Intertextuality In Vonnegut's

Great Essays
results like bombarding and mass killing of individuals in Death camps. In Tralfamadore, time has lost its essentialness and man has no reviewed thought processes. Life itself is not genuine and everything is taken calmly. For example, Montana Wildhack, Billy’s accomplice on Tralfamadore is appeared as a model who stars in a film appeared in a film shown in a pornographic book shop when Billy makes a trip to look at the Kilgore Trout books. She is kidnapped and set in Billy’s natural surroundings on Tralfamadore, where they engage in sexual relations and deliver a child. Billy’s visit to Tralfamadore has realized an adjustment in his vision of life. His conflict is that the incorrect translation of the concept of “free will” brings about the …show more content…
Intertextuality can likewise be a reference or parallel to another scholarly work, a broadened examination of a work or the reception of a style. In Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse - Five, as in other postmodern works, certain characters traverse from different stories, showing up, interfacing the discrete novels as a more prominent creation. For example, science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, frequently an essential character in different novels is appeared as a social commentator and a companion to Billy Pilgrim. Other crossover characters are Eliot Rosewater from God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater, Howard W. Campbell from Mother Night and Bertram Copeland Rumfoord, relative of Winston Niles Rumfoord from The Sirens of Titan (1959). Mr. Rosewater says that Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Siblings Karamazov contains ‘everything there was to think about existence’. The way that Billy peruses The Valley of the Dolls (1966) and takes an interest in a radio syndicated program on “The Demise of the Novel”' underlines the consider multiplication of writings inside the primary text, generally known, as ‘intertexuality’. It is a vital postmodern ideas which Vonnegut brings into question ‘the authenticity of the

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    Throughout history, man has shown a great tendency to gravitate towards decisions that end in destruction, especially if the destruction will not directly affect himself. Occurences such as war declarations do not necessarily have to be decided on by the masses, but only a single man’s will. By that man’s will, millions of innocent lives can be lost, his own usually not included. Kurt Vonnegut is a fantastic author that uses satire in order to draw attention and ridicule the flaws of mankind, most of which end in destruction and chaos of some sort. In two of his novels, Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five, damage and destruction of millions is determined by what can potentially be a single man’s decision.…

    • 2181 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kurt Vonnegut, in his novel, “Slaughterhouse Five” recounts his experiences of World War II through Billy Pilgrim, the main character. Vonnegut’s purpose is to describe his wartime experiences and antiwar view. He adopts a complex and elusive tone in order to successfully engage and entertain his readers. Vonnegut begins his novel in the first person. We are given a first-person point of view in the sections embedded in the first and last chapters of the book.…

    • 982 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Conclusion Slaughterhouse-Five has a lot happening that will make you say ‘what?’ but that’s because Vonnegut wanted to get the point across that war does not make sense and by using science fiction, non-linear time, and own personal reflection we understand the workings of Vonnegut’s brain and how Billy Pilgrim dealt with his post-traumatic stress disorder. This novel is a classic and the narrator even says that: “People aren 't supposed to look back. I 'm certainly not going to do it anymore.…

    • 1382 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Tralfamadorians understand that there is no such thing as “free will,” a concept that only humans hold. While talking to the aliens, Billy learns that one of their pilots ends the universe by blowing it up. He proceeds to chat with a Tralfamadorian guide and asks, “‘If you know this,’ said Billy, ‘isn’t there some way you can prevent… the pilot from pressing the button?’ ‘He has always pressed it, and he always will. We always let him…

    • 1535 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    How to Write with Style Everyone has his or her own writing style, and some writing styles are considerably more distinct than others; however, anyone’s writing style can and should be improved over time. There really is no one specific or perfect way to write because everyone has different opinions on what is well written and what is poorly written, so it is important to alter one’s style so as to capture the attention of very different audiences. Kurt Vonnegut, an amazingly talented author from the 20th century, wrote an essay entitled “How to Write with Style” which gives excellent techniques on how to better anyone’s writing style. Each of his techniques has an explanation as to why they should be used, and he uses each of them in his essay.…

