Summary Of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt Vonnegut Jr., author of “Slaughterhouse-Five”, is an indescribable writer who has written a distinctly imaginative, somewhat funny and mind-altering story. The combination of fact and fiction forces the reader to go along with the book for what it is leaving the reader with the a pondering question as to how did a man grow up to write this book after surviving the Dresden bombing as a child. There seems to be no clear answer but this does enhance the effect of the book. As a writer for the New York Times, I thought this book was a masterpiece that is to good to be science fiction and perfectly leaps over genres. Although confusing at first, as it continues to jump back through time giving you short and disorganized pieces at a time, it

He travels in and out through different times of his life with no control as to which period he lands in. He goes back to his birth, his death, and moments in between them, one of them being the firebombing of Dresden. Vonnegut uses his own experiences in the war to tell his story through the character Billy Pilgrim. That being said, this book is not in chronological order and is structured in small sections each time. It’s impossible to conclude that “Slaughterhouse-Five” is a specific genre of any sort. After the massacre, “everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again” (Vonnegut 19). The only thing that is mentioned about the massacre is from the birds when they say, “Poo-tee-weet?” (19). However, once this book was released in 1969, it became a huge hit and a surprise to many. It maintained its popularity due to many young students who were caught up in the peace movements of the 60s and because 1969 was at the height of the Vietnam War. Working for the New York Times during the release was really busy. The novel spent sixteen weeks on our best time seller and was featured on the section’s front page. The structure of the novel overall does portray a personal struggle with heart-wrenching material. Although this book is a response to World War 2, it does relate to the Vietnam