Moreover, Slaughterhouse Five focuses on the pointlessness of war. Vonnegut truly wanted to avoid writing a novel that glamorized war. Thus, he portrays the war being fought by “…young, uncomprehending innocents” (“Popular Fiction in America”, Beacham Publishing). Slaughterhouse-Five defines man's cruelty to man, and the mass destruction of Dresden by serves as a prime example. While Vonnegut is a humanist at heart, he often exemplifies the human capacity for destruction. Moreover, the novel discovers the “…moral vacuum in which contemporary human life exists” (“Popular Fiction in America”, Beacham Publishing). More importantly, Slaughterhouse-Five was Vonnegut's “…conscious leap toward a more personally revealing fiction” (“Popular Fiction in America”, Beacham Publishing). However Vonnegut directly places himself in the novel as the spokesman only in the first and last chapters, the protagonist is Billy Pilgrim in the autobiographical framework.
…show more content…
Billy Piqram's time travel is related to Vonnegut's unrestricted movement through narrative time, combining personal descriptions of Dresden and other personal wartime experiences with Tralfamadorian fantasy and pieces from earlier fiction to create fragments of significance. Likewise, Vonnegut uses a stream of consciousness to portray Billy's struggle in fully understanding the Tralfamadorian objectivity toward the Dresden bombing and to emphasize the incomprehensible interrelatedness of the
Billy Piqram's time travel is related to Vonnegut's unrestricted movement through narrative time, combining personal descriptions of Dresden and other personal wartime experiences with Tralfamadorian fantasy and pieces from earlier fiction to create fragments of significance. Likewise, Vonnegut uses a stream of consciousness to portray Billy's struggle in fully understanding the Tralfamadorian objectivity toward the Dresden bombing and to emphasize the incomprehensible interrelatedness of the