Wikipedia

Slaughterhouse-Five

For the film adaptation, seeSlaughterhouse-Five(film).
"Billy Pilgrim" redirects here. For the American folk rock duo, seeBilly Pilgrim (duo).

Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Deathis a 1969 semi-autobiographicscience fiction-infusedanti-warnovel byKurt Vonnegut.It follows the life experiences of Billy Pilgrim, from his early years, to his time as an American soldier and chaplain's assistant duringWorld War II,to thepost-waryears. Throughout the novel, Billy frequently travels back and forth through time. The protagonist deals with a temporal crisis as a result of his post-war psychological trauma. The text centers on Billy's capture by theGerman Armyand his survival of the Alliedfirebombing of Dresdenas aprisoner of war,an experience that Vonnegut endured as an American serviceman. The work has been called an example of "unmatched moral clarity"[3]and "one of the most enduring anti-war novels of all time".[3]

Slaughterhouse-Five, or the Children's Crusade
First edition cover
AuthorKurt Vonnegut
LanguageEnglish
GenreDark comedy
Satire
Science fiction
War novel
Metafiction
Postmodernism
PublisherDelacorte
Publication date
March 31, 1969[1]
Publication placeUnited States
Pages190 (First Edition)[2]
ISBN0-385-31208-3(first edition, hardback)
OCLC29960763
813.54
LC ClassPS3572.O5 S6 1994

Plot

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The novel's first chapter begins with "All this happened, more or less"; this introduction implies anunreliable narratortells the story. Vonnegut utilizes a non-linear, non-chronological description of events to reflect Billy Pilgrim's psychological state. Events become clear throughflashbacksand descriptions oftime travelexperiences.[4]In the first chapter, the narrator describes his writing of the book, his experiences as aUniversity of Chicagoanthropology student and aChicago City News Bureaucorrespondent, his research on theChildren's Crusadeand the history of Dresden, and his visit toCold War–eraEuropewith his wartime friend Bernard V. O'Hare. In the second chapter, Vonnegut introduces Billy Pilgrim, an American man from the fictional town ofIlium, New York.Billy believes that an extraterrestrial species from the planetTralfamadoreheld him captive in an alien zoo and that he has experienced time travel.

As a chaplain's assistant in theUnited States Armyduring World War II, Billy is an ill-trained, disoriented andfatalisticAmerican soldier who discovers that he does not like war and refuses to fight.[5]He is transferred from a base inSouth Carolinato the front line inLuxembourgduring theBattle of the Bulge.He narrowly escapes death as the result of a string of events. He also meets Roland Weary, a patriot, warmonger, and sadistic bully who derides Billy's cowardice. The two of them are captured in 1944 by the Germans, who confiscate all of Weary's belongings and force him to wear woodenclogsthat cut painfully into his feet; the resulting wounds becomegangrenous,which eventually kills him. While Weary is dying in a rail car full of prisoners, he convinces a fellow soldier, Paul Lazzaro, that Billy is to blame for his death. Lazzaro vows to avenge Weary's death by killing Billy, because revenge is "the sweetest thing in life."

At this exact time, Billy becomes "unstuck in time"; Billy travels through time to moments from his past and future. The novel describes the transportation of Billy and the other prisoners into Germany. The German soldiers held their prisoners in the German city ofDresden;the prisoners had to work in "contract labor" (forced labor); these events occurred in 1945. The Germans detained Billy and his fellow prisoners in an emptyslaughterhousecalledSchlachthof-fünf( "slaughterhouse five" ). During the Alliedbombing of Dresden,German guards hid their captives in the partially underground setting of the slaughterhouse; this protected those captives from complete annihilation. As a result, they are among the few survivors of thefirestormthat raged in the city between February 13 and 15, 1945. AfterV-E Dayin May 1945, Billy was transferred to the United States and received anhonorable dischargein July 1945.

Billy is hospitalized with symptoms similar topost-traumatic stress disorderand placed under psychiatric care at aVeterans Affairs hospitalinLake Placid.During Billy's stay at the hospital,Eliot Rosewaterintroduces him to the work of an obscure science fiction writer namedKilgore Trout.After his release, Billy marries Valencia Merble, whose father owns the Ilium School of Optometry that Billy later attends. Billy becomes a successful and wealthyoptometrist.In 1947, Billy and Valencia conceive their first child, Robert, on theirhoneymooninCape Ann, Massachusetts.Two years later, their second child, Barbara, was born. On Barbara's wedding night, Billy isabductedby aflying saucerand taken to a planet many light-years away from Earth called Tralfamadore. TheTralfamadorianshave the power to see infour dimensions;they simultaneously observe all points in thespace-time continuum.They universally adopt afatalisticworldview: death means nothing to them, and their typical response to hearing about death is "so it goes."

The Tralfamadorians transport Billy to Tralfamadore and place him inside a transparentgeodesic domeexhibit in a zoo; the inside resembles a house on planet Earth. The Tralfamadorians later abduct a pornographic film star named Montana Wildhack, who had disappeared on Earth and supposedly drowned inSan Pedro Bay.The Tralfamadorians intend to have her mate with Billy. Montana and Billy fall in love and have a child together. Billy is instantaneously sent back to Earth in a time warp to re-live past or future moments of his life.

