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.

Other Books Vonnegut has written

#	Title	Year
01	Player Piano	1952
02	The Sirens of Titan	1959
03	Canary in a Cathouse	1961
04	Mother Night	1961
05	Cat's Cradle	1963
06	God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater	1965
07	Welcome to the Monkey House	1968
08	Slaughterhouse - Five	1969
09	Happy Birthday, Wanda June	1971
10	Between Time and Timbuktu	1972
11	Breakfast of Champions	1973
12	Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons	1974
13	Slapstick	1976
14	Jailbird	1976
15	Palm Sunday	1981
16	Deadeye Dick	1982
17	Galapagos	1985
18	Bluebeard	1987
19	Hocus Pocus	1989
20	Fates Worse Than Death	1991
21	Timequake	1997
22	Bagombo Snuff Box	1999
23	God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian	2000
24	A Man Without A Country	2005
25	Armageddon in Retrospect	2008

and what does this mean?

no offence...

but i dont really like this book. it has no point or plot. it just really bores me.. and i am thinking that it has no beginning/middle/end because thats the way the tralfamadorians see things?? so thats how kurt vonnegut decided to write the book..

:):)

Quotes

Here is a link to some key quotes from the book.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Slaughterhouse-Five

Enjoy...

New posts

Hey all,

Glad to see so many people have now contributed to the blog. Remember that a post does not count as official unless you are discussing the book. Talking about the look of the blog or about any other subject matter does not count. You have to post at least 3 times and 1 post has to be analysis, where you discuss how and why you think Kurt Vonnegut made the creative decisions he did.

I would like to see people responding to different posts either through posting a comment or creating a new post. By the end of the term the ideal situation would be for the blog to be like an online discussion of the text.

For those unsure how to post music, you will need to open a z share or divshare account (it is free, but you will have to do this at home as the school will not permit it). Once you have a link to your music file that you post on one of these websites click on the little green icon at the top of the post page and this will allow you to post links to music. I think you can also place links to film and images this way too.

For those of you with an appetite for some other great war based post modern fiction, be sure to check out Catch 22 by Joseph Heller.

I am looking forward to see what other weird and wonderful things you have to say about Slaughterhouse 5.

Change it back :O!

green is amazing

i have not finished the book yet but what i have read is alright. it does make sense, but if you zone out for a bit, like i always do, you get extremely lost...
i have read other books that jump back and forth in time but never one like this.
some of it is boring though. i don't really like any books about aliens and most of the ones about war are boring too, so this book is not really my favourite thing to read about.

i wrote a better post last night but the internet died becuase it is a bitch.

this is in reply to chloe yeah!

HE DIDN'T SAY SO IT GOES ABOUT THAT NATHAN GUY EVER THOUGH HE DIED AND IT WENT! YYYYEEEEAAAHHHH!

I like the fact this blog so much more colourful than before

Here are some questions about the book...

1. Which characters transcend the emotional stasis that dominates much of the story?
Vonnegut admits that there aren't any real characters in his novel but he makes an exception for Edgar Derby when he responds to Howard Campbell and defends the American way of life. "One of the main effects of war," writes Vonnegut "is that people are discouraged from being characters. But old Derby was a character now." During the course of their imprisonment the Americans are so tired and sick that they are more concerned with their bodies than with ideals but Edgar Derby's speech addresses higher ideals that are otherwise absent from the novel. Similarly, the tears Billy Pilgrim sheds for the suffering horses reveal a degree of empathy and emotion that is otherwise lacking in the story. We are told that after the war Billy suffers from bouts of silent crying but that his emotions are never fully vented. During the war Billy is simply too disoriented and sick to respond emotionally to any of the horrors he witnesses but the realization that the horses are in pain causes his one and only emotional outpouring in the course of the story.

2. In the first chapter Vonnegut makes the observation that anti-war books are doomed to failure since wars will always occur. In what ways does Slaughterhouse Five fail as an anti-war novel and in what ways does it succeed?
The work fails as a traditional anti-war book because even the main character does not condemn the destruction and death he experiences in Dresden. Instead, Billy Pilgrim comes to view the event as something that happened and could not have been changed. He is so far convinced of this fact that he readily agrees when Rumfoord, the military historian, arrogantly insists that the destruction of Dresden, though unfortunate, was necessary. Furthermore, Billy agrees that he should pity the men who dropped the bombs and insists that things were not so bad on the ground. "Everything is all right," insists Billy, "everybody has to do exactly what he does." This sentiment, paradoxically, serves as a subtle critique of war in that it undermines the high-minded ideals and intentions of those who wage war in the name of ideology and culture. The view espoused in the novel is anti-war in the sense that it denies war importance and suggests that the less attention society gives to its bloody past the less likely the past is to assert itself in the future. By admonishing people to focus on the good times the novel rhetorically rejects war as worthy of consideration by those concerned with the act of living.

