It's really not so bad, you know... (Analysis #2)

There is a nice theme hidden in Slaughter-House Five. Vonnegut uses Tralfamadorian life to push the idea of optimism through tragedy. In the first chapter of Slaughter-House Five, through the story of Sodom, Vonnegut tells the reader that he believes that people are not meant to look back. He conveys this message subtly through the rest of Slaughter-House Five. The Tralfamadorians, although they can live all moments, do not ‘look back’ as humans do. When humans ‘look back’, they are thinking over past events, and usually ponder how they would change or redo the event. Vonnegut’s Tralfamadorian philosophy encourages readers to think optimistically, and to live each moment without worry or regret. And you know what? I think he was onto something.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary... (Analysis #1)

Is it just me, or did Mary O’Hare have a bigger impact on Slaughter-House Five than we realised? I mean, obviously she helped with the title, and her point of the soldiers being “babies” is quite clearly referenced in chapter 5, in the voice of an American soldier. But maybe Billy Pilgrim’s character would have been completely different if not for Mary O’Hare. Of course Billy Pilgrim’s character fits into the story perfectly, but perhaps that’s because the story was moulded around him, and not the other way around. What if Billy Pilgrim was intended to be more heroic? Kurt Vonnegut’s promise to Mary could have been much more than that; it could have inspired him to look at the war from another perspective. Remember, Vonnegut didn’t have any idea about how to write his ‘war book’ when he met Mary. She could have been part of the reason that Slaughter-House Five is how it is. Many things could have bee different without Mary O’Hare, and I think it’s so lovely that she decided to speak up about her opinions.

Analysis

Kurt Vonnegut has written the novel Slaughterhouse 5, based around his experiences in the war and in the city of Dresden. Although the main character, Billy Pilgrim, is quite a simple-minded and dull person, he encounters many things in his life that are exciting, dangerous and out of the ordinary. Billy leads a relatively normal life, except that he can travel backwards and forwards in time, visiting different moments in his life. He claims to have been taken to a planet named Tralfamadore where he learned many lessons about life and time that he took back with him to earth and lived by.

This could be perfectly true, or Kurt Vonnegut could have just been exploring the effects of war on a man, showing how his experiences meant he suffered trauma later on in his life and found a way to block out this trauma by giving himself a logical (in his mind) explanation for his feelings. Billy Pilgrim may have just needed a reason for everything he suffered; that it had to happen because it had always happened that way (something he learned on Tralfamadore). The time travelling he experienced could have just been a subconscious trick of his mind, flashing back to different times in his life, an improvement on the last one he had been experiencing.

Kurt Vonnegut was trying to communicate through this novel that reality and free will should not be taken for granted. Whether Billy Pilgrim was just imagining the things he saw or not does not change the outcome of the story at all. His reality was warped but he believed it to be true, thus making it, in some senses, true anyway. The Tralfamadorians question the idea of free will, saying that all events happen because they have to happen, because they have always happened. Slaughterhouse 5 is an anti-war book and the author clearly has a very strong point of view about this. The author himself crops up in a few places as a minor character throughout the book, which shows the connection between the author and the story. This also shows that Billy is in fact connected to reality, but also shows his struggle to fit in with normal human society.

Kurt Vonnegut states that his anti-war book is a failure because it failed to discourage war. Vonnegut uses a satiric tone throughout the book which makes parts of it humorous and displays Billy’s feelings towards war and time, and that he just doesn’t seem to care about life anymore. With all the tragic events that happen in Billy Pilgrim’s life, as well as the quite amazing, unbelievable ones, the book tells that at the end of the day, something as illogical and horrific as war cannot be affected by one man. His insignificance after all that has happened reiterates the Tralfamadorian belief that we should just ignore the bad parts of life, as they cannot be tampered with or changed anyway.

Slaughterhouse 5 contains quite a few important morals and views that can be interpreted whichever way you see fit, and although confusing at time, this novel is a must-read!