In 1968, Billy and a co-pilot are the only survivors of a plane crash in Vermont. While driving to visit Billy in the hospital, Valencia crashes her car and dies ofcarbon monoxide poisoning.Billy shares a hospital room with Bertram Rumfoord, aHarvard Universityhistory professor researching anofficial war historyof theUSAAFin World War II. They discuss the bombing of Dresden, which the professor initially refuses to believe Billy witnessed. Despite the significant loss of civilian life and the destruction of Dresden, they both regard the bombing as a justifiable act.

Billy's daughter takes him home to Ilium. He escapes and flees toNew York City.InTimes Squarehe visits a pornographic book store, where he discovers books written by Kilgore Trout and reads them. He discovers a science fiction novel titledThe Big Boardat the bookstore.The novel is about a couple abducted by extraterrestrials. The aliens trick the abductees into thinking they are managing investments on Earth, which excites the humans and, in turn, sparks interest in the observers. He also finds some magazine covers that mention Montana Wildhack's disappearance. While Billy surveys the bookstore, one of Montana's pornographic films plays in the background. Later in the evening, when he discusses his time travels to Tralfamadore on aradio talk show,he is ejected from the studio. He returns to his hotel room, falls asleep, and time-travels back to 1945 in Dresden. Billy and his fellow prisoners are tasked with locating and burying the dead. After aMaoriNew Zealandsoldier working with Billy dies ofdry heavesthe Germans begin cremating the bodies en masse withflamethrowers.German soldiers execute Billy's friend Edgar Derby for stealing a teapot. Eventually all of the German soldiers leave to fight on theEastern Front,leaving Billy and the other prisoners alone with tweeting birds as the war ends.

Through non-chronological storytelling, other parts of Billy's life are told throughout the book. After Billy is evicted from the radio studio, Barbara treats Billy as a child and often monitors him. Robert becomes starklyanti-communist,enlists as aGreen Beretand fights in theVietnam War.Billy is eventually killed in 1976, at which point the United States has been partitioned into twenty separate countries and attacked byChinawiththermonuclear weapons.He gives a speech in abaseball stadiuminChicagoin which he predicts his own death and proclaims that "if you think death is a terrible thing, then you have not understood a word I've said." Billy soon after is shot with a laser gun by an assassin commissioned by the elderly Lazzaro.

