The Importance Of Time In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five

Although the novel “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut is an anti-war book, I believe time was more importantly presented within the book rather than warfare. It is easy to feel this way seeing as that the theme dominates every chapter of this “jumbled” book. Vonnegut develops this theme throughout the book by telling events throughout Billy Pilgrim’s life. Let's just say, for a mild mannered, scrawny man, he's able to get around. Events in the novel aren't presented directly, but instead different times of Billy’s experiences during his life are shown at different times.

Time is a theme that appears very often in Slaughterhouse-Five. Almost every chapter has time or time travel appear in it throughout the entirety of the chapter. It is …show more content…
The theme develops along with Billy Pilgrim. The theme is able to better present itself and develop as Billy Pilgrim is put into different situations he is not expecting, for example time traveling to random points in his life. By going through points in his life the author not only shows the maturing of the protagonist, he also expands the plot, and develops the theme. The theme develops during the points where Billy experiences new things, places, and people. By Billy experiencing these new things, the author shows different points of Billy's life that the reader’s were not yet familiar with, hence developing the theme and plot. For example whenever Billy seems to experience something new he tends to develop along with the theme, for example when Billy meets Eliot Rosewater and finds his new obsession of Kilgore Trout books, it links with trafalmadorians and their story. It helps that Billy experiences so many different scenarios in the novel. By Billy being put in so many situations it exposes him to develop as a character which also develops the plot. When Billy is taken by the trafalmadorians he learns their already discovered knowledge of the fourth dimension and the end of their planets. Not only does this develop the plot because it covers time but it also develops Billy as a character because he becomes more knowledgeable from this …show more content…
This is the format the author chose because “there is nothing intelligent to say about massacre”. So in other words he purposely made it sloppy to resemble war in a way, or so it goes. Vonnegut is able to write this way due to him being a soldier and most of Billy Pilgrims story being his own. "Billy is spastic in time, has no control over where he is going next, and the trips aren't necessarily fun. He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next" (chapter 2, pg 27). These frightful trips are what keep the story interesting and the theme of time live and well. It is a unique style that suites the theme since time is able to bounce all over the the place since there is constant time traveling. The timeline is not in order and can be hard to understand at times, but it all comes