Analysis

In Slaughter House 5, Kurt Vonnegut has an interesting view of time. He describes it as seeing all time at once, instead of seeing it as a linear fashion like we do. The main character Billy Pilgrim, can travel backwards and forwards through his life, and always knows what is going to happen. Kurt Vonnegut describes people as "Great millipedes with babies legs at one end and old people's legs at the other". This means when he looks at someone, he see's where they have been, and where they are going, not just them how they are at that particular point in time.
If this view of time was real were real, you would never be surpriosed, you would keep repeating the same moments of your life over and over. It would get annoying after a while, life will have lost it's meaning, and you would have no way to stop it. I think he has put this in the book because this is what he believes happens after we die, we may not be aware of it, but it is what is happening to every human being.
In the book, I think billy Pilgrim is not really jumping through time, I think he is just remembering parts of his life he has already lived, like the war, and making up the things he hasn't yet lived, like his death. This could be a way of dealing with the mental images jumping around his head from the war. He could be trying to find something that makes everything he saw okay. This is when he makes up the tralfamadorians, and turns it into his philosphy, his way of life.
I do not believe he is lying when he tells people about the tralfamadorians, I think he is simply so wrapped up in this philosophy is simply so wrapped up in this philosophy that he truly believes it is real. Like Schizophrenia maybe?
I believe that he is mentally ill in result of the war and the things he witnessed, and now he is seeing things and believing things that aren't really there.

this is my analysis.

Slaughterhouse 5: The children’s crusade is a novel by Kurt Vonnegut.

In Slaughterhouse 5 Vonnegut explores many different themes.

Vonnegut explores travel through both time and to another planet through the main character Billy Pilgrim. Billy Pilgrim has experienced many moments of extreme trauma throughout his life and as a result travels to escape further trauma. Through the book we see Billy’s life in a non-linear fashion; we see his life out of sequence. Billy believes he travels through time and to another planet called Tralfamadore though it is up to us to decide whether he really does travel or if it is just his delusions from extreme trauma. Through we read most of Billy’s life as random memories of time travel, his war experiences are all in sequence.

Vonnegut also visits the issue of free will. Through the Tralfamadorians, Billy learns that free will is something that can only be found on Earth with humans. The Tralfamadorians themselves do not believe in free will. The Tralfamadorians believe that if a person cannot change time, either the present, past or future, then they are just free to exist as they are. Without changing anything.

The issue of death is also explored by Vonnegut in his novel Slaughterhouse 5. In the book death is not tragic, nor is it unimportant. The event of death is always followed by the Tralfamadorian saying “so it goes.” Though sometimes seeming like Vonnegut does not take death seriously the phrase actually follows the Tralfamadorian philosophy that a person never really dies, they continue to live in other moments in time.

Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5 is an anti-war book that can sometimes be a bit difficult to follow and understand, though it does have good lessons and morals.

My blog finally!

My Analysis

Slaughter House 5 is a book written by Kurt Vonnegut about a seemingly simple minded man called Billy Pilgrim who becomes unstuck in time. This occurs after being involved in a plane crash in which he is the only survivor and suffers some head trauma from then onwards, also he suffers some emotional distress after he witnesses the horrific bombing of Dresden and the after effects of it. He becomes unstuck in time because of the terrifying events that took place throughout his life, and that started as early as when he was a little child. He was learning how to swim and his father pushes him in because he has a 'sink or swim' policy. He nearly drowns and the physiological damage begins.

Vonnegut writes in a simple, usually brutally honest and apparently unfeeling manner throughout the story. A scene proving Billy's simple thoughts and involving the use of Vonnegut's 'matter of fact' language is “He used to have a dog named Spot, but he died. So it goes. Billy had liked Spot a lot, and Spot had liked him.” It was if a child had written it, so is Vonnegut implying that Billy had the mind of a child? Billy had to do manly and mature things in his life such as fight in the war and own a buisness but the manner in which Vonnegut imply's him to think, its as if he is shying away from life. Another example of Vonnegut's honest nature of writing, and perhaps how Billy sees things is “Valencia was snoring like a bandsaw. The poor woman didn't have ovaries or a uterus anymore. They had been removed by a surgeon – by one of Billy's partners in the new holiday Inn.” He writes in such a way that it seems like Valenica is a stranger in Billy's life, or that Billy cared for her as if she was a stranger. Billy is a very complex character in way since he doesn't think and act as other people do.