Characters

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A 1965 photograph of Vonnegut byBernard Gotfryd
  • Narrator:Recurring as a minor character, the narrator seems anonymous while also clearly identifying himself asKurt Vonnegut,when he says, "That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book."[6]As noted above, as an American soldier during World War II, Vonnegut was captured by Germans at theBattle of the Bulgeand transported to Dresden. He and fellow prisoners-of-war survived the bombing while being held in a deep cellar ofSchlachthof Fünf( "Slaughterhouse-Five" ).[7]The narrator begins the story by describing his connection to the firebombing of Dresden and his reasons for writingSlaughterhouse-Five.
  • Billy Pilgrim: A fatalistic optometrist ensconced in a dull, safe marriage in Ilium, New York. During World War II, he was held as aprisoner-of-warin Dresden and survived the firebombing, experiences which had a lasting effect on his post-war life. His time travel occurs at desperate times in his life; he relives past and future events and becomes fatalistic (though not a defeatist) because he claims to have seen when, how and why he will die.
  • Roland Weary: A weak man dreaming of grandeur and obsessed with gore and vengeance, who saves Billy several times (despite Billy's protests) in hopes of attaining military glory. He coped with his unpopularity in his home city ofPittsburghby befriending and then beating people less well-liked than him, and is obsessed with his father's collection of torture equipment. Weary is also a bully who beats Billy and gets them both captured, leading to the loss of his winter uniforms and boots. Weary dies of gangrene on the train en route to the POW camp, and blames Billy in his dying words.
  • Paul Lazzaro: Another POW. A sickly, ill-temperedcar thieffromCicero, Illinoiswho takes Weary's dying words as a revenge commission to kill Billy. He keeps a mental list of his enemies, claiming he can have anyone "killed for a thousand dollars plus traveling expenses." Lazzaro eventually fulfills his promise to Weary and has Billy assassinated by a laser gun in 1976.
  • Kilgore Trout:A failed science fiction writer whose hometown is also Ilium, New York, and who makes money by managingnewspaper delivery boys.He has received only onefan letter(from Eliot Rosewater; see below). After Billy meets him in a back alley in Ilium, he invites Trout to his wedding anniversary celebration. There, Kilgore follows Billy, thinking the latter has seen through a "time window." Kilgore Trout is also a main character in Vonnegut's 1973 novelBreakfast of Champions.
  • Edgar Derby: A middle-aged high school teacher who felt that he needed to participate in the war rather than just send off his students to fight. One of his sons is serving with the marines in thePacific Theatre.Though relatively unimportant, Derby seems to be the only American before the bombing of Dresden to understand what war can do to people. During Campbell's presentation he stands up and castigates him, defendingAmerican democracyand thealliance with the Soviet Union.German forces summarily execute him for looting after they catch him taking a teapot from catacombs after the bombing. The undamaged teapot is identical to one he has at home, and it is his astonishment at the find amongst the rubble, that gives him away to the guards. Vonnegut has said that this death is the climax of the book as a whole.
  • Howard W. Campbell Jr.: An American-born Nazi. Before the war, he lived in Germany where he was a notedGerman-languageplaywright recruited by theNazi Ministry of Propaganda.In an essay, he connects the misery ofAmerican povertyto the disheveled appearance and behavior of the American POWs. Edgar Derby confronts him when Campbell tries to recruit American POWs into theAmerican Free Corpsto fight the CommunistSoviet Unionon behalf of the Nazis. He appears wearingswastika-adornedcowboy hatandbootsand with a red, white and blue Nazi armband. Campbell is theprotagonistof Vonnegut's 1962 novelMother Night.
  • Valencia Merble: Billy's wife and the mother of their children, Robert and Barbara. Billy is emotionally distant from her. She dies from carbon monoxide poisoning after an automobile accident en route to the hospital to see Billy after his airplane crash.
  • Robert Pilgrim: Son of Billy and Valencia. A troubled, middle-class boy and disappointing son who becomes analcoholicat age 16, drops out of high school, and is arrested for vandalizing a Catholic cemetery. He later so absorbs theanti-Communistworldview that he metamorphoses from suburban adolescent rebel toGreen Beretsergeant. He wins aPurple Heart,Bronze StarandSilver Starin the Vietnam War.
  • Barbara Pilgrim: Daughter of Billy and Valencia. She is a "bitchy flibbertigibbet" from having had to assume the family's leadership at the age of twenty. She has "legs like anEdwardiangrand piano,"marries an optometrist, and treats her widowed father as a childish invalid.
  • Tralfamadorians:The race of extraterrestrial beings who appear (to humans) like upright toilet plungers with a hand atop, in which is set a single green eye. They abduct Billy and teach him about time's relation to the world (as a fourth dimension), fate, and the nature of death. The Tralfamadorians are featured in several Vonnegut novels. InSlaughterhouse Five,they reveal that the universe will be accidentally destroyed by one of their test pilots, and there is nothing they can do about it.
  • Montana Wildhack: A beautiful young model who is abducted and placed alongside Billy in the zoo on Tralfamadore. She and Billy develop an intimate relationship and they have a child. She apparently remains on Tralfamadore with the child after Billy is sent back to Earth. Billy sees her in a film showing in a pornographic book store when he stops to look at the Kilgore Trout novels sitting in the window. Her unexplained disappearance is featured on the covers of magazines sold in the store.
  • "Wild Bob": A superannuated army officer Billy meets in the war. He tells his fellow POWs to call him "Wild Bob", as he thinks they are the 451st Infantry Regiment and under his command. He explains "If you're ever inCody, Wyoming,ask for Wild Bob ", which is a phrase that Billy repeats to himself throughout the novel. He dies of pneumonia.
  • Eliot Rosewater:Billy befriends him in the veterans' hospital; he introduces Billy to the sci-fi novels of Kilgore Trout. Rosewater wrote the only fan letter Trout ever received. Rosewater had also suffered a terrible event during the war. Billy and Rosewater find the Trout novels helpful in dealing with the trauma of war. Rosewater is featured in other Vonnegut novels, such asGod Bless You, Mr. Rosewater(1965).
  • Bertram Copeland Rumfoord: A Harvard history professor, retiredU.S. Air Forcebrigadier general,and millionaire. He shares a hospital room with Billy and is interested in the Dresden bombing. He is in the hospital after breaking his leg on his honeymoon with his fifth wife Lily, a barely literatehigh school drop-outandgo-go girl.He is described as similar in appearance and mannerisms toTheodore Roosevelt.Bertram is likely a relative of Winston Niles Rumfoord, a character in Vonnegut's 1959 novelThe Sirens of Titan.
  • The Scouts: Two American infantry scouts trapped behind German lines who find Roland Weary and Billy. Roland refers to himself and the scouts as the "Three Musketeers".The scouts abandon Roland and Billy because the latter are slowing them down. They are revealed to have been shot and killed by Germans in ambush.
  • Bernard V. O'Hare: The narrator's old war friend who was also held in Dresden and accompanies him there after the war. He is the husband of Mary O'Hare, and is adistrict attorneyfromPennsylvania.
  • Mary O'Hare: The wife of Bernard V. O'Hare, to whom Vonnegut promised to name the bookThe Children's Crusade.She is briefly discussed in the beginning of the book. When the narrator and Bernard try to recollect their war experiences Mary complains that they were just "babies" during the war and that the narrator will portray them as valorous men. The narrator befriends Mary by promising that he will portray them as she said and that in his book "there won't be a part forFrank SinatraorJohn Wayne."
  • Werner Gluck: The sixteen-year-old German charged with guarding Billy and Edgar Derby when they are first placed at Slaughterhouse Five in Dresden. He does not know his way around and accidentally leads Billy and Edgar into acommunal showerwhere someGerman refugeegirls fromBreslauare bathing. He is described as appearing similar to Billy.

