Allen's essay is concerned primarily with the major themes of the novel: the perception of time and the idea of fate. Allen suggests that Slaughterhouse-Five describes a new mode of perception that alters traditional conceptions of time and fate. Instead of looking at life as proceeding in one direction, he suggests that life consists of the blending of past through memory, the present through perception and the future through anticipation. Allen’s essay is useful as it helps analyses the major themes found throughout the novel but is disappointing in the way that it does not analyse, with much details, the effects that these themes causes on the characters in the novels.The arguments put forth
