Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut is part science fiction and part an autobiography telling his story of the war. Kurt Vonnegut uses the bombing of Dresden as a central setting that everything revolves around. The bombing is what makes this book part autobiography because Vonnegut was present during the bombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war during World War II. The time travel part of the book makes it part science fiction.
The setting of Slaughterhouse-5 is wide ranging because this book includes alien abduction and time traveling. The two most important places are Germany during World War II and Ilium, the fictional town in New York where Billy Pilgrim lives most of his life. The book tends to focus on the bombing of Dresden as the main …show more content…
Billy Pilgrim is an ill-trained soldier and doesn’t like war. He manages to get on everybody’s bad side for being weak and not having any enthusiasm for war. Before Billy is captured he meets a man named Roland Weary who bullied Billy for his lack of enthusiasm for war. When Billy and Weary are captured the Germans take all of Weary’s belonging including his boots. Weary was given hinged wooden clogs to wear instead. He eventually dies of gangrene caused by the wooden clogs. Before Weary dies he convinces another soldier, Paul Lazzaro, that Billy is the cause of his death and is to be blamed. Lazzaro promises to avenge his fellow comrade by killing Billy Pilgrim. Billy Pilgrim is a very round character, and static because he never changes throughout the book. He never does anything through his own free will, he is drafted into the army, he is pushed into a marriage to a not so pretty but good intentioned wife. He is described as weak and skinny, but kind and wise. “Billy was preposterous—six feet and three inches tall, with a chest and shoulders like a box of kitchen matches. He had no helmet, no overcoat, no weapon, and no boots. On his feet were cheap, low-cut civilian shoes which he had bought for his father's funeral. Billy had lost a heel, which made him bob up-and-down-up-and-down. The involuntary dancing, up-and-down, up-and-down, made his hip joints sore (Vonnegut 56).”
The setting of Slaughterhouse-5 is wide ranging because this book includes alien abduction and time traveling. The two most important places are Germany during World War II and Ilium, the fictional town in New York where Billy Pilgrim lives most of his life. The book tends to focus on the bombing of Dresden as the main …show more content…
Billy Pilgrim is an ill-trained soldier and doesn’t like war. He manages to get on everybody’s bad side for being weak and not having any enthusiasm for war. Before Billy is captured he meets a man named Roland Weary who bullied Billy for his lack of enthusiasm for war. When Billy and Weary are captured the Germans take all of Weary’s belonging including his boots. Weary was given hinged wooden clogs to wear instead. He eventually dies of gangrene caused by the wooden clogs. Before Weary dies he convinces another soldier, Paul Lazzaro, that Billy is the cause of his death and is to be blamed. Lazzaro promises to avenge his fellow comrade by killing Billy Pilgrim. Billy Pilgrim is a very round character, and static because he never changes throughout the book. He never does anything through his own free will, he is drafted into the army, he is pushed into a marriage to a not so pretty but good intentioned wife. He is described as weak and skinny, but kind and wise. “Billy was preposterous—six feet and three inches tall, with a chest and shoulders like a box of kitchen matches. He had no helmet, no overcoat, no weapon, and no boots. On his feet were cheap, low-cut civilian shoes which he had bought for his father's funeral. Billy had lost a heel, which made him bob up-and-down-up-and-down. The involuntary dancing, up-and-down, up-and-down, made his hip joints sore (Vonnegut 56).”