    • 1111 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Marvin points out that “mixing brutal realism with science fiction, Slaughterhouse Five challenges readers to make sense of a world gone mad” (113). The use of science fiction presents real events in a new way, one that can reveal more truths than a historical account could. Students can benefit from this by seeing how different genres can be used to portray the same ideas, and how some genres are more effective than others for conveying certain messages. Slaughterhouse Five is similar to Picasso’s Guernica in that it uses surrealism and fiction to portray the harsh reality of war (McNelly). Vonnegut’s use of science fiction can be compared to the works of Picasso and other abstract artists to show the connections and similarities between literature and art.…

    • 2286 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Throughout Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, the reader gets a unique insight on the life and experience of Billy Pilgrim. Billy Pilgrim has gone through unspeakable things. There are three major aspects of Billy Pilgrim’s life that perfectly represent his experience in isolation, and how, or how not it was able to connect him with others. His experiences in the slaughterhouse, on Tralfamadorian, and with his son all answer this very peculiar question. When looking at the question itself, it is clear that there is a correlation with isolation and connection with Billy, however there are different ways to answer it.…

    • 1301 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    “So it goes.” These three words convey the fatalistic mindset of Kurt Vonnegut through the voice of Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist of Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughterhouse Five. The strength of Vonnegut’s novel lies in his own personal experiences, as he himself was an American prisoner of war, was captured in Germany, and then was transferred to the city of Dresden. Throughout the novel, Billy Pilgrim suffers flashbacks of the horrors of war, specifically those associated with the bombing of Dresden. By narrating the novel through the voice of Billy, Vonnegut conveys his belief that war is absurd, exemplified by the causes and effects of the firebombing of Dresden.…

    • 1984 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Vonnegut shows how Billy has no free will by saying "When Billy got back from his furlough, there were orders for him to go overseas" (32). Billy was an enlisted man and had no choice but to fight in the war, therefore backing up the argument that there is no such thing as free will. The moment is structured that way. No matter what Billy did in his life before getting enlisted, he will always end up going to war. Going along with the structured universe, the aliens inform Billy on how the universe ends.…

    • 948 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Kurt Vonnegut’s article, he explains why you should examine your writing style with the idea of improving it. In order to do so, Vonnegut suggest the following seven step process: 1. Finding a subject that you care about, 2. Do not ramble, 3. Keeping it simple, 4.…

    • 485 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The truths of the book give the essence of Vonnegut’s meaning, whether it be during the awful war or just in the main character, Billy, who’s unforgiving flashbacks take place when a moment of discomfort comes into his life. Billys discomfort helps us to better understand why Vonnegut reveals and hides the truth, because in the end, Billy is trying to hide from it himself.…

    • 885 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    After being captured by the Tralfamadorians, Billy is able to observe life on Earth from a completely different perspective. He realizes that the “Earthlings must be the terrors of the universe! If other planets aren’t now in danger from Earth, they soon will be. So tell me the secret so I can take it back to Earth and save us all: How can a planet live at peace” (116). While living on Earth, Billy fails to realize how foolish going to war is, especially considering the more logical solutions that achieve the same desire; however, with his newfound, unbiased view, he becomes aware of how destructive wars on Earth can be.…

    • 1158 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    In the novel Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut is able to unify a non-linear narrative by using time travel. Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut’s main character, is constantly traveling back and forth his life experiences “paying random visits to all events in between” (SF 23). Consequently, the reader sees Billy’s life as a series of episodes without any chronological nature. This in essence is the structure of the novel, presenting us the traditional beginning, middle, and end in an untraditional manner. The first piece of information that is given about Billy is that he has "come unstuck in time" (SF23).…

    • 1185 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughterhouse Five, often mentions other works within his novel. This puts one of the Elements of Postmodernism into effect that, being the Awareness of Intertextuality. Awareness of Intertextuality is when “multiple writings that come together at any ‘moment’ in a particular text.” Vonnegut uses this element by giving…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Postmodernism arose in the mid to late 20th century and was a movement that mainly impacted the arts such as music, architecture and literature. Postmodernism arose hugely due to the events in America at the time and the failures of Modernism. Because of this, many postmodernists have a very skeptical look into elements of their society. To properly analyze Vonnegut’s unique writing style and literary choices, one must first take a look some of the basic elements of a postmodern novel of which Vonnegut’s style for this book is based on. The postmodern style can be very different from author to author, thus making it very hard to categorize all American postmodern literature into one specific style.…

    • 915 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays