Slaughterhouse-Five

published Cat’s Cradle. Though it initially sold only about 500 copies, it is widely read today in high school English classes. Mr. Vonnegut shed the label of science-fiction writer with Slaughterhouse-Five. It tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, a chaplain’s assistant who discovers the horror of war. Slaughterhouse-Five reached No. 1 on best-seller lists, making Mr. Vonnegut a cult hero. Some schools and libraries have banned it because of its sexual content, rough language and scenes of…

attention and ridicule the flaws of mankind, most of which end in destruction and chaos of some sort. In two of his novels, Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five, damage and destruction of millions is determined by what can potentially be a single man’s decision. Vonnegut himself experienced the bombing of Dresden, about which he wrote in Slaughterhouse-Five, first hand. He was taken by the Germans as a prisoner of war and by chance managed to survive by escaping with a few others and seeking…

Kurt Vonnegut's historical science-fiction novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, recounts Billy Pilgrim’s life as a former U.S. soldier who was a Prisoner of War during World War Two. The Tralfamadorians, an alien race from the planet Tralfamadore, abduct Billy and put him on display in their zoo. While there, Billy not only learns about Tralfamadorians views on death but also their perception of time. Vonnegut wrote the novel with a scrambled timeline, meaning the events of Pilgrims life are out of order…

Inspired by the wife of another veteran, Mary O’Hare, to whom his book is dedicated, Kurt Vonnegut basically invented the genre of the anti- world war novel. This one book shaped the way that America has generally viewed war, in both theory and practice, as evidenced by the major shift in viewpoints between World War II and the Vietnam War. This shift started in centers of higher thinking where novels like this would be read and discussed and spread outwards. Much like the similar reaction to…

including those much more able to fight a war than Billy. After arriving in the POW camp, Billy and the other americans are sent to Dresden as laborers. The factory that they all worked in was actually a converted slaughterhouse, and was still referred to as such: Slaughterhouse Five. Later, the Allies bombed Dresden, turning a capital of culture into a facsimile of the moon. While most people in Dresden died, the americans survived because the meat locker was airtight. Soon after the…

Writing is an art that has been around for many centuries. From the bible, to world renounced novels and screenplays, the work of writers has transformed the world of art and words. There are many influential writers whose names carry great meaning because of the uniqueness of their writing craft. One such writer is Kurt Vonnegut Jr.; “Vonnegut was an American original, often compared to Mark Twain for a vision that combined social criticism, wildly black humor and a call to basic human decency.…

Slaughterhouse Five, or the Children's Crusade: a Duty-Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut is a science-fiction, anti-war novel that tracks the life of Billy Pilgrim who has become “unstuck in time” and his experiences such as: his time as a hapless soldier to the firebombing of Dresden; his time on the planet Tralfamadore where he was displayed naked in a zoo; and even his own death. These events, rejecting a conventional narrative, are presented in a fragmentary fashion. It is within this novel…

Dictionary.com defines dark humor as “a form of humor that regards human suffering as absurd rather than pitiable, or that considers human existence as ironic and pointless but somehow comic.” In Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, this concept of dark humor is used throughout to convey the actuality of war. By examining all aspects of war, Vonnegut approaches the cruelty of war from a variety of different perspectives in order to craft one, unified thesis about the meaning of war. Kurt…

perhaps due to its sentiment and attempt to give science a moral center making it popular both critically and on college campuses. That is purely speculation, however. The work to give Vonnegut significant notoriety and fame is, of course, Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children 's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death. Its release in 1969 brought it to the forefront of the counter-culture, with him being praised for in all his writings, among other things, its “Elements of pathos, fantasy, didactism…

Kurt Vonnegut a German short story writer and novelist, who endured a very hard and depressing young life, uses his background as motivation for many of his novels and short stories. “Deer in the Works” one of many short stories by Kurt Vonnnegut, was published in 1950. Vonnegut after his service in World War II had a job at G.E or General Electric. This where people theorize where he got inspiration for “Deer in the Works”. The setting in this book is the industrialized plant of Illium works,…