Style

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In keeping with Vonnegut's signature style, the novel's syntax and sentence structure are simple, andirony,sentimentality,black humor,anddidacticismare prevalent throughout the work.[8]Like much of his oeuvre,Slaughterhouse-Fiveis broken into small pieces, and in this case, into brief experiences, each focused on a specific point in time. Vonnegut has noted that his books "are essentially mosaics made up of a whole bunch of tiny little chips...and each chip is a joke." Vonnegut also includes hand-drawn illustrations inSlaughterhouse-Five,and also in his next novel,Breakfast of Champions(1973). Characteristically, Vonnegut makes heavy use of repetition, frequently using the phrase, "So it goes". He uses it as a refrain when events of death, dying, and mortality occur or are mentioned; as a narrative transition to another subject; as amemento mori;ascomic relief;and to explain the unexplained. The phrase appears 106 times.[9]

The book has been categorized as apostmodern,meta-fictionalnovel. The first chapter ofSlaughterhouse-Fiveis written in the style of an author'sprefaceabout how he came to write the novel. The narrator introduces the novel's genesis by telling of his connection to the Dresden bombing, and why he is recording it. He provides a description of himself and of the book, saying that it is a desperate attempt at creating a scholarly work. He ends the first chapter by discussing the beginning and end of the novel. He then segues to the story of Billy Pilgrim: "Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time", thus the transition from the writer's perspective to that of the third-person, omniscient narrator. (The use of "Listen" as an opening interjection has been said to mimic the opening "Hwaet!" of the medieval epic poemBeowulf.) The fictional "story" appears to begin in Chapter Two, although there is no reason to presume that the first chapter is not also fiction. This technique is common in postmodern meta-fiction.[10]

The narrator explains that Billy Pilgrim experiences his life discontinuously, so that he randomly lives (and re-lives) his birth, youth, old age and death, rather than experiencing them in the normal linear order. There are two main narrative threads: a description of Billy's World War II experience, which, though interrupted by episodes from other periods and places in his life, is mostly linear; and a description of his discontinuous pre-war and post-war lives. A main idea is that Billy's existential perspective had been compromised by his having witnessed Dresden's destruction (although he had come "unstuck in time" before arriving in Dresden).[11]Slaughterhouse-Fiveis told in short, declarative sentences, which create the impression that one is reading a factual report.[12]

The first sentence says, "All this happened, more or less." (In 2010, the line was ranked No. 38 on theAmerican Book Review's list of "100 Best First Lines from Novels".)[13]The opening sentences of the novel have been said to contain the aesthetic "method statement" of the entire novel.[14]

Themes

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War and death

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InSlaughterhouse-Five,Vonnegut attempts to come to terms with war through the narrator's eyes, Billy Pilgrim. An example within the novel, showing Vonnegut's aim to accept his past war experiences, occurs in chapter one, when he states that "All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn't his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on. I've changed all the names."[15] As the novel continues, it is relevant that the reality is death.[16]

Slaughterhouse-Fivefocuses on human imagination while interrogating the novel's overall theme, which is the catastrophic impact that war leaves behind.[17] Death is something that happens fairly often inSlaughterhouse-Five.When a death occurs in the novel, Vonnegut marks the occasion with the saying "so it goes." Bergenholtz and Clark write about what Vonnegut actually means when he uses that saying: "Presumably, readers who have not embraced Tralfamadorian determinism will be both amused and disturbed by this indiscriminate use of 'So it goes.' Such humor is, of course, black humor."[18]

Religion and philosophy

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Christian philosophy

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Christian philosophy is present in Vonnegut'sSlaughterhouse-Five;however, it is not very well-regarded. When God and Christianity is brought up in the work, it is mentioned in a bitter or disregarding tone. One only has to look at how the soldiers react to the mention of it. Though Billy Pilgrim had adopted some part of Christianity, he did not ascribe to all of it. JC Justus summarizes it the best when he mentions that, "'Tralfamadorian determinism and passivity' that Pilgrim later adopts as well as Christian fatalism wherein God himself has ordained the atrocities of war...".[19]Following Justus's argument, Pilgrim was a character that had been through war and traveled through time. Having experienced all of these horrors in his lifetime, Pilgrim ended up adopting the Christian ideal that God had everything planned and he had given his approval for the war to happen.

Tralfamadorian philosophy

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As Billy Pilgrim becomes "unstuck in time", he is faced with a new type of philosophy. When Pilgrim becomes acquainted with the Tralfamadorians, he learns a different viewpoint concerning fate and free will. While Christianity may state that fate and free will are matters of God's divine choice and human interaction, Tralfamadorianism would disagree. According to Tralfamadorian philosophy, things are and always will be, and there is nothing that can change them. When Billy asks why they had chosenhim,the Tralfamadorians reply, "Whyyou?Whyusfor that matter? Whyanything?Because this moment simply is. "[20]The mindset of the Tralfamadorian is not one in which free will exists. Things happen because they were always destined to be happening. The narrator of the story explains that the Tralfamadorians see time all at once. This concept of time is best explained by the Tralfamadorians themselves, as they speak to Billy Pilgrim on the matter stating, "I am a Tralfamadorian, seeing all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simplyis. "[21]After this particular conversation on seeing time, Billy makes the statement that this philosophy does not seem to evoke any sense of free will. To this, the Tralfamadorian reply that free will is a concept that, out of the "visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe" and "studied reports on one hundred more," "only on Earth is there any talk of free will."[21]

Using the Tralfamadorian passivity of fate, Billy Pilgrim learns to overlook death and the shock involved with death. Pilgrim claims the Tralfamadorian philosophy on death to be his most important lesson:

