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    Book Review: Slaughterhouse Five

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    Deveri Johnson
    Kurt Vonnegut reinvents himself through his novel Slaughterhouse-Five and the characters within it. He expresses his experience of the Dresden bombings through the main character Billy Pilgrim. Billy acts as a vehicle for Vonnegut to explore philosophical ideas about the nature of reality and mankind. Vonnegut also represents aspects of himself through other characters like Kilgore Trout and Edgar Derby. The novel examines themes of birth, death, fate and religion as Vonnegut grapples with finding meaning in his own life after experiencing the horrors of war.

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    Book Review: Slaughterhouse Five

    Uploaded by

    Deveri Johnson
    327 views2 pages
    Kurt Vonnegut reinvents himself through his novel Slaughterhouse-Five and the characters within it. He expresses his experience of the Dresden bombings through the main character Billy Pilgrim. Billy acts as a vehicle for Vonnegut to explore philosophical ideas about the nature of reality and mankind. Vonnegut also represents aspects of himself through other characters like Kilgore Trout and Edgar Derby. The novel examines themes of birth, death, fate and religion as Vonnegut grapples with finding meaning in his own life after experiencing the horrors of war.

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    Final paper for Man's Search for Meaning class 2009.

    Original Title

    Book Review: Slaughterhouse Five

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    Kurt Vonnegut reinvents himself through his novel Slaughterhouse-Five and the characters within it. He expresses his experience of the Dresden bombings through the main character Billy Pilgrim. Billy acts as a vehicle for Vonnegut to explore philosophical ideas about the nature of reality and mankind. Vonnegut also represents aspects of himself through other characters like Kilgore Trout and Edgar Derby. The novel examines themes of birth, death, fate and religion as Vonnegut grapples with finding meaning in his own life after experiencing the horrors of war.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf
    327 views2 pages

    Book Review: Slaughterhouse Five

    Uploaded by

    Deveri Johnson
    Kurt Vonnegut reinvents himself through his novel Slaughterhouse-Five and the characters within it. He expresses his experience of the Dresden bombings through the main character Billy Pilgrim. Billy acts as a vehicle for Vonnegut to explore philosophical ideas about the nature of reality and mankind. Vonnegut also represents aspects of himself through other characters like Kilgore Trout and Edgar Derby. The novel examines themes of birth, death, fate and religion as Vonnegut grapples with finding meaning in his own life after experiencing the horrors of war.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf
    of 2

    Author: Deveri Johnson

    Kirkwood Community College Final Paper: Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five


    Class: Man’s Search for Meaning Grade A
    Professor Mircea Tomas May 9, 2009

    Reinventing The Self

    Kurt Vonnegut is “an old fart with his memories and his Pall Malls” (Vonnegut 3). He was born in Indiana in 1922, served
    in World War II and was one of the prisoners to emerge from a meat locker following the fire-bombing of Dresden to pull
    corpses from the wreckage. More recently at the age of 78 he has been named New York State Author, 2001-2003 by
    the New York State Writers Institute. Slaughterhouse Five is his personal account of Dresden voiced through the char-
    acters that grace it’s pages to express a war that took him 20 years to confront. He expresses his personal struggle in
    chapter 8, “He had supposed for years that he had no secrets from himself.” (Vonnegut 221). A quote from the New
    York State Writers Institute (NYSWI) web page reflects my impression of his work. “Precisely because in all his work he
    has made nonsense of the little categories, the unnatural division into ‘real’ literature and the rest, because he is comic
    and sad at once, because his painful seriousness is never solemn, Vonnegut is unique among us.” i

    Through Billy Pilgrim

    Vonnegut reinvents himself through the main character, Billy Pilgrim. Billy is an expression of Vonneguts reality, si-
    phoned, compartmentalized and regurgitated through his lifetime in a manner that he can cope with. Billy’s character
    doesn’t care much about anything; including life. He frequently requests that his comrades leave him to his end. Billy is
    forced to move on by several characters who aren’t kindly appreciative of their burden. By some cosmic miracle, it isn’t
    Billy’s time to die, yet. This force has placed characters like Darby, Lazzaro and Trout in Billy’s path to drive him forward
    until the day of his death. Vonnegut expresses himself through Billy as the gentleman that society should be. In both
    film and text he succeeds as dictated by polite society; yet, he is a failure as a soldier. Truthfully, he doesn’t “work” with
    either society. The time he spends on Tralfamadore with Montana Wildhack exploring the faults of mankind and discuss-
    ing philosophy seems to suit him best. At that point in the story he is most believable. Like the author he’s wired differ-
    ently than most people. He exists inside himself and acts within his own standards.

    Edgar Derby and Lazzaro

    Edgar Darby and Paul Lazzaro are the essence of good and evil. Lazzaro represents all things in society that Vonnegut
    may view as evil. One quote from the NYSWI said it best; “One thing that emerges consistently in Vonneguts work is the
    importance of basic human decency in a world of madness.” (Jay MacInerny)ii Edgar Derby in contrast to Lazzaro
    represents a kinder and gentler side of the author. He is a caring and responsible soul who is confused in his own
    search for self and eventually shot for being caught in a sin that all of society is partaking of. In the book he is doped up
    before the execution; Vonnegut changed the film version, ending with Derby being grabbed by the Germans and quickly
    executed. There were a multitude of changes from the book to the film, likely due to a few years of experience by the
    author and possibly his desire to clarify his intentions to his critics.

    1
    Author: Deveri Johnson

    Kirkwood Community College Final Paper: Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five


    Class: Man’s Search for Meaning Grade A
    Professor Mircea Tomas May 9, 2009

    Vonnegut as Trout

    The author reinvents himself through Trout at the anniversary party when Trout is expressing his dismay at never having
    seen a book of his in public. “All these yearsBI’ve been opening the window and making love to the world.” (Vonnegut
    216) Vonnegut also had offered a number of works before Slaughterhouse that gave him little recognition. While this
    expression is cloaked in humor, his personal view of critics and public acclaim is best expressed in Mr. Vonnegut’s wel-
    come letter (1). He has asked a number of artist friends where their own pleasure is best felt in their art, “All replied with-
    out hesitation that they were most at one with the universe [when creating art] in perfect solitude. All the rest by com-
    parison was annoying balderdash. I say that, tooBeach of us working alone, and experiencing from time to time almost
    indecent ecstasy.” An author’s writing are an expression of the internal desire to understand life, to find meaning. There
    is an atmosphere in Slaughterhouse Five that the author Kilgore Trout is laughing at the partygoers who represent high
    society “The adulation that Trout was receiving, mindless and illiterate as it was, affected Trout like marijuana.”
    (Vonnegut 217) He is laughing at his own critics, while feeling a rush of recognition.

    Birth, Death, Fate and Religion

    “The cattle are lowing, the Baby awakes. But the little Lord Jesus, No crying He makes.” All of Vonnegut's work is pep-
    pered with birth, death, fate, religion and philosophy. Like all of society Vonnegut is looking for the answers in his own
    life. Maybe at 78 he’s found them through writing, drawing and sculpture. Maybe he’s reinventing himself with his friend
    Bernard or Jonathan. Maybe on stage with Phish. He could be seeking. And maybe just maybe, he’s right. In the
    opening passage Vonnegut could be suggesting that we are all awake, yet we, like Christ, do not cry out.

    Bibliography

    1 Slaughterhouse Five; Kurt Vonnegut

    New York Stat Writer's Institute internet web page


    i (http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/vonnegutkurt.html ); Dorris Lessing, 1973
    ii (http://www.albany.edu/wirters-inst/vonnegutkurt.html ); Jay MacIrney

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