ENG-216 Literary Analysis Essay #2

Topic #3 Slaughterhouse Five

Themes of Slaughterhouse-Five

Vonnegut’s frank descriptions and matter-of-fact writing style belie the depth of

Slaughterhouse-Five. He uses repeated phrases, verbal rhythm, and repeating narrative structures

to affect the reader more than his subdued tone would cause us to expect. Vonnegut’s detached

observations and descriptions ridicule the absurd nature of the behavior of the people in the book

and of our own commonly held beliefs. The themes the story is centered on are gently, but

continuously poked into our consciousness through gradually explained ideas, by directly

associating disparate situations, and by the repeated use of symbols, phrases and descriptions.

The unconventional format of Slaughterhouse-Five is a symbol in itself. It is an analogy

to his inability and the inability of the novel as a medium to properly express his experiences or

say anything intelligent about them. Vonnegut mocks the structure of novels by writing the first

chapter as himself, rather than including these thoughts in a preface or foreword, before the

“fictional story” began. In the first chapter he summarizes the entire book without much fanfare

and even tells us the first and last lines of the story. The structure of the novel is “jumbled and

jangled”(12) jumping from one time to another at random. Vonnegut breaks the fourth wall by

inserting himself into the fictional story, while he himself is the narrator. The way he tells the

story is like the way Billy tries to deal with his own experiences. The novel is something like a

Tralfamadorian novel, a “clump of-symbols” read “all at once, not one after the other”(48). Their

explanation is a fitting description of Slaughterhouse-Five:

There isn't any particular relationship between all the messages, except 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. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects.(48)

The almost clinical descriptions that Vonnegut uses are symbolic of his inability to

understand his experiences and are echoed in the character of Billy Pilgrim who walks through

his life impartial to almost everything. Billy rarely shows emotion, “He never got mad at

anything. He was wonderful that way (48).” Some of the descriptions sound like the descriptions

the Tralfamadorians give about life on earth who also have trouble understanding the way

earthlings act. In this way Vonnegut wrote an anti-war book without specifically denouncing

war. He just describes some of the horrible things that occurred and lets us draw our own

conclusions.

He does something similar when he explains the philosophy that Billy and the

Tralfamadorians share. Their fatalistic idea that we are just “bugs trapped in amber”(42) is like

his own refrain when he relates someone’s death, “so it goes”(5), and what the birds say in

response to a massacre, “Poo-tee-weet?”(13). It seems to indicate acceptance that we are

powerless to do anything about our world. The Tralfamadorian concept of time as fixed and free

will as non-existent and Billy’s framed prayer,

GOD GRANT ME

THE SERENITY TO

ACCEPT THE THINGS

I CANNOT CHANGE (34)

say that it is impossible to prevent bad things from happening, so it doesn’t make sense to fight

them. They believe we should “Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones(65)”. It

almost seems as if Vonnegut is suggesting resigned acceptance and disaffection in the face of

atrocity. Here again Vonnegut lets us draw our own conclusions, showing us Billy Pilgrim and

allowing us to decide if we should live the same way.

It’s my belief that the novel is a denouncement of senseless death. Like those who died in

the war and the deaths of Billy’s father, wife, father-in-law, and Billy’s own death, Vonnegut

laments the senseless deaths of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King:

Robert Kennedy, whose summer home is eight miles from the home I live in all year

round, was shot two nights ago. He died last night. So it goes.

Martin Luther King was shot a month ago. He died, too. So it goes.

And every day my Government gives me a count of corpses created by military science

in Vietnam. So it goes.(115)

Vonnegut repeats the phrase, “so it goes”(5) to express sorrow, loss, anger, and frustration at the

tragedy of senseless death, but lacks any other way to relate it.

Works Cited

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five. New York: Dell Publishing, 1991.