Trout

The differences between the World War II era and the Vietnam era are easily identified in the music. Television shows, and literature of the two time periods. One of the greatest texts published during the Vietnam era, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, encompassed many of the anti-war ideas feeling that were involved with the Vietnam War. Although Vonnegut began writing Slaughterhouse Five as soon as he arrived home from World War II, it was the time that he allowed himself to write the…

Imagine you are in a box. A glass box. A plexiglass box. This plexiglass box is hurtling through space at a speed too fast for you to fully comprehend. The funny thing is though, you are not afraid. In fact, you could not be any more indifferent towards your current place in time, and in space. You are Billy Pilgrim. In the poem I Do Not, by Michael Palmer, the narrator makes a point of telling you again and again (In English) all the words he doesn’t know, and all the things he cannot say in…

Free will is defined as the ability to act at one 's own discretion according to the Oxford Dictionary. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim experiences many events throughout his life with outside factors that go against his free will. There are different ways to view this topic. Many argue if we can actually control our actions, while others argue that it 's impossible for anything to happen without being caused by something else. In other words, everything is structured and no matter what…

When a tragedy occurs, it has the power to provoke many different types of responses. Some people mourn a great amount, some go into a state of denial, and others may speak up and tackle it. In Slaughterhouse-Five, author Kurt Vonnegut introduces Billy Pilgrim as someone who was affected by the bombing of Dresden, and someone who is taken by Tralfamadorians (an alien species) to talk to him about their theories of time. There are many ways to react to a catastrophe, but the author emphasizes the…

“Auto Wreck” reveals what its poet considers to be the terrible secret of modern life: the creeping indifference toward technological determinism, the simple violence of machine against human being in which everyone participates by failing to be troubled or moved by such disasters as automobile wrecks. The tone of the poem is likely to be melodious which an imagism verse is. It is a short, lyrical narrative poem. The poem is described in first person narrative. The poet in short is trying to…

Both the authors, William Golding and William Shakespeare highlight severe human weakness in the novel Lord of the Flies and the play Macbeth respectively. This was deliberately done in response to their profound yet interesting lives that they had experienced as a human. This is evident as; Lord of the Flies was portrayed as an allegorical microcosm of the world Golding was involved in, which included real-life violence and brutality of the World War II. Perhaps, it was intended by the author…

“No. My dad leaves bruises on the inside”(pg 70). In Ironman, Chris Crutcher, the author, shows physical and mental abuse through the main characters in this story. They have been abused internally or externally by either a parent or a close family member. The main characters, Bo and Shelly are affected by the continual bullying from the ones that are expected to protect them. Unfortunately, there’s a handful of children who experience this type of hardship throughout their lifetime. 5 Bo…

Kurt Vonnegut, in his novel, “Slaughterhouse Five” recounts his experiences of World War II through Billy Pilgrim, the main character. Vonnegut’s purpose is to describe his wartime experiences and antiwar view. He adopts a complex and elusive tone in order to successfully engage and entertain his readers. Vonnegut begins his novel in the first person. We are given a first-person point of view in the sections embedded in the first and last chapters of the book. Throughout the rest of…

Crazy people see crazy things becomes a true statement in Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut when a distressed book about a Billy Pilgrim’s life is impacted by what he saw and went through during the war. In Kurt Vonnegut’s book, Billy Pilgrim suffers from severe PTSD that leads him to time travel and being kidnapped by the Tralfamadorians. Slaughterhouse Five was first banned in Oakland County, Michigan and has been since 1972 according to Betsy Morais. The book should be allowed to be read…

Age and danger. No matter where you go in life these words will cling to you like weights slowly dragging you down. “You’re too old to do this, it’s dangerous”, “You’re too young to believe in that, it’s unsafe”. The message behind The-Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson and the movie Guardians of the Galaxy by James Gunn is to break these weights called age and danger, Live life to the fullest and do not let such things hold you back.…