Slaughterhouse-Five: The Crusade for Free Speech
Ever since the first communities were established, war and violence have been significant parts of human history. During this time, fighting in a war was solely regarded as a display of loyalty to that community; warriors were glorious heroes impervious to any adversity. This view has been held for millennia. However, relatively recent revelations into post-traumatic stress disorder have shown that the impacts of war extend far beyond physical damage. Kurt Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse-Five to shed light on this very issue in 1969 during the height of the Vietnam War protests. Slaughterhouse-Five should be included in AP English Literature and Composition high school classes because of its unique …show more content…
In Susanne Vees-Gulani's article "Diagnosing Billy Pilgrim: A Psychiatric Approach to Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five", Vees-Gulani reads Pilgrim, the main protagonist, through the lens of PTSD. She states, "Just as mainstream American society does not provide an atmosphere conducive to recovery from the horrors of war, the psychiatric establishment also fails Billy.” Though it may not be obvious, veterans’ struggles with PTSD is one of the vital themes of Slaughterhouse-Five. Vonnegut tactfully incorporates Pilgrim’s struggle with PTSD throughout the novel without explicitly stating that he has the condition, making Slaughterhouse-Five incomparable to any other novel on war. Instead, his PTSD is implied through the manner of his writing and the thought-process displayed. One such example of this concise syntax structure is when Vonnegut writes, “Billy had a tremendous cavalry pistol in his belt. It was a relic of World War One. It had a ring in its butt. It was loaded with bullets the size of robins’ eggs. Billy had found it in the bedside table in a house” (Vonnegut 195). He primarily utilizes simple, abrupt sentences in his writing to exemplify the fragmented thoughts of someone with PTSD. Vonnegut’s writing becomes increasingly broken-up whenever he attempts to describe key aspects of Dresden: the site of the traumatic event. Each part of Slaughterhouse-Five has the potential of being scrupulously analyzed in relation to PTSD and war themes, making it perfect for AP Literature, a class devoted to finding latent
Ever since the first communities were established, war and violence have been significant parts of human history. During this time, fighting in a war was solely regarded as a display of loyalty to that community; warriors were glorious heroes impervious to any adversity. This view has been held for millennia. However, relatively recent revelations into post-traumatic stress disorder have shown that the impacts of war extend far beyond physical damage. Kurt Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse-Five to shed light on this very issue in 1969 during the height of the Vietnam War protests. Slaughterhouse-Five should be included in AP English Literature and Composition high school classes because of its unique …show more content…
In Susanne Vees-Gulani's article "Diagnosing Billy Pilgrim: A Psychiatric Approach to Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five", Vees-Gulani reads Pilgrim, the main protagonist, through the lens of PTSD. She states, "Just as mainstream American society does not provide an atmosphere conducive to recovery from the horrors of war, the psychiatric establishment also fails Billy.” Though it may not be obvious, veterans’ struggles with PTSD is one of the vital themes of Slaughterhouse-Five. Vonnegut tactfully incorporates Pilgrim’s struggle with PTSD throughout the novel without explicitly stating that he has the condition, making Slaughterhouse-Five incomparable to any other novel on war. Instead, his PTSD is implied through the manner of his writing and the thought-process displayed. One such example of this concise syntax structure is when Vonnegut writes, “Billy had a tremendous cavalry pistol in his belt. It was a relic of World War One. It had a ring in its butt. It was loaded with bullets the size of robins’ eggs. Billy had found it in the bedside table in a house” (Vonnegut 195). He primarily utilizes simple, abrupt sentences in his writing to exemplify the fragmented thoughts of someone with PTSD. Vonnegut’s writing becomes increasingly broken-up whenever he attempts to describe key aspects of Dresden: the site of the traumatic event. Each part of Slaughterhouse-Five has the potential of being scrupulously analyzed in relation to PTSD and war themes, making it perfect for AP Literature, a class devoted to finding latent