Journal Entry #9 September 12, 2014
Topic: My reading since September 2nd
Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut – pp.275 (Book finished) Slaughterhouse-Five is an antiwar satire following Billy Pilgrim, a former World War II veteran who has become “unstuck in time.” The novel has a nonlinear narrative, constantly jumping between Billy’s war time, pre-war, and post-war experiences as he lives the events of his life over and over again. The plot mainly focuses around the war and Billy’s experiences as a POW in a German slaughterhouse in Dresden. There is also an emphasis on thoroughly describing the gruesome scenes of the Bombing of Dresden, in which the city is burned to the ground with thousands of people with it. Between his war experiences, Billy travels randomly through time, witnessing his birth, his death and everything in between. On the day of his daughter’s wedding, he is abducted by the Tralfamadorians. They are an alien race who has the ability to experience reality similarly to Billy: in four dimensions. They have total access to past, present, and future. Their philosophy is based on fatalism and the idea that the death of a being is nothing to mourn, since they …show more content…
He sees so much destruction and so many deaths in the war. His mental instability is demonstrated by the random, almost messy arrangement of the book. Instead of a story with a beginning, middle, and an ending, it is a cluster of events that are messily jumbled up into one, unorganized novel. It is, in itself, a massacre. This chaotic nature of the novel enhances the reading experience significantly. Firstly, there are not many dull moments, as every few pages or sometimes mere paragraphs, the setting and the situation randomly changes. Secondly, it is effective in representing Billy’s mental state and how unorganized it is, which is important in terms of the development of his
Topic: My reading since September 2nd
Slaughterhouse-Five – Kurt Vonnegut – pp.275 (Book finished) Slaughterhouse-Five is an antiwar satire following Billy Pilgrim, a former World War II veteran who has become “unstuck in time.” The novel has a nonlinear narrative, constantly jumping between Billy’s war time, pre-war, and post-war experiences as he lives the events of his life over and over again. The plot mainly focuses around the war and Billy’s experiences as a POW in a German slaughterhouse in Dresden. There is also an emphasis on thoroughly describing the gruesome scenes of the Bombing of Dresden, in which the city is burned to the ground with thousands of people with it. Between his war experiences, Billy travels randomly through time, witnessing his birth, his death and everything in between. On the day of his daughter’s wedding, he is abducted by the Tralfamadorians. They are an alien race who has the ability to experience reality similarly to Billy: in four dimensions. They have total access to past, present, and future. Their philosophy is based on fatalism and the idea that the death of a being is nothing to mourn, since they …show more content…
He sees so much destruction and so many deaths in the war. His mental instability is demonstrated by the random, almost messy arrangement of the book. Instead of a story with a beginning, middle, and an ending, it is a cluster of events that are messily jumbled up into one, unorganized novel. It is, in itself, a massacre. This chaotic nature of the novel enhances the reading experience significantly. Firstly, there are not many dull moments, as every few pages or sometimes mere paragraphs, the setting and the situation randomly changes. Secondly, it is effective in representing Billy’s mental state and how unorganized it is, which is important in terms of the development of his