3. How does the story of Billy Pilgrim serve as a critique of mid-twentieth century America?
Following the war Billy achieves great success by the standards of his culture. His optometry practice flourishes, he drives luxury automobiles, owns a big house and has lucrative investments all over town. However, he suffers from fits of silent crying and fails to achieve any real happiness from his life. When he is kidnapped and taken to the zoo on Tralfamadore the aliens furnish his habitat from the Sears so that he exists in a bubble of catalog furnished safety while surrounded by a poisonous atmosphere. When the Tralfamadorians ask if he is happy Billy responds that he is as happy as he was on Earth. This response indicates that the perceived signs of success and comfort in mid-twentieth century America have failed to inspire true happiness and that the mores and social conformity of the age are merely masking a greater dissatisfaction and sorrow brought about by the war. Until the men and women who lived through the experience of the war let go of their feelings about the war the culture will come to increasingly rely upon artificial means of emotional compensation that will ultimately fail to produce happiness.

4. What other sources does Vonnegut use to explore the themes of his story?
In the first chapter Vonnegut references three sources that affected him during the composition of his novel. The first is a work concerning the first Children's Crusade in which thousands of children died or became slaves under the auspices of a noble plan to send them to the Holy Land. Some of these children, however, mistakenly went to Genoa for embarkation and, since the city knew nothing of the scheme, the children were fed and sent home. This story parallels that of the young American soldiers who went to war believing in a cause and were killed senselessly, as are all deaths in a war. The few who survived the massacres, like Billy and the other POWs in Dresden, are simply fed and sent home. The second source is a work about Céline in which the biographer describes the author's desire to make time stand still so people would stop disappearing. Céline's obsession with time provides the ideological foundation for Billy Pilgrim's time traveling adventures and the Tralfamadorian view that once an individual has existed he or she always exists. The third source is the story of Lot's wife who looked back upon the destruction Sodom and Gomorrah and was turned to a pillar of salt. This story mirrors Vonnegut's task in looking back upon the destruction of Dresden. Vonnegut asserts that it is a very human trait to look back regardless of the consequences and that is what he has attempted to do in his novel.

5. What similar role do Kilgore Trout's stories and the Tralfamadorians play in the novel?
Both Kilgore Tout's stories and the Tralfamadorians provide Billy with a philosophical view that allows him to assimilate his war experiences with his post-war life. Billy first encounters Trout's books while recuperating from a mental breakdown after the war. Like Eliot Rosewater who introduces the author to his fellow patient, Billy quickly perceives an affinity between the philosophy espoused in Trout's works and his own observations of the world inspired by the Tralfamadorian experience. A story like The Gospel from Outer Space in which Jesus was really just a bum who God adopted at the last minute resonates with Billy's own experiences in which the haphazard effects of war randomly spares some and destroys others. In some cases, as with the story The Big Board, in which earthlings are kidnapped and kept in a zoo on an alien planet, Trout's stories lead the reader to suspect that Tralfamadore is a figment of Billy's imagination cobbled together from various Kilgore Trout plots. Whether the reader is to assume that Tralfamadore is an actual place or an invention of the protagonists mind is never directly addressed and bears little importance in terms of the novel's overarching themes. What is important is that the Tralfamadorian view of the universe, in which all time is known and all events structured to occur in a certain manner, augment Billy's own world view in which humans are carried by events and should content themselves by dwelling only on the happy times.

LOLZZZZ

we

WE (me and Ella)

we did that last one together.

Yep.

orange is amazing

I like the fishies...

and I think that Mr Ford, you should hand out the admin priviledges.

anyhizzle...
I like how he says "so it goes" but why does he not say it for that one person? is there some kind of hidden meaning behind it?
I also dont beilieve he travels through time just visiting his imagination and memories. I think he is some how crazy as a result of all his accidents and hospitalisation.


chloe.

