Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five" as an Anti-War Novel

A Depiction of the Protagonists

Jasmin Wolfram, Mareike Hachemer

• Publisher: GRIN Verlag
• Year: 2014
• Edition: 0
• eBook ISBN:
  9783656583219
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, 0, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Department of English and Linguistics), course: Slaughterhouse Five, language: English, abstract: The novel "Slaughterhouse-Five", written by Kurt Vonnegut in 1969, isabout Billy Pilgrim, a man, who has "become unstuck in time", which means thathe travels through different periods of his life. The novel starts with anautobiographical part, which is about Kurt Vonnegut's life after the SecondWorld War.In the following parts Vonnegut writes about Billy Pilgrim. The readerlearns that as a young adult Billy Pilgrim is a soldier in the Second World Warjust like Kurt Vonnegut was. He survives this war with the help of other soldiersand later on he settles as a bourgeois civilian with his wife Valencia Merble andhis two children.Kurt Vonnegut tells the reader that in the time of the Second World WarBilly Pilgrim has come unstuck in time, and has been kidnapped by aliens froma planet called Tralfamadore. The reader gets to know Billy Pilgrim's life story aswell as his personality. As a round character Billy is shown in different situationswith all his emotions and thoughts. Vonnegut describes traumatic events inBilly's childhood and also emotionally important events in his grown-up life, likehis 18th wedding anniversary.After the awful situations Billy witnessed in the Second World War, forinstance the Dresden bombing, and an airplane crash he survives, Billy says hewas kidnapped by a flying saucer. This could be a sign of Billy Pilgrim sufferingfrom Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which will be examined in thefollowing text.Although the novel contains sad and cruel topics, the tone of the novel isgenerally sarcastic and unemotional. Billy Pilgrim's life and the literary style of"Slaughterhouse-Five" inevitably lead to the question: In How Far Does KurtVonnegut's Depiction of the Protagonists in "Slaughterhouse-Five"Contribute to the Novel Being an Anti-War Novel?Since Vonnegut's publishers call Slaughterhouse-Five "one of the world'sgreat anti-war books" and Vonnegut himself promised his friend Mary O'Hare towrite an anti-war novel, these statements will be examined in this essay.

Table of contents

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Protagonist and Author
• 3. Literary Analysis
• 4. Characters in “Slaughterhouse-Five” -
• “There Won't be a Part for Frank Sinatra or John Wayne”
• 5. “A Duty-Dance with Death”
• 6. Conclusion
• 7. Works Cited