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The Themes of Kurt Vonnegut's  Slaughterhouse-Five

Marek Vit

"Be kind. Don't hurt. Death is coming for all of us anyway,

and it is better to be Lot's wife looking back through salty

eyes than the Deity that destroyed those cities of the plain

in order to sae them."! obert #choles

Introduction  Slaughterhouse-Five; or The Children's Crusade, A Duty

 Dance With Death is surely the best achieement of $urt Vonnegut

and een one of the most acclaimed works in modern %mericanliterature. &t is a ery personal noel which draws upon

Vonnegut's own eperience in (orld (ar )wo. *e was an adance

scout with the +-th &nfantry Diision, a prisoner of war and

a witness to the fire!bombing of Dresden on +th /ebruary +012.+2, people died in the ruins of Dresden, which means that it

was the greatest man!caused massacre of all times 34+,40 people

were killed by the atom bomb dropped on *iroshima.5

  Vonnegut manages to tell the reader many things and it ishard to decide, what eactly is the main theme. &t is a noel

about war, about the cruelty and iolence done in war, about people and their nature, their selfishness, about loe, humanity,

regeneration, motion, and death.

  & will try to eplore the noel in a greater depth and try

to say which of the themes mentioned characteri6es the book tothe greatest etent.

Kurt Vonnegut and his writing  $urt Vonnegut 7r. was born in +088. *e is an author of numerous noels and short stories, two plays and seeral works of non!fiction. Most of his books are affected by his war eperience

3 Hocus Pocus, Mother ight  etc.5, although in some noels it is

really hard to identify. &n Slaughterhouse-Five, howeer, the war eperiences are obious from the beginning.

  %ll his books are strongly satirical and ironical 3Vonnegut

often uses ery dark humor5, funny, compassionate and etremely

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wise. )hey mostly hae a ery poor plot 3or none at all5 and the

emphasis is put onto the rather comic and pathetic characters.

$urt Vonnegut also ery often uses science fiction and comic book formulas 39uick action, short dialogues etc.5, which usually puts

his books onto bookstore sheles marked "sci!fi". Vonnegut,

howeer, doesn't take the sci!fi elements with the same seriousness as the other sci!fi writers, and that probably

makes the difference between his works and science fiction.

  &n Slaughterhouse-Five, many characters from his preious books show up 3Mr. osewater, $ilgore )rout, the )ralfamadorians

etc.5 )he reader can also recogni6e some themes that appeared in

Vonnegut's earlier books 3(ar s. Loe: Life s. human

understanding etc5. #ome criti9ues described Slaughterhouse-Fiveas a summary of his preious fie noels.

Structure of  Slaughterhouse-Five  )he book has two narraties. ;ne is personal and the other 

is impersonal. )he latter is the story of Billy <ilgrim who,similarly to the author, fights in (orld (ar )wo, is taken

 prisoner by the =ermans and witnesses the fire!storming of 

Dresden. )he personal narratie is Vonnegut's own story aboutwriting a book about the worst eperience of his life. &t appears

mostly in the first chapter, and describes his temptation to

write a book about Dresden and his efforts to finally produce it.

)he p ersonal iew also appears in the tenth 3and last5 chapter and surfaces twice in the Billy <ilgrim's story 3")hat was &.

)hat was me. )hat was the author of this book." ! Vonnegut +0-0

 p.+82, +1>5. )his can assure the reader of particular identity of the author with Billy.

  Billy <ilgrim has a uni9ue ability to become "unstuck in

time", which means that he can uncontrollably drift from one partof his life to another "and the trips aren't necessarily fun,"

3ibid p.85. )he whole book is organi6ed in the same way Billy

moes in time. &t consists of numerous sections and paragraphs

strung together in no chronological order, seemingly at random.)he whole narration is written in the past tense, so that the

reader cannot identify where the author's starting point is. )his

aspect of the book is identical with the )ralfamadorian type of  books?

