Essay on "Post Modern Interpretation of Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut"
Essay 4 pages (1460 words) Sources: 2
[EXCERPT] . . . .
Kurt Vonnegut, Billy Pilgrim and David Irving: Tralfamadorians in TrainingWhere Billy Pilgrim begins, Kurt Vonnegut ends and this is where David Irving intrudes for good measure. However this is what makes the post-modern interpretation of this book so interesting (at least to this author). Certainly, an all pervading odor of fatalism and cynicism colors the work and one can certainly not blame Vonnegut for this. A veteran of any war goes off to the conflict a boy and comes back an old man. All of the moments that they were in combat, captivity or any other aspect of their military service colors their perception of the world. In this postmodern classic, the difference between real and the non-real is not clear cut. Vonnegut keeps us guessing as to what is real in all dimensions, including time and space.
After all, how many of us would view the world differently from the subterranean vault of a meat locker like Slaughterhouse Five? In the very real world, human flesh is burning and the holocaust offered to the god of war eats at the conscience of the young soldier. After all, he asks himself a basic question of war, "why did I survive?" Many of his buddies died in the Battle of the Bulge. Many more of his fellow human beings were incinerated in the hellish kiln of Dresden. Even allowing for the nauseating nature of David Irving's revisionist views on the slaughter of six million Jews during World War 2, a very point is raised, that is what happened to the good Germans? Unfortunately, a lot of them were being slaughtered in fire bombings like Dresden and Hamburg. After all, if you slaughter the antichrist's enemies, what else can you say against the Whore of Babylon? Perhaps
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God is only one who can sort it out. After all, Vonnegut did not ask to go to Dresden to support Irving's work. The nexus is purely accidental.download full paper ⤓
While it is beyond the purview of this limited essay to analyze Allied bombing theory during World War 2 or afterward, it did have a huge impact upon Vonnegut. In a comment by Vonnegut himself from the 1976 edition of his book, states succinctly in a short space that what happened in his view was that "The Dresden atrocity, tremendously expensive and meticulously planned, was so meaningless, finally, that only one person on the entire planet got any benefit from it. I am that person. I wrote this book, which earned a lot of money for me and made my reputation, such as it is. One way or another, I got two or three dollars for every person killed. Some business I'm in (Bonin). "
or, as is a fitting epitaph for Vonnegut throughout Slaughterhouse Five is "so it goes." This phrase is spoken every time in the novel when there is a death fitting focus for the terminal irony of Dresden and Vonnegut's journey into postmodernism. His numbers are based upon David Irving's flawed work of holocaust denial hedge:
However, Oliver Kamm in the Times Online takes a more precise view:
But ultimately the simplicity is not deceptive. Vonnegut's philosophy and history are simplistic. Dresden was hellish -- but there were not 135,000 deaths. The true figure was probably no more than a fifth of that. Vonnegut's number came directly from the now discredited work of the Holocaust denier David Irving. (in Slaughterhouse-Five, Irving is cited by name, and a long passage, by a retired air marshal, from the foreword to Irving's book the Destruction of Dresden is reproduced.) to a POW digging up cadavers, accurate numbers will ever after seem pedantic. But the issue is important to historical truth and also to the ideas that Vonnegut dramatized (Kamm).
While the focus on Dresden is understandable due to Vonnegut's experiences there, cities like Hamburg (socialist leaning and anti-Nazi) where more were killed (some 50,000) were full of good Germans as well. Unfortunately, for the inhabitants, the bombing tactics of the Allies was due to the primitive of nature of bombing in World War 2. In addition, it was also due to the fact that the war was being waged against the German people who supported Hitler in his war. In addition, where is all of the browbeating due to the terror bombing the Nazis did during World War 2?
In the text by Peter Barry… READ MORE
Quoted Instructions for "Post Modern Interpretation of Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut" Assignment:
“Main topic: Post-Modern Interpretation of Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Sources:
1. *****"Slaughterhouse-Five*****" by Kurt Vonnegut
2. Chapter 4 Post Modernism from *****"Beginning Theory*****" by Peter Barry
4-5 pages, thesis driven.
You will need to pull direct quotes and/or summary from the novel *****"Slaughterhouse-Five*****" as evidence, as well as pulling paraphrases, summaries, and DIRECT QUOTES from chapter 4 Post Modernism from *****"Beginning Theory*****".
Note: The following questions should NOT be answered systematically, nor should you feel obligated to answer every question in a prompt (except you will have to integrate an understanding of post-modernism into your interpretation). Use these prompts to generate a freewrite around a general cluster of ideas. Your thesis will need to be focused, as ever.
1. Who is the author and who is the narrator? Do you think that Chapter One is strictly autobiographical? Why does Vonnegut spend so much time setting up the story? Why not just start with Chapter Two and tell Billy Pilgrim’s story? (as we’ll see that is pretty much the rest of the novel) What ideas from Chapter One can you already see expressed in Chapter Two? Connect to post-modern theory chapter.
2. Examine all the places where the narrator intrudes into his own narrative. (all the “I was theres.”) What are each of them doing? Why does the narrator do each one? How do these intrusions relate to post-modernism?
3. “Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.” (says the Tralfamadorean)…but does Vonnegut seem to believe this too, that free will is a fantasy? What do you think Vonnegut might mean by this, if he doesn’t agree with the aliens? Why would this idea be part of Billy’s imagination (if we assume the aliens are made up by Billy)? What does this fatalism have to do with Modernism? Do you think the Tralfamdorean way of perceiving time is Modernist or post-modern? Why?
4. What do you make of the descriptions of Kilgore Trout’s writing? How does his work relate to this book? Particularly look at the Gospel from Outer Space. Why do you think Kilgore Trout (as the author of much of Billy’s delusions) enters into Billy’s life? Why does Vonnegut make Trout so unpleasant? “(he) bullies, flatters and cheats little kids.” What are some other examples of his unpleasantness? What might that suggest about Vonnegut’s attitudes about authorship in general? (you might connect to first question on Chapter One) How does this connect to post-modernism?
5. Why do you think the narrator says that “there are almost no characters in this story…because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters” ? Who are the actual characters in this story? Do you agree with Vonnegut’s definition of character? What are the broader implications of this definition (outside of the realm of literature). What does it mean to be a character, or not be a character, in life? Connect to post-modernism.
Note:
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