The Destruction Of War In Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five

Vonnegut uses different types of fiction to address the destruction of war by showing the lengths Billy and those around him will take to rationalize and make light of their experiences.
Throughout the novel, Vonnegut uses different types of comedy and entertainment, such as movies, plays, and costumes, in an attempt to soften the situations Billy finds himself in. As Billy awaits his kidnapping, he watches the World War II documentary, both forwards and backwards. Although this is not the first time that Hollywood and film appear (for example, Harrison Starr, the renowned movie director, laughs at Vonnegut for writing an anti-war novel [Vonnegut 3]), this is the first time Vonnegut highlights the destruction of war. By showing the bombings in reverse, the film underscores the brutality and

Billy is laughably pathetic, described as “spastic……...tall and weak, and shaped like a bottle of Coca-Cola” (Vonnegut 23). Fellow soldiers and enemies alike mock and demean him, for his appearance, demeanor, and behaviors. As the novel progresses, Billy’s frequent blunders easily eliminate any thought of war as a glorious affair. The first introduction of fiction in Slaughterhouse-Five occurs in the opening sentence of the novel. Vonnegut begins by informing the reader that “all this [the events of the book] happened, more or less” (Vonnegut 1), introducing an unreliable narrator, and restricting the possibility of truth in the novel. The narrator once again interjects to remind the reader of the unreliability of the events during Billy’s introduction. He is first described in the context of his time-hopping, followed by three words that make up their own paragraph: “So he says” (Vonnegut 23). Additionally, Vonnegut’s self-criticism of his work, calling it “a failure” (Vonnegut 22), confront the reader with doubts about the validity of Billy’s