The Movie.....and a song

I saw that people are posting videos from the Slaughterhouse Five movie. If you want more info on the movie here is a link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069280/.
I can't remember how to put on music....but anyway, there is a song I know called 'Dying is fine' by Ra Ra Riot. It reminded me of what the Tralfamadorians believe. If you want to hear it you're going to have to search for it.

Becoming unstuck in time..

To start off i dont think mr ford should take the fish down.
But onto slaughter house five..
The only problem im having is the fact i still havent finished it and am finding it a really slow read.
Everything in the book apart from the main war story and the tralfamador stuff seems really pointless, like all the things he has in his life and then its kind of like, well, is that actually happening or is he actually going crazy?
Because in the book everyone calls him crazy and he acts a bit crazy, and Vonnegut doesn't make it particularly clear whether he does have mental issues or if that is what actually happening to him. Cos when he becomes unstuck in time he doesn't seem to leave his body but his body would still be at the present time he is in..if that makes sense at all so i dunno.

wellll

I dont think its that confusing, if you just think of it as not confusing and just kind of take things as he says them then it ends up being okay.
The ending was pretty annoying though, it just sort of ended without really ending anything and I thought there would be some nice conclusion or something but then it was just like, no I'm going to finish here and just not answer anything really. So yeah, I didnt find it that confusing just the end was a bit of a let down D:

A proper thingy of the book =]

This book reminds me of Donnie Darko. Because of all the time travel, because neither donnie or billly can control their ability to travel through time. However, i do not think billy actually travels through time i think his travels may be memories of the war and memories of his life. With the whole, seeing his death i think that may have something to do with the fact that he is old, and was in a plane crash and may be a bit senile and losing his mind, but i do think the time travelling is him reliving or remembering parts of his life. I also think that because jake Gylenhall is playing Billy in Slaughterhouse 5 the movie and Donnie Darko that they are linked and the director probably chose him because of the resemblemce. p.s. daniel might have hinted towards that last comment.

Scout =]

First Chapter

So the first chapter of slaughter house 5 is like a brief background into the reasons and ideas behind this book. I didnt really get it, it was confusing as and he keeps going on about different things without really revealling what it meant. He says somthing of him making some famous book. was this meant to be it? And also of his anti war book being a failure due to it not stopping wars. Was this a different book or is this meant to be it also? Very strange way to start a book and really didnt enjoy it. Mostly because it was trailing off and had no particular pointor idea behind it.

I TralfamADORE you!

I do quite like the concept of death that the Tralfamadorians have. The knowledge that your life is made up of ever-existing moments is quite comforting, and an interesting one to ponder.

The phrase "like there is no tomorrow" was spoken to me yesterday, and instead of deciding to wonder and fret over the highly unlikely possibility of my untimely death, I imagined that life was really as described by a Tralfamadorian. The idea was a little less awful once I adopted this philosophy.

Personal truth is what you know as right; what you believe in so fiercely it is truth in your eyes. Sometimes, it's nice to believe in something a little crazy. You can change your own reality...

Haha those colours are rad!

Yeah I agree with what people have written. I get the story, but I don't get WHYYYYYYYY. What's the point of the story? What's the point of Billy going back in time and...err, the whole story?? There is no plot, like beginning middle and end, and I know that's partly because it's all time travel and out of order on purpose. But if you put it in order, it still has no beginning middle and end! It has no resolution! It just....ends....and then there's other parts of the story...and then it's like what?!?!

I HAVE decided that I like it though, for those people who haven't read past chapter 6, I swear it gets better at chapter 6!! I read the second half of the book in 2 lessons because I was actually interested in it.

Anyway, so has anyone else got any idea what the PURPOSE of the story is??
Someone else reply to this and it will be totally rad! (Scout I'm looking at you) (SCOUT YOU'RE FAMOUS AGAIN!) (Yes Scout, I will write this every post)

Jess

IDEK

Slaughter House Five...
Well, I get it but at the same time it confuses me, the whole "becoming unstuck in time" is the only bit I really find confusing, apart from tralfamadore and stuff, I don't really see why he becomes unstuck in time and what difference it makes in the book. Well, I guess it makes it more interesting, but it still doesn't make sense as to why or how he can do it. And all the tralfamadore stuff, is that actually real or is it just him being insane? D:!

Wow i got so bored i coloured it...

Listen...