  ')here isn't any particular relationship between  all the messages, ecept that the author has chosen them

  carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce

  an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and

  deep. )here is no beginning, no middle, no end, no

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  suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. (hat we loe

  in our books are the depths of many marelous moments

  seen all at one time.' 3ibid p.>>5.

& think that this describes Slaughterhouse-Five 9uite fully.

  %fter haing read about Billy being an optometrist, another eplanation of why the book has no frame occurs. )he last

sentence of the paragraph about optometry reads? "/rames are

where the money is," 3ibid p.815. (ayne Mc=innis has pointed outthat historical eents, like the destruction of Dresden, are

usually "read" in a framework of moral and historical

interpretation and that is where this book differs from other 

 books of its kind 3Bryfonski +04> p.2805.  &n my opinion, howeer, the narration is linear. ;ne period

of Billy's life is told in a line ! Billy's story from the war.

& admit that the line of narration is broken by many other 

eents, but eery time a war story begins, it takes up thenarratie at the moment when the preious war story ended. &t

seems that Vonnegut, who had wanted to write a war noel, nowwanted to aoid writing about it. )he war seems to hae been

a great tempting magnet for him, and Vonnegut was trying to

escape its power. *e managed to do so, to some etent, but eerynow and then the story falls back into (orld (ar )wo.

The Themes of  Slaughterhouse-Five  )he first theme of Slaughterhouse-Five, and perhaps the

most obious, is the war and its contrast with loe, beauty,

humanity, innocence etc. Slaughterhouse-Five, like Vonnegut's preious books, manages to tell us that war is bad for us and

that it would be better for us to loe one another. )o find the

war's contrast with loe is 9uite difficult, because the book doesn't talk about any couple that was cruelly torn apart by the

war 3Billy didn't seem to loe his wife ery much, for eample.5

V onnegut epresses it ery lightly, uses the word "loe" ery

rarely, yet effectiely. *e tries to look for loe and beauty inthings that seemingly are neither loely nor beautiful. /or 

eample, when Billy was captured by the group of =ermans, he

didn't see them as a cruel enemy, but as normal, innocent people."Billy looked up at the face that went with the clogs. &t was the

face of a blond angel, of a fifteen!year!old boy. )he boy was as

 beautiful as @e." 3Vonnegut +0-0 p.25.  %n interesting contrast in Vonnegut's books is the one

 between men and women. Male characters are often engaging in

fights and wars, and females try to preent them from it. )he

woman characters are often mentally strong, hae strong will, and

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are ery humane and loing. % good eample is Vonnegut's dialogue

in the first chapter, when he talks with his old friend ;'*are in

front of ;'*are's wife?

  )hen she turned to me, let me see how angry she

  was, and that the anger was for me. #he had been talking  to herself, so what she said was a fragment of a much

  larger conersation. 'Aou were ust !a!ies thenC' she

  said.  '(hat' & said.

  'Aou were ust babies in the war!!like the ones

  upstairsC'

  & nodded that this was true. (e had  been foolish  irgins in the war, right at the end of childhood.

  'But you're not going to write it that way, are

  you.' )his wasn't a 9uestion. &t was an accusation.

  '& ! & don't know,' & said.  '(ell,  "  know,' she said. 'Aou'll pretend you

  were men instead of babies, and you'll be played in the  moies by /rank #inatra and 7ohn (ayne or some of those

  other glamorous, war!loing, dirty old men. %nd war will

  look ust wonderful, so we'll hae a lot more of them.  %nd they'll be fought by babies like the babies

  upstairs.'

  #o then & understood. &t was war that made her so

  angry. #he didn't want her babies or anybody else's  babies killed in wars. %nd she thought wars were partly

  encouraged by books and moies. 3ibid p. +1!+25

%nother place where Vonnegut epresses the preiously mentioned

9ualities of women is the part where Billy becomes "slightly

unstuck in time" and watches the war moie backwards?

  (hen the bombers got back to their base, the

  steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped

  back to the Enited #tates of %merica, where factories  were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders,

  separating the dangerous contents into minerals.