The character of the Trafalmadorians could perhaps have been all in his imagination, his imaginary friends to get away from the horrible reality that was his life, and escaping to this imaginary world could have been the only way to keep him going since he wasn't “very enthusiastic about living”. After-all on Tralfamadore wasn't his companion a famous actress who had been in adult movies. Perhaps she was the girl of his dreams, so in his mind made her live with him on Tralfamadore to keep him company in his dream world. The Trafalmadorians way of life could have been how he wished earth would be. Billy believed that you could not change the past, the present or the future. He also liked how they taught this and said there was no talk of free will except on earth. So he had in his mind back up that the horrible things that happened in his life like being pushed in the pool, being in a plane accident and seeing Dresden get bombed had to happen and were unavoidable and were just a fact of life. That's why Vonnegut writes in a fact-ful way, because that's how Billy's views the events that take place in the world. They always have to happen and always had happened so there was no point worrying about them or trying to stop them.

okay

okay... i haven't actually written my analysis yet but here we go... I'm going to attempt to write one.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut is a novel which is focused mainly on the bombing of Dresden. As Vonnegut was involved in the bombing, this book is an accurate description of the emotions and thoughts going through the minds of those involved. Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist of the novel, is based upon Vonnegut and his own experiences as a prisoner of war during the bombings in Dresden. Pilgrim finds it difficult to understand why he survived the bombings and tries to overcome his remorse for those who did not. This novel is most definitely an anti-war novel and is trying to discourage the happening of wars in the future. The fact that he calls his book a failure may have something to do with the fact that he does not think he served the purpose of discouraging war. The Tralfamadorians, Billy Pilgrim's 'friends', help Billy, however fast the moments are, help Billy find happiness and a sense of bliss. As Billy travels involuntarily through time, he is reliving the events that have previously happened in his life, whether it be in the war or with his family and friends. I believe that after the plane crash Billy became senile and delusional and his travels through time are him remembering his life. I think maybe he may have passed on and in the afterlife he is reliving his life and remembering events throughout.

To be continued...

link and stuff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zYOKFjpm9s

that's the link to it the song, listen to the lyrics. Not all of them reflect the saying btw.

real serious one here...

alright, here we go, I reckon I've found out a song that reflects the Tralfamadorians and Vonnegut's saying, "so it goes" pretty well.

It's called Do You Realize??? by the Flaming Lips, and its lyrics reflect a pretty laid back approach to death, which typifies the saying pretty well.

Yeah Mr Ford, proud of me? I did a real serious blog with actual stuff in it about the book, yeeeahhhh!!!

Oh yeah, I'll try and upload a video link to the song or something later...

Slaughter House Five Analysis

Slaughter House Five/The Children's Crusade is a novel that is highly centered around the bombing of Dresden. On the nights of February 13th and 14th the city in Germany was air raided by United States air forces. In four raids 13,000 heavy bombers dropped more than 3,900 tons of high explosive bombs resulting in the destruction of the city and 24000-40000 civilian casualties. Kurt Vonnegut's novel was based upon his own experiences as a prisoner of war during the bombing. Kurt Vonnegut was whiteness to these tragic events but was spared. Through this novel Vonnegut explores the notion why he was spared and strives to answer the question of, 'Why me?' Throughout he protagonist Billy Pilgrim, whom was also tormented by his survival attempts to reconcile his guilt from surviving the bombings. We learn that Billy and Vonnegut's question cannot be answered because as Vonnegut suggests, war is not logical or just and therefore the question cannot be given an answer because there is no justification, validation or reason for the brutal killings or survival of innocent people. The Tralfamadorians- {alien like creatures whom look similar to a toilet plunger} give Billy/Vonnegut a sense of freedom from their guilt, Billy learns to no longer feel sympathy for death and injustice and learns that nothing can be changed, past present or future. He learns that moments are set in time and are continuous as well as not alterable. Vonnegut's view of the world is portrayed throughout and shapes the novel as a book with purpose, not only for Vonnegut's justification and quest for an answer to life's inane problems and situations, but a lesson and moral, example and introduction to a new way to perceive tragic events. It is an anti war book that reflects the injustices and meaninglesness of life. Vonnegut's satiric tone gives the book a humorous quality. Slaughter House Five is a good book, with an important moral, at times a bit tricky to understand concepts and keep up with Billy's time travelling adventures but is definitely worth the read.