A Book Report on Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

1. Major Characters of the Novel a. Billy Pilgrim is the person that the book is written around. We follow him, perhaps not in a straight order, from his youth joining the military to his abduction on the alien planet of Tralmalfadore, to his older age at his 1960s home in Illum. It is his experiences and journeys that we follow, and his actions we read about. However, Billy had a specific lack of character for a main one. He is not heroic, he has very little personality traits, let alone an immersive and complex character. Most of the story is written around his experiences that seem more like symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from his World War Two days, combined with hallucinations after a brain injury in a near-fatal plane†¦show more content†¦2. The central conflict of this book is Billy coming to terms with the unfortunate events happening around him, and facing this character versus world scenario of everything and everyone always being against him in some way or another. Billy sees so much suffering and so much death. He is blamed for the death of Ronald Weary, which is not his fault. He witnesses the Dresden Firebombing, and has an overall uneventful blain life to begin with. Billy needs to find a way to cope with this unbearable pressure, and whether or not the Tralmalfadorians are real, their message is real to Billy. The philosophy they present is the excuse Billy needs to justify all the wrong he sees around him. The Tralmalfadorian belief being that there is no free will, and that you timeline is fact, and that you simply experience death, but continue â€Å"existing† afterwards. Essentially, you always exist and what happens to you is predetermined fate. This allows Billy to pass on all of the death and misery around him as meant to be. He can rest assured knowing that there is nothing he could about anything in the past, present, or future. There was nothing he could have done or can do to stop the death and torture, weather it is the death of his wife , the firebombing in Dresden, or even his own death. This motivation-less philosophy is his resolution to his devastating conflict, and is directly responsible for his lack of action throughout the story. 3.Show MoreRelatedKurt Vonnegut s Slaughterhouse Five Essay1905 Words   |  8 PagesKurt Vonnegut reflects his life during World War II as a German prisoner through his character Billy Pilgrim in the novel Slaughterhouse-Five. While enlisted in the US Army, Vonnegut had life threatening experiences that were inspiration for his writing. Vonnegut was a young boy during the Great Depression and was raised through the hardships of the time. As a child, Vonnegut’s father worked as an architect, but during the Great Depression, the building industry was brought to a halt and Vonnegut’sRead MoreSlaughterhouse Five By Kurt Vonnegut1050 Words   |  5 PagesLauren Farrell Mrs. Worthington AP ELA 4 30 November 2014 Free Will Through his novel, Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut poses an ancient question: Are we masters of our destiny, or are we simply pawns of fate? The medium through which Mr. Vonnegut presents this riddle is death. Death is the central point to which all action in the book connects. The story is primarily about the death of 135,000 German civilians in the bombing of Dresden narrated by Billy Pilgrim, a man who experiences death fromRead MoreKurt Vonneguts Tragic Path to Success1128 Words   |  5 PagesKurt Vonnegut, was born on November 11, 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana, to American-German parents Kurt Vonnegut (Sr.), and Edith Vonnegut. Vonnegut had an older brother, Bernard and an older sister, Alice. Vonnegut graduated from Shortridge High School in Indianapolis in 1940 and went to Cornell University later that fall. Though he majored in chemistry, he was Assistant Managing Editor and Associate Editor of the Cornell newspaper. While at Cornell, Vonnegut enlisted in the United Sta tes Army. TheRead MoreKurt Vonnegut s Slaughterhouse Five, Billy Pilgrim Question913 Words   |  4 Pageswant to forget about it. Kurt Vonnegut abjects this illusion of free will in his novel by his use in ‘characters’ and having free will. In Slaughterhouse-five, Billy Pilgrim question the Tralfamadorians, â€Å"Why me?† Their response is simply, â€Å"†¦There is no why.† The Tralfamodorians exemplify the role of â€Å"the other† that marks free will as a distinctly a human characteristic. Billy use’s this as a means to cope with the reality that pain and suffering is a guarantee. Vonnegut repetition of the phraseRead MoreThe Life and Writings of Kurt Vonnegut Essay2248 Words   |  9 PagesKurt Vonnegut is celebrated as one of the most successful novelist in the Post-Second World War period in the America. His literary works have had varied impacts on American culture, including the use of the word â€Å"karass† amongst coll ege students, the naming of the pop groups â€Å"Ice Nine Kills† and â€Å"The Billy Pilgrims†, and the frequent use of the term â€Å"So it goes† as written in Vonnegut’s obituary on the New York Times (Farrell, p.ix). This article examines the impacts of Vonnegut’s on his literaryRead MoreThe Slaughterhouse Five Novel By Kurt Vonnegut1366 Words   |  6 Pages The Slaughterhouse Five novel, is a fictional and nonfictional delight all clashed into one. The author, Kurt Vonnegut, amazingly combines a fictional character’s life with the nonfictional influence of what Kurt himself had experienced. As well as major topics being debated on and dealt with today. Billy Pilgrim takes hold of the story’s main protagonist as a prisoner of war during the Dresden raids in eastern Germany. While reading, I found many relationships in the novel to common concerns, suchRead MoreSlaughterhouse Five: A Warning Against War Essay1716 Words   |  7 PagesKurt Vonneguts novel Slaughterhouse-Five; or The Childrens Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is, as suggested by the title, a novel describing a crusade that stretches beyond the faint boundaries of fiction and crosses over into the depths of defogged reality. This satirical, anti-war piece of literature aims to expose, broadcast and even taunt human ideals that support war and challenge them in light of their folly. However, the reality of war, the destruction, affliction and trauma it encompassesRead MoreEssay on Kurt Vonneguts Slaughterhouse-Five2118 Words   |  9 PagesSlaughterhousefive Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., was written as a general statement against all wars. Vonnegut focuses on the shock and outrage over the havoc and destruction man is capable of wreaking in the name of what he labels a worthy cause, while learning to understand and accept these horrors and ones feelings about them. Through his character, Billy Pilgrim, he conveys not only these feelings and emotions, but also the message that we must exercise our free will to alterRead MoreFeatures of Metafiction and Well Known Writers of the Genre Essay3025 Words   |  13 Pagesto try and (re) present this world using narrative techniques (or artistic techniques)† (Thaninayagam 12). Historiographic metafiction is an offshoot of postmodern art form. The term historiographic metafiction was coined by Linda Hutcheon in her book A Poetics of Postmodernism : History, Theory, Fiction. According to Linda, historiographic metafictions are â€Å"those well-known and popular novels which are both intensely self-reflective and yet paradoxically also lay claim to historical events andRead MorePostmodernism: The Movement in Life Essay1263 Words   |  6 Pagesinformation, the organization of knowledge, and the establishment of cultural practices† (Taylor 1). Putting both things together gives a short and brief summary of what postmodernism means. The publication of Catch-22, Lost in the Funhouse, Slaughterhouse Five and Gravity’s Rainbow in the 60s and 70s, points to the peak of postmodernism (statemaster.com). Playfulness combined with irony and black humor may be the most identifiable aspects of the postmodern movement. Using playfulness and irony may