Okay so I don't fully understand where Vonnegut is coming from with this book.
He says it's a failure because the whole book is looking into the past when he believes human's should never look back, which I understand.
But what is the significance of anything he writes about?
It's all random memories he has picked out from his war days. Although entertaining with the aliens and such, I still don't understand the books meaning.

|:

Okay well, I still havn't read all of the book (bad, I know) but with a few chapters till the end it's sort of making sence...
The whole 'no set plot line' is a little bit annoying, but I kinda like reading difficult books so it's pretty good. One thing I really like is how the Tralfamadorians veiw things. Being able to see in 4 dementions would be a hella useful skill to have. I mean, at the start when I read that bit I was pretty much just like 'wtf' but after thinking about it, well, its pretty awesome.
Also what they think about death makes sence to me. This could sound a little wierd but I do think that humans make to much of a deal when someone dies...
Becuase I havn't read the whole thing yet, I'm still a little confused about some things, like, why is Billy just going to seeming random points in his life? I dunnow. Hopfully I'll find out soon...
All in all it's a pretty good book. Kurt Vonnegut writes differantly to most authors, sometimes it makes the book hard to understand, but I think that's what also make it good.
But yeah, this was pretty much just nothing, but I had to write a post so there you go. I'm gunna go read some more of the book now...

hmm

i actually have no idea what happens in the book
well
i do sort of..
but i dont get it
is there actually like something big that happens?
or is it all just random events from his life in a weird order?
because it doesnt really make much sense to me

Dresden photos...

Lancaster bomber dropping the bombs on Dresden

Dresden before the bombing Dresden after the bombing

Great contributions!

Hey all,

Great to see that a few more people have got involved in the blog. Some really cool things have been added. Those of you who haven't, need to do so by the end of today (Thursday 15th/10/09). Ask the people who have about how easy it is. Read their posts and respond to the things they have said or open up on a new thread of thought.

Remember that you all need to provide 3 posts, 1 of which has to be analysis, where you explain how and why you think Kurt Vonnegut has chosen to write the things he has. It could be the inclusion of a particular character, event or even an overall analysis of the text as a whole. The choice is yours.

The link below is a critical analysis I found on the web that might help you in your analysis. Check it out.

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/4953/kv_slaughter.html

See you in class!

I DONT GET THIS BLOGGING STUFF!!!

ok first of all im really enjoying the book its really out there wacked out and crazy yet as some sense of normality.......(i hope that made sense) anywhoo i really dont like the blogging cause it's really confuzziling................

the one thing i really like about slaughterhouse 5 is that at first something might not make sense but when you read on it all starts to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle!!

anyways really enjoying it :)

lily

The Fourth dimension is mentioned in Slaughterhouse five. the following are links to sites explaining the idea.
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/7997/whatis4d.html
http://tetraspace.alkaline.org/

Check them out.

pretty gruesome shots after the bombings at Dresden

Pictures of Slaughter House 5 by Emily Coupe

Pictures of Slaughter House 5

This one outlines the main theme of the book.

This picture shows what it was like to be in Billy's position during the war.

And this picture shows Billy whe he was in the war.

Hope you liked them :)

tralfamadore...so it goes...

I am slightly confused by this book, especially all the time travel. Is Billy really travelling through time or is he just imagining things or re-visiting memories? I'm confused sometimes I think it's real, then other times he just sounds crazy. Is tralfamadore even real? and why do the Tralfamadorians keep Billy in a zoo? werent the Tralfamadorians supposed to be nice to Billy?

The Tralfamadorians dont seem to mind that the entire universe is going to be destroyed by one of their experiments...
Do they not care for preventing it because of their belief of what happens when someone dies? they believe that it will go on to live in different places and times. I think thats where "So it goes" comes from, kind of saying so it goes on to another place and time kind of thing...

yeah I'm gonna stop now.

chloe.

characters in Slaughterhouse Five

Caracters in Slaughterhouse five

Billy Pilgrim
Roland weary
Paul Lazzaro
Kilgore Trout
Edgar Derby
Howard Campbell
Valencia Merble
Robert Pilgrim
Babara Pilgrim
Tralfamadorians
Montana Wildhack
Wild Bob
Eliot Rosewater
Betram Rumfoord
The Souts

annnooyyinggg

Well, it's alright, the book, it could be worse. This one time, in grade 5, I had to read a book about someone who lived next to the sea, the only good part was her name was Fanny, so yeah, that was funny, the rest of the book sucked. So I'm kinda glad we're reading this and not the other book about Fanny who lived at sea.

