Intertextuality In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five

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What if we can travel through time just to experience weird events? The novel that Kurt Vonnegut wrote, Slaughterhouse five, has some questionable logic. Based on the characters that appear, Vonnegut seems to have a whacky imagination. Especially when in Vonnegut’s novel, includes aliens and a pornstars. This novel is a postmodern because of the Awareness of Intertextuality, Time Concept, and Magic Realism. 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 …show more content…
Billy had the uncontrollable ability to jump through time, which is another Element of Postmodernism. The Time Element of Postmodernism is explaining how “time moves, usually differently or in a strange way.” Billy Pilgrim travels through time throughout Slaughterhouse Five, all the way from World War II, his childhood, and the future. Just to experience events that happen within his life. The way Vonnegut uses this element is really strange, in which the main character cannot tell when or where he is going to teleport to, but the story continues as if he just finished what he left off, whereas he still had an unfinished story. “ 'Good night, Americans, ' he said in German. 'Sleep well '[Chapter End]”( Vonnegut 232). “[Chapter Start] Here is how Billy Pilgrim lost his wife, Valencia”(Vonnegut 233). For this part of the story, Vonnegut didn’t even finish the fact that Billy was in Dresden and how Billy left Dresden. Vonnegut immediately moved on to tell the story of how Billy Pilgrim lost his wife and the last time he talked about this, was in chapter two. The unreasonable time jumps and backtracks within this novel makes the novel itself …show more content…
Given the fact that Kurt Vonnegut participated as one of the soldiers in World War II, it wouldn’t be surprising if he had developed PTSD. The fact that Kurt Vonnegut is known for his satirical, dark, imagination, makes this novel questionable to why it would not be considered postmodern. “Montana was naked, and so was Billy, of course. He had a tremendous wang”(Vonnegut 169). Vonnegut is giving the main character, who, for some reason, has the same identity as Vonnegut himself, a bigger groin, along with the main character the chance to sleep with a 20 year old pornstar named Montana Wildhack. This reason makes Slaughterhouse Five postmodern because he’s acquiring something that he might not even

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