The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he onlyappearsto die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist.... When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is "So it goes."[22]

Postmodernism

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The significance ofpostmodernismis a reoccurring theme in Kurt Vonnegut's works. Postmodernism arose as a rejection ofmodernistnarratives and structures. According to one critic, Tralfamadorianism is a restatement of Christian teleology: There is no purpose to life, effects do not have causes; the only reason for anything is that God has ordained it. This juxtaposition is displayed throughout the book, rather directly asking the reader to confront the logical absurdities inherent in both Christian faith and Tralfamadorianism. The rigid and dogmatic approach of Christianity is dismissed, while determinism is critiqued.[23]

Mental illness

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Some have argued that Vonnegut is speaking out for veterans, many of whose post-war states are untreatable. Pilgrim's symptoms have been identified as what is now calledpost-traumatic stress disorder,which didn't exist as a term when the novel was written. In the words of one writer, "perhaps due to the fact that PTSD was not officially recognized as a mental disorder yet, the establishment fails Billy by neither providing an accurate diagnosis nor proposing any coping mechanisms."[24]Billy found life meaningless due to his experiences in the war, which desensitized and forever changed him.[25]

Symbols

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Dresden

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TheAlter Schlachthof(Old Slaughterhouse) where Vonnegut sheltered from the bombing of Dresden.[26]

Vonnegut was in the city of Dresden when it was bombed; he came home traumatized and unable to properly communicate the horror of what happened there.Slaughterhouse-Fiveis the product of the twenty years of work it took for him to articulate the experience in a way that satisfied him. William Allen says, "Precisely because the story was so hard to tell, and because Vonnegut was willing to take two decades necessary to tell it – to speak the unspeakable –Slaughterhouse-Fiveis a great novel, a masterpiece sure to remain a permanent part of American literature. "[27]

Food

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Billy Pilgrim ended up owning "half of three Tastee-Freeze stands. Tastee-Freeze was a sort of frozen custard. It gave all the pleasure that ice cream could give, without the stiffness and bitter coldness of ice cream" (61). ThroughoutSlaughterhouse-Five,when Billy is eating or near food, he thinks of food in positive terms. This is partly because food is both a status symbol and comforting to people in Billy's situation. "Food may provide nourishment, but its more important function is to soothe... Finally, food also functions as a status symbol, a sign of wealth. For instance, en route to the German prisoner-of-war camp, Billy gets a glimpse of the guards' boxcar and is impressed by its contents... In sharp contrast, the Americans' boxcar proclaims their dependent prisoner-of-war status. "[18]

The Bird

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Throughout the novel, the bird sings "Poo-tee-weet?" After the Dresden firebombing, the bird breaks out in song. The bird also sings outside of Billy's hospital window. The song has been interpreted as symbolizing a loss of words, or the inadequacy of words to describe traumatic situations.[28]

Allusions and references

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Allusions to other works

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As in other novels by Vonnegut,certain characters cross over from other stories,makingcameo appearancesand connecting the discrete novels to a greater opus. Fictional novelistKilgore Trout,often an important character in other Vonnegut novels, is a social commentator and a friend to Billy Pilgrim inSlaughterhouse-Five.In one case, he is the only non-optometristat a party; therefore, he is the odd man out. He ridicules everything the Ideal American Family holds true, such as Heaven, Hell, and Sin. In Trout's opinion, people do not know if the things they do turn out to be good or bad, and if they turn out to be bad, they go to Hell, where "the burning never stops hurting." Other crossover characters areEliot Rosewater,fromGod Bless You, Mr. Rosewater;Howard W. Campbell Jr., fromMother Night;and Bertram Copeland Rumfoord, relative of Winston Niles Rumfoord, fromThe Sirens of Titan.While Vonnegut re-uses characters, the characters are frequentlyrebootedand do not necessarily maintain the same biographical details from appearance to appearance. Trout in particular is palpably a different person (although with distinct, consistent character traits) in each of his appearances in Vonnegut's work.[29]

In theTwayne's United States Authorsseries volume on Kurt Vonnegut, about the protagonist's name, Stanley Schatt says:

By naming the unheroic hero Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut contrastsJohn Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress"with Billy's story. As Wilfrid Sheed has pointed out, Billy's solution to the problems of the modern world is to" invent a heaven, out of 20th century materials, where Good Technology triumphs over Bad Technology. His scripture is Science Fiction, Man's last, good fantasy ".[30]

Cultural and historical allusions

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Slaughterhouse-Fivemakes numerous cultural, historical, geographical, and philosophical allusions. It tells of thebombing of Dresden in World War II,and refers to theBattle of the Bulge,theVietnam War,and thecivil rights protestsin American cities during the 1960s. Billy's wife, Valencia, has a "Reagan for President!"bumper stickeron herCadillac,referring toRonald Reagan's failed1968 Republican presidential nominationcampaign. Another bumper sticker is mentioned, reading "ImpeachEarl Warren,"referencing a real-life campaign by thefar-rightJohn Birch Society.[31][32][33]

TheSerenity Prayerappears twice.[34]CriticTony Tannersuggested that it is employed to illustrate the contrast between Billy Pilgrim's and the Tralfamadorians' views offatalism.[35]Richard Hinchcliffe contends that Billy Pilgrim could be seen at first as typifying theProtestant work ethic,but he ultimately converts toevangelicalism.[36]

Vonnegut's own experiences

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In 1995, Vonnegut said that Billy Pilgrim was modeled on Edward "Joe" Crone, a thin soldier who died in Dresden. Vonnegut had told this to friends earlier, but waited until after he learned that both of Crone's parents were deceased to publicly disclose this information.[37][38]

Edgar Derby, killed for looting a teapot, was modeled on Vonnegut's fellow prisoner Mike Palaia, who was executed for plundering a jar of food (variously described as beans, fruit, or cherries).[39][40]

Reception

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The reviews ofSlaughterhouse-Fivehave been largely positive since the March 31, 1969 review in theNew York Timesstated: "you'll either love it, or push it back in the science-fiction corner."[41]It was Vonnegut's first novel to become a bestseller, staying on theNew York Timesbestseller listfor sixteen weeks and peaking at No. 4.[42]In 1970,Slaughterhouse-Fivewas nominated for best-novelNebulaandHugoAwards. It lost both toThe Left Hand of DarknessbyUrsula K. Le Guin.It has since been widely regarded as a classic anti-war novel, and has appeared inTimemagazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels written since 1923.[43]

Censorship controversy

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Slaughterhouse-Fivehas been the subject of many attempts atcensorshipdue to its irreverent tone, purportedly obscene content and depictions of sex, American soldiers' use of profanity, and perceived heresy. It was one of the first literary acknowledgments thathomosexual men,referred to in the novel as "fairies", were among the victims of theHolocaust.[44]

In the United States it has at times been banned from literature classes, removed fromschool libraries,and struck from literary curricula.[45]In 1972, following the ruling ofTodd v. Rochester Community Schools,it was banned fromRochester Community SchoolsinOakland County, Michigan.[46]The circuit judge described the book as "depraved, immoral, psychotic, vulgar and anti-Christian."[44]It was later reinstated.[47]

In 1973, Vonnegut learned of a school district in North Dakota that was antagonistic towardsSlaughterhouse-Five.An English teacher at a high school in the district wanted to read the novel with their class. Charles McCarthy, the head of the school board, declared the novel inappropriate because of obscene language. All copies of Vonnegut's novel in the school were burned in a furnace.[48]

In a letter to McCarthy in 1973, Vonnegut defended his credibility, his character, and his work. In the letter, entitled "I Am Very Real", Vonnegut wrote that his books "beg that people be kinder and more responsible than they often are". He contended that his work should not be censored based on the general message in the novel.[49][48]

TheU.S. Supreme Courtconsidered theFirst Amendmentimplications of the removal of the book, among others, frompublic school librariesin the case ofIsland Trees School District v. Pico,457U.S.853(1982) and concluded that "local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to 'prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion.'"Slaughterhouse-Fiveis the sixty-seventh entry to theAmerican Library Association's list of the "Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–1999" and number forty-six on the ALA's "Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000–2009".[45]In August 2011, the novel was banned at the Republic High School inMissouri.The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library countered by offering 150 free copies of the novel to Republic High School students on a first-come, first-served basis.[50]

In an effort to comply with a new 2024Tennesseestate law which added to the 2022 Age Appropriate Materials Act,Slaughterhouse-Fivewas banned - along with nearly 400 other titles - at the discretion of middle and high school librarians servingWilson County Schools,a public school district in the greater metropolitanNashvillearea.[51][52][53]It has also been recently banned from school libraries in the state of Florida.[54]

Criticism

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Slaughterhouse-Fivehas been described as aquietistwork, because Billy Pilgrim believes that the notion of free will is a quaint Earthling illusion.[55]According to Robert Merrill and Peter A. Scholl, "Vonnegut's critics seem to think that he is saying the same thing [as the Tralfamadorians]." ForAnthony Burgess,"Slaughterhouseis a kind of evasion—in a sense, likeJ. M. Barrie'sPeter Pan—in which we're being told to carry the horror of the Dresden bombing, and everything it implies, up to a level of fantasy... "For Charles Harris," The main idea emerging fromSlaughterhouse-Fiveseems to be that the proper response to life is one of resigned acceptance. "ForAlfred Kazin,"Vonnegut deprecates any attempt to see tragedy, that day, in Dresden...He likes to say, with arch fatalism, citing one horror after another, 'So it goes.'" For Tanner, "Vonnegut has...total sympathy with such quietistic impulses." The same notion is found throughoutThe Vonnegut Statement,a book of original essays written and collected by Vonnegut's most loyal academic fans.[55]

When confronted with the question of how the desire to improve the world fits with the notion of time presented inSlaughterhouse-Five,Vonnegut responded "you understand, of course, that everything I say is horseshit."[56]

Adaptations

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See also

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References

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  1. ^Strodder, Chris (2007).The Encyclopedia of Sixties Cool.Santa Monica Press. p.73.ISBN9781595809865.
  2. ^"Publication: Slaughterhouse Five".isfdb.org.
  3. ^abPowers, Kevin,"The Moral Clarity of ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ at 50",The New York Times,March 23, 2019,Sunday Book Review,p. 13.
  4. ^Vonnegut, Kurt.Slaughterhouse-Five.2009 Dial Press Trade paperback edition, 2009, p. 1
  5. ^Vonnegut, Kurt.Slaughterhouse-Five.2009 Dial Press Trade paperback edition, 2009, p. 43
  6. ^Vonnegut, Kurt (January 12, 1999).Slaughterhouse-Five.Dial Press Trade Paperback. pp.160.ISBN978-0-385-33384-9.
  7. ^"Slaughterhouse Five".Letters of Note.November 2009.RetrievedApril 27,2015.
  8. ^Westbrook, Perry D. "Kurt Vonnegut Jr.: Overview."Contemporary Novelists.Susan Windisch Brown. 6th ed. New York: St. James Press, 1996.
  9. ^"Slaughterhouse Five full text"(PDF).antilogicalism /.RetrievedMay 26,2022.
  10. ^Waugh, Patricia.Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction.New York: Routledge, 1988. p. 22.
  11. ^He first time-travels while escaping from the Germans in theArdennesforest. Exhausted, he falls asleep against a tree and experiences events from his future life.
  12. ^"Kurt Vonnegut's Fantastic Faces".Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts.Archived fromthe originalon November 17, 2007.RetrievedNovember 10,2007.
  13. ^"100 Best First Lines from Novels".American Book Review.The University of Houston-Victoria. Archived fromthe originalon August 15, 2022.
  14. ^Jensen, Mikkel (March 20, 2016). "Janus-Headed Postmodernism: The Opening Lines of SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE".The Explicator.74(1): 8–11.doi:10.1080/00144940.2015.1133546.S2CID162509316.
  15. ^Vonnegut, Kurt (1991).SlaughterHouse-Five.New York: Dell Publishing. p. 1.
  16. ^McGinnis, Wayne (1975). "The Arbitrary Cycle ofSlaughterhouse-Five:A Relation of Form to Theme ".Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction.17(1): 55–68.doi:10.1080/00111619.1975.10690101.
  17. ^McGinnis, Wayne (1975). "The Arbitrary Cycle ofSlaughterhouse-Five:A Relation of Form to Theme ".Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction.17(1): 55–68.doi:10.1080/00111619.1975.10690101.
  18. ^abBergenholtz, Rita; Clark, John R. (1998)."Food for Thought in Slaughterhouse-Five".Thalia.18(1): 84–93.ProQuest214861343.RetrievedApril 29,2021.
  19. ^Justus, JC (2016)."About Edgar Derby: Trauma and Grief in the Unpublished Drafts of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five".Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction.57(5): 542–551.doi:10.1080/00111619.2016.1138445.S2CID163412693.RetrievedApril 22,2021.
  20. ^Vonnegut, Kurt (1969).Slaughterhouse-Five or the Children's Crusade.New York, New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc. pp.73.ISBN978-0-385-31208-0.
  21. ^abVonnegut, Kurt (1969).Slaughterhouse-Five or the Children's Crusade.New York, New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc. pp.82.ISBN978-0-385-31208-0.
  22. ^Vonnegut, Kurt (1969).Slaughterhouse-Five or the Children's Crusade.New York, New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group Inc. pp.25–26.ISBN978-0-385-31208-0.
  23. ^Vanderwerken, L. David."Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five at Forty".CORE.
  24. ^Czajkowska, Aleksandra (2021).""To give form to what cannot be comprehended": Trauma in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five and Martin Amis's Time's Arrow "(PDF).Crossroads: A Journal of English Studies.3(34): 59–72.doi:10.15290/CR.2021.34.3.05.S2CID247257373– via The Repository of the University of Białystok.
  25. ^Brown, Kevin (2011). ""The Psychiatrists Were Right: Anomic Alienation in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five"".South Central Review.28(2): 101–109.doi:10.1353/scr.2011.0022.S2CID170085340.
  26. ^Armitstead, Claire (July 15, 2022)."From Curb to Kurt: Larry David's director on how his literary hero helped him through personal pain".The Guardian.
  27. ^Bloom, Harold (2009).Bloom's Modern Interpretations: Kurt Vonnegut's of Slaughterhouse-Five.New York: Infobase Publishing. pp. 3–15.ISBN9781604135855.RetrievedApril 29,2021.
  28. ^Holdefer, Charles (2017).""Poo-tee-weet?" and Other Pastoral Questions ".E-Rea.14(2).doi:10.4000/erea.5706.
  29. ^Lerate de Castro, Jesús (November 30, 1994)."The narrative function of Kilgore Trout and his fictional works in Slaughterhouse-Five".Revista Alicantina de Estudios Ingleses(7): 115.doi:10.14198/RAEI.1994.7.09.hdl:10045/6044.S2CID32180954.
  30. ^Stanley Schatt, "Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.,Chapter 4: Vonnegut's Dresden Novel: Slaughterhouse-Five.",InTwayne's United States Authors Series Online.New York: G. K. Hall & Co., 1999 Previously published in print in 1976 by Twayne Publishers.