  )ouchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. 3ibid  p.41!425.

&n reality, of course, the women were building the weaponsinstead of dismantling them.

  )he most often epressed theme of the book, in my opinion,

is that we, people, are "bugs in amber." )he phrase first appears

when Billy is kidnapped by the )ralfamadorian flying saucer?

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  '(elcome aboard, Mr. <ilgrim,' said the

  loudspeaker. '%ny 9uestions'  Billy licked his lips, thought a while, in9uired

  at last? '(hy me'

  ')hat is a ery #arthling   9uestion to ask, Mr.  <ilgrim. (hy you (hy us  for that matter (hy anything 

  Because this moment simply is. *ae you eer seen bugs

  trapped in amber'  'Aes.' Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his

  office which was a blob of polished amber with three

  lady!bugs embedded in it.

  '(ell, here we are, Mr. <ilgrim, trapped in the  amber of this moment. )here is no $hy.' 3ibid p.4-!445.

)his rather etraterrestrial opinion can be interpreted as our 

 being physically stuck in this world, that we don't hae anychoice oer what we, mankind as a whole, do and what we head for.

)he only thing we can do is think about eerything, but we won'taffect anything. )his idea appears many times throughout the

noel. )his is one of the eamples, when Billy proposes marriage

to Valencia?

  Billy didn't want to mary ugly Valencia. #he was

  one of the symptoms of his disease. *e knew he was going

  cra6y when he heard himself proposing marriage to her,  when he begged her to take the diamond ring and be his

  companion for life, 3ibid p.+45.

)his ecerpt directly shows that Billy didn't like Valencia ery

much and that he actually didn't want to marry her. *oweer, he

was "stuck in amber". ;r, for eample, Billy knew the eact timewhen he would be killed, yet didn't try to do anything about it.

%nyway, he couldn't hae changed it. )he death bears comparison

with mankind's fate. )he main thing Vonnegut probably wanted

 people to think about has something to do with wars on @arth.Vonnegut says so in the part where Billy discusses the pro blems

about wars with the )ralfamadorians 3p.++45. )hey tell him that

eerything is structured the way it is and that trying to preentwar on @arth is stupid. )his means that there always will be wars

on @arth, that we, people, are "designed" that way. )here might

 be people striing for eternal peace, but those people must beery naie and probably don't know humankind's nature. (e know

that wars are bad and we would like to stop them, but we are

"stuck in amber."

  )his point of iew also might eplain why there are no

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illains or heroes in Vonnegut's books. %ccording to @rnest (.

anly, all the characters are "Fomic, pathetic pieces, uggled

about by some ineplicable faith, like puppets," 3iley +041 p.1215. &f there is no!one to take the blame for the bad

happenings in the book, it can only mean that the illain is =od

*imself 3"or *erself or &tself or (hateer" ! from Vonnegut's Hocus Pocus, +005. =od %lmighty had to be the one who put us

into the amber, who had created us the way we are.

  )here are almost no characters in this story, and

  almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the

  people in it are so sick and so much the listless

  playthings of enormous forces, 3Vonnegut +0-0 p.+-15.

  %nother theme of the noel is that there is no such thing

as a soldier. )here is only a man, but neer a soldier. % soldier 

is not a human being any more. Vonnegut epresses this mostobiously in this etract from the time when Billy was imprisoned

in Dresden?

  (hen the three fools found the communal kitchen,

  whose main ob was to make lunch for workers in the  slaughterhouse, eerybody had gone home but one woman

  who had been waiting for them impatiently. #he was a war 

  widow. #o it goes. #he had her hat and coat on. #he

  wanted to go home, too, een though there wasn't anybody  there. *er white gloes were laid out side by side on

  the 6inc counter top.

  #he had two big cans of soup for the %mericans.  &t was simmering oer low fires on the gas range. #he

  had stacks of loaes of black bread, too.

  #he asked =luck if he wasn't awfully young to be  in the army. *e admitted that he was.

