Slaughterhouse-Five By Kurt Vonnegut: An Analysis

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Slaughterhouse-Five is a remarkable novel written in 1969 by Kurt Vonnegut that displays the hardships of World War 2 through the experiences of the main protagonist Billy Pilgrim. It is a controversial novel that has created multiple perspectives (right and wrong) and one of those perspectives can be obtained in an article titled “Dystopian Cybernetic Environment in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse five” which is authored by three journalists Babaee, Yahya, and Sivagurunathan. The article through the focus on Billy Pilgrim’s experiences in the era of World War 2 reaches to a cold conclusion, that the people in the novel who are involved in this era are devalued, behave as cyborgs, and finally (even though it does not look like it) are forced …show more content…
(Babaee, Yahya, Sivagurunathan 4). Vonnegut certainly experiments with the notion of time; however, Vonnegut also promises to remain aligned with the conventional concept of time (temporarily). For example, Vonnegut shows progress in Billy’s life in a perfect chronological order. The fact that him belonging to a mediocre family and later him establishing his individuality after finishing his academic year are all shown in chronological order. Also the fact that him marrying to Valencia, and then joining his father-in-law’s business is also shown in chronological order (Kurt 24). Moreover, Vonnegut not only explains that time is linear in some places in the novel, but also creates opportunity for Billy as well. Such as his desire to achieve the american dream. This desire of Billy to achieve his american dream can be seen when, Billy marries Valencia and later becomes an optometrist after being hired by his father-in-law. This leads to a rise in Billy’s net worth which indicates that he has achieved his american dream. After the event of the plane crash, Billy was mentally unstable so Barbara, Billy’s daughter, took responsibility of his business. Thus, Billy transferred his responsibility to his daughter. This moment in the novel shows that not only time is linear in the novel, but it also leads to the ceasing of the many opportunities that have been created for Billy and other characters, so they may live their life

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