  31. ^Vonnegut, Kurt (November 3, 1991).Slaughterhouse-Five.Dell Fiction. p. 57.ISBN978-0-440-18029-6.
  32. ^Andrew Glass (December 9, 2017)."John Birch Society founded, Dec. 9, 1958".POLITICO.RetrievedSeptember 14,2020.
  33. ^Becker, Bill (April 13, 1961)."WELCH, ON COAST, ATTACKS WARREN; John Birch Society Founder Outlines His Opposition to the Chief Justice".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.RetrievedSeptember 14,2020.
  34. ^Susan Farrell;Critical Companion to Kurt Vonnegut: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work,Facts On File, 2008, Page 470.
  35. ^Tanner, Tony. 1971. "The Uncertain Messenger: A Study of the Novels of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.",City of Words: American Fiction 1950-1970(New York: Harper & Row), pp. 297-315.
  36. ^Hinchcliffe, Richard (2002). ""Would'st thou be in a dream: John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five"".European Journal of American Culture.20(3): 183–196(14).doi:10.1386/ejac.20.3.183.
  37. ^[email protected] (March 8, 2019)."Kurt Vonnegut's 1995" Billy Pilgrim "pilgrimage to the Mt. Hope grave of Edward R. Crone Jr, Brighton High School '41".Talker of the Town.RetrievedMarch 18,2023.{{cite web}}:CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  38. ^"23 April (1989): Kurt Vonnegut to George Strong | The American Reader".theamericanreader.RetrievedMarch 18,2023.
  39. ^Szpek, Ervin E.; Idzikowski, Frank J. (2008).Shadows of Slaughterhouse Five: Reflections and Recollections of the American Ex-POWs of Schlachthof Fünf, Dresden, Germany.iUniverse.ISBN978-1-4401-0567-8.
  40. ^"PALAIA MICHAEL D | The American Overseas Memorial Day Association".aomda.org.RetrievedMarch 18,2023.
  41. ^"Books of The Times: At Last, Kurt Vonnegut's Famous Dresden Book".New York Times.March 31, 1969.RetrievedApril 13,2007.
  42. ^Justice, Keith (1998).Bestseller Index: all books, by author, on the lists of Publishers weekly and the New York times through 1990.Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland. pp.316.ISBN978-0786404223.
  43. ^Lacayo, Richard (January 6, 2010)."All-TIME 100 Novels: How We Picked the List".Time.
  44. ^abMorais, Betsy (August 12, 2011)."The Neverending Campaign to Ban 'Slaughterhouse Five'".The Atlantic.RetrievedJune 15,2014.
  45. ^ab"100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–1999".American Library Association. March 27, 2013.RetrievedJune 15,2014.
  46. ^"Todd v. Rochester Community Schools, 200 NW 2d 90 - Mich: Court of Appeals 1972".Archived fromthe originalon March 25, 2019.
  47. ^"History of the Freedom to Read Foundation, 1969-2009".RetrievedApril 4,2023.
  48. ^abVonnegut, Kurt. “I Am Very Real.” Received by Charles McCarthy, 16 Nov. 1973.
  49. ^Hibbard, Laura (March 30, 2012)."Kurt Vonnegut's Letter To Drake High School: 'You Have Insulted Me'"".HuffPost.RetrievedJanuary 31,2024.
  50. ^Flagg, Gordon (August 9, 2011)."Vonnegut Library Fights Slaughterhouse-Five Ban with Giveaways".American Libraries.Archived fromthe originalon August 14, 2011 – via Wayback Machine.
  51. ^Beyeler, Kelsey (October 25, 2024)."Roughly 400 Books Removed From Wilson County School Libraries".Nashville Scene.RetrievedOctober 28,2024.
  52. ^Beyeler, Kelsey (April 25, 2024)."Banned Together: How Book Censorship Is Affecting Tennessee".Nashville Scene.RetrievedOctober 28,2024.
  53. ^Cavendish, Steve (October 25, 2024)."Here Are the Nearly 400 Books Wilson County Has Banned From Its Schools".Nashville Banner.RetrievedOctober 28,2024.
  54. ^Marcos, Coral Murphy (November 13, 2024)."Florida officials report hundreds of books removed from schools".The Guardian.ISSN0261-3077.RetrievedNovember 14,2024.
  55. ^abRobert Merrill and Peter A. Scholl, Vonnegut'sSlaughterhouse-Five:The Requirements of Chaos, inStudies in American Fiction,Vol. 6, No. 1, Spring, 1978, p 67.
  56. ^Admin (October 4, 2016)."KURT VONNEGUT: PLAYBOY INTERVIEW (1973)".Scraps from the loft.RetrievedJune 4,2022.
  57. ^Sanjiv, Bhattacharya (July 10, 2013)."Guillermo del Toro: 'I want to make Slaughterhouse Five with Charlie Kaufman '".The Daily Telegraph.Archivedfrom the original on January 12, 2022.RetrievedSeptember 20,2015.
  58. ^"The Everyman Theatre Archive: Programmes".Liverpool John Moores University.RetrievedFebruary 13,2022.
  59. ^ "Slaughterhouse-Five:September 18 - November 10, 1996 ".Steppenwolf Theatre Company.1996.RetrievedOctober 3,2016.
  60. ^ Couling, Della (July 19, 1996)."Pilgrim's progress through space".The Independent on Sunday.
  61. ^ Sheasby, Dave (September 20, 2009)."Slaughterhouse 5".BBC Radio 3.
  62. ^ Reid, Calvin (January 8, 2020)."Boom! Plans 'Slaughterhouse-Five' Graphic Novel in 2020".Publishers Weekly.RetrievedAugust 1,2020.
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