Billy Strayhorn was an incredibly gifted musician, as well as a talented arranger and composer, who was best known for his work while in the band Duke Ellington and His Orchestra. His love for music stemmed from his mother, a classically trained pianist, and from playing hymns on his grandmother’s piano at a young age. Strayhorn preferred to work in the shadows, content to arrange and compose music for the band as his employer wanted. Through working with Ellington, Strayhorn blossomed as an aspiring musician and composer and was able to live a discreet life as an openly as a gay man (Ethier). Through his brilliantly crafted and refreshingly original arrangements, Strayhorn was able set the standard for jazz compositions and influence future composers and arrangers through his…
Billy Graham was involved in the Fourth Great Awakening, which mainly took place through the years of 1960 and 1980 (press.uchicago.edu). Some still believe that we are currently living in the Fourth Awakening but, the bulk of the Christian challenging of social norms was solely between those 20 years. Some people have a tough time accepting the ideas of the Fourth Great Awakening as a true “awakening.” This is because the changes and outcomes of the awakening and the actions of the concerning…
training, next being captured and forced to survive in using any means possible, and finally attempting to return to civilian life as if their lives have not been forever altered by the trauma of the war. The impact of this trauma ranges from the short term, in Mills description of freed prisoners of war running between mess halls and eating out of the scraps even though they were stuffed, is an accepted psychological reaction to being starved, because they were still living in their previous…
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.” (Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five p. 60) Slaughterhouse Five is an anti-war book written by a veteran named Kurt Vonnegut. The main character is a broken man named Billy Pilgrim. Billy had been captured by the Germans and had to bear witness to the allied bombing of Dresden. According to History.com, “The bombing was controversial because Dresden was neither…
Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five comments largely on the destructive nature of war. Our childlike protagonist Billy Pilgrim was essentially robbed of his innocence due to his drafting into the military. My first thoughts on this novel were about how Billy’s story extends to other soldiers and victims of war. The breaking of men and women’s’ ability to cope with the world extends far past the case of Billy. This is not just an isolated incident, it occurs much more often than most people care…
experiences of the main protagonist Billy Pilgrim. It is a controversial novel that has created multiple perspectives (right and wrong) and one of those perspectives can be obtained in an article titled “Dystopian Cybernetic Environment in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse five” which is authored by three journalists Babaee, Yahya, and Sivagurunathan. The article through the focus on Billy Pilgrim’s experiences in the era of World War 2 reaches to a cold conclusion, that the people in the novel who…
The novels Heart of Darkness and Slaughterhouse Five may at first appear to have no similarities, but with further observation, it can be seen they share some similar aspects. Although the concept of fate and free will appear in both Heart of Darkness and Slaughterhouse Five, Conrad uses it in such a way where it is questionable that Marlow’s descent into madness in the heart of darkness could have been avoided, whereas Vonnegut claims there is no such thing as free will and Billy Pilgrim’s…
look for clues, in their “possibles,” as to who they may be. Similarly, in Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim is thrown into war, and labeled as weak and useless by those around him, and in turn he lacks the motivation to give his life purpose. Billy and the Hailsham students both have been defined by society, ergo they have…
Role Do Tralfamadorians Play In S5? Slaughterhouse-Five is a truly mind bending book by the late Kurt Vonnegut Jr. It is the tale of a inelegant World War II veteran/soldier, Billy Pilgrim. His war experiences and the mental and physical effects it had on Billy lead him to the ultimate conclusion, that war is incomprehensible . A huge part of the book are “The Tralfamadorians”.The Tralfamadorians are plunger shaped time altering aliens who bring Billy to their planet and put him in a zoo. In…
Money plays a substantial role in every aspect of life. It can either make life easier or it can make it much harder. In Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, Lewis explains how a baseball team is run and the financial aspect of the game. Lewis relates how money is used by the Oakland Athletics in comparison to the other teams that have more money than them. The A’s didn’t have much money to work with, so they had to be creative and discover new ways to find the best…