Aaaannnyywaayyyy, I'm getting off track which I tend to do, the book's alright. It goes off track a fair bit as well which I enjoy cause I can say, "HEY I DO THAT TOO!" but yeah. Ok, I've forgotten what I was originally gonna write. hahahaha oh no that's right, it's an ok book at times, at other times it's a little confusing but everyone finds it confusing so I'm pretty sure that's not just me.

I'm gonna stop writing now cause it's annoying me and I'm having a pretty terrible day and the writing is just making it worse.

See ya's.

The author and Dresden

I found this picture of Kurt Vonnegut and put it on here because I had to post sooner or later.

















Also, this is what Dresden looked like before it was bombed.

okay, so slaughterhouse five...

Okay, so slaughterhouse five.... i dont get it. well i do kind of but it's kind of confusing because of the plot jumping and him time travelling. firstly, can he control his time travel? can he pick where he goes and when he does? or is it just random and he can't control it. i don't really understand why the Tralfamadorians strap him to a chair if they are meant to be his friends and meant to help him.

I actually do like the book so far but i need to understand it more. i think it's well written but i dont really get why he likes the Tralfamadorians so much if they treat him badly... at least, that's what i took from it.

There Jess, happy?? i posted a blog, i feel so special :)

Scout Rodrigo

Taking the plunge...

Glad to see someone has taken the plunge. Great work Jess. Contributing to a blog is easy and hopefully just a little bit fun. You have all been invited so if you're not sure how to contribute check your school email, or speak to me or even have a chat to Jess or Elspheth who have registered as followers/contributors to the blog.

My thoughts on Slaughterhouse 5 so far...

I don't know if I'm doing this right! Arghhhh!

As far as I can tell...not that I know what I'm doing...no one else student-wise has posted anything on here, so I'mmmmmmm gonna start!

I've read up to chapter 6 of SH5, and I CAN see why it's famous and critically acclaimed and all that, but I'm just not into it yet! This could be a bad sign seeing as chapter 6 is over half way through the book...but it also could be because I'm a teenage girl and we seem to like romance fantasies and Edward Cullen from Twilight and that's about the extent of it....hey you all know it's true!

I do like SH5, and I'm not too confused yet or anything, it just seems like nothing much has happened except Billy Pilgrim has been taken to Tralfamadore. Yes that's all interesting and stuff, but the rest seems to be just a long drawn out explanation of his life...which I suppose is the intention....I DON'T KNOW MAYBE I NEED TO READ MORE TO UNDERSTAND!

Is this for English or Lit? Having Mr Ford as a teacher for both makes them very...the same. Literature yeah? I'm good....I get confused all right?!

Haha there's an audiobook of Slaughterhouse 5 read by Ethan Hawke...as in the guy from Gattaca, everybody say coooooooooooooooooool with me!

I've attached a photo to this post, it's a scene of Dresden (the actual one) after it was bombed, in the 'clean up' process, with bodies lining the street and all the buildings are wrecked. I was going to attach one of a massive pile of dead bodies but it looked a bit...confronting, so I didn't, but this would have been what Kurt Vonnegut saw when he was there.

Anyway, I feel I have spoken for an adequate amount of time, possibly a bit too much. THEY ARE MY THOUGHTS, take them as you will!

I'll post something more intelligent when I've read some more of the book and done a bit of research so I can actually contribute some insightful words of wisdom...
Someone else post something so we can get the ball rolling! (I'm looking at you Scout)

Jess Allen

Ps: Why is this called Slaughterhouse high? I don't get it...

=D

Welcome to Slaughterhouse High

So it goes...

Hi all. This is the first post for MS Lit class at Eltham High on Kurt Vonnegut's post modern classic Slaughterhouse 5. You can make any number of different contributions to this blog, from adding pictures, to links to music that you think suits the themes in the book, to adding video clips or podcasts, to simply writing down what you think about the book, or asking others in the class about an aspect from the book you don't understand.

Remember that the whole world will be able to see what you write, so nothing inappropriate or nasty about other people in the school or wider school community.
Having said that, feel free to criticise the book and talk honestly about your experiences reading this text and how its stacks up against other books you have read or loved. Be sure to provide reasons that support your opinions.

Your posts will no doubt be far more interesting than this one. I look forward to seeing what you all have to say.

Cheers,

Mr Ford