …show more content…

He is at the veteran hospital in New York next to Billy Pilgrim. Rosewater’s past also comes back for him to relive. Eliot Rosewater has had a drinking problem, which landed him in the hospital. Eliot mistook a 14 year old for a German soldier. Now at this point, Rosewater has found life meaningless. The war has made both Eliot and Billy hate themselves. Billy and Eliot have a hard time accepting themselves, and accepting the fact that they cannot change who they are, or their past. As Kurt Vonnegut quotes, “There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effect,” (Vonnegut 112). As Eliot Rosewater, and Billy Pilgrim try to “reinvent themselves and their universe,” Eliot Rosewater thinks he has found the perfect cure. The cure to “reinvent themselves” are science fiction novels. (Vonnegut

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