  #he asked @dgar Derby if he wasn't awfully old to

  be in the army. *e said he was.

  #he asked Billy <ilgrim what he was supposed to  be. Billy said he didn't know. *e was ust trying to

  keep warm.

  '%ll the real soldiers are dead,' she said. &t  was true. #o it goes, 3Vonnegut +0-0 p.+205.

#tanley #chatt said? "Vonnegut opposes any institution, be itscientific, religious, or political, that dehumani6es man and

considers him a mere number and not a human being," 3iley +04

 p.1>5 and & think that this attitude shows up in many other 

 books by $urt Vonnegut 3 Player Piano, Hocus Pocus etc.5

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  %nother obious theme of the book is that death is

ineitable and that no matter who dies, life still goes on. )he

 phrase "#o it goes" recurs one hundred and si times? it appearseerytime anybody dies in the noel, and sustains the circular 

9uality of the book. &t enables the book, and thus Vonnegut's

narration, to go on. &t must hae been hard writing a book aboutsuch an eperience and it probably helped the author to look upon

death through the eyes of )ralfamadorians?

  (hen a )ralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he

  thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in

  the particular moment, but that the same person is ust

  fine in plenty of other moments. Gow, when & myself hear   that somebody is dead, & simply shrug and say what the

  )ralfamadorians say about dead people, which is '#o it

  goes,' 3ibid p.845.

The Main Message of the novel  %s you noticed, the book has different messages: eerybody

may see something else as its main meaning. & think that Vonnegut

wanted to tell us, the readers, that no matter what happens, weshould retain our humanity. (e should not let anybody or anything

reign upon our personalities, be it a god, be it a politician or 

anybody else. (e should be ourseles ! human and humane beings.

  & looked through the =ideon Bible in my motel

  room for tales of great destruction. The sun $as risen

  u%on the #arth $hen &ot entered into o-ar, & read. Then  the &ord rained u%on Sodo( and u%on )o(orrah !ri(stone

  and *ire *ro( &ord out o* Heaven; and He overthre$ those

  cities, and all the %lain, and all the inha!itants o*   the cities, and that $hich grea$ u%on the ground+

  #o it goes.

  )hose were ile people in both those cities, as

  is well known. )he world was better off without them.  %nd Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look 

  back where all those people and their homes had been.

  But she did  look back, and & loe her for that, because  it was so human.

  #o she was turned to a pillar of salt. #o it

  goes, 3Vonnegut +0-0 p.8+!885.

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References:

Brifonski and Mendelson 3@ditors5: Conte(%orary &iterary Criticis( vol+

Detroit? +04>: =ale esearch Fo

 iley, Farolyn 3@ditor5: Conte(%orary &iterary Criticis( vol+

Detroit? +04: =ale esearch Fo

 iley, Farolyn and Barbara *arte 3@ditors5: Conte(%orary &iterary Criticis( vol+.

Detroit? +041: =ale esearch Fo

 

Vonnegut, $urt 7r.: Slaughterhouse-Five; or Children's Crusade, A Duty Dance $ith Death

 Gew Aork? +04+: Dell <ublishing

 

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How political readers manipulate to dgo to cruceid to die for an ideal.

Es uno de los messages of the cruceid (mujer)

Timing:

Think about unthinkable thinks

Silence

See Bernard

jildren el tenia !"

#ilgrim methaphre

$ai%es (hombre)

El book es dedicado to her..

Black humor bill&

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http?HHwww.sparknotes.comHlitHslaughterHsection+.html

http?HHwww.onnegutweb.comHsh2Hinde.html

http?HHwww.bookrags.comHnotesHsl2H

http?HHwww.iath.irginia.eduHholocaustHspiegelman.html

http?HHwww.geocities.comHathensH%tlantisH8-4+HIarticles

http?HHen.wikipedia.orgHwikiHMausJ3comics5

http?HHwww.wamu.orgHprogramsHdrHreadersJreiewH