Kurt vonneguts slaughter house
Kurt vonneguts slaughter houseObscenity Was Wit
If this paper were going to be written like Slaughterhouse- Five, there would be two narratives, one personal, one impersonal. The structure would also be similar to Tralfamadorian books and Slaughterhouse- Five. I would present no beginning, no middle, and no end. In the words of Kurt Vonnegut,
"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. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time." (Pg. 88)
Thus, I will state right now that Vonnegut's marvelous moments of irony are neither surprising, nor deep. They are obvious and blatantly stated, and leave Vonnegut fans analyzing the entire novel searching for the slightest hint of irony. The real irony in Slaughterhouse-Five is much more scholarly, clever, and structured. The real irony in Slaughterhouse- Five took a lot more thought and time than simply making up stories about men who get killed when they try and retrieve their wedding ring from an elevator shaft.
Billy Pilgrim's life is structured in such a way where he floats from experience to experience (in no chronological order). He has the ability to become "unstuck in time", which means that he can uncontrollably drift from one part of his life to another. Ironically, Slaughterhouse- Five is structurally organized in the same way Billy moves in time. It consists of sections and paragraphs strung together in no particular order. The entire story is not only written in the past tense, so the reader cannot identify where the author's starting point is, but it is also written in a circular way- with every experience leading back to another. The entire novel is composed of Vonnegut's usage of irony to combat irony.
The most often expressed ironical theme of the book, in my opinion, is that we, people, are "bugs in amber." The phrase first appears when Billy is kidnapped by the Tralfamadorian flying saucer:
" Welcome aboard, Mr. Pilgrim," said the loudspeaker. "Any questions?"
Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: "Why me?"
"That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?'
"Yes." Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his office, which was a blob of polished amber with three ladybugs embedded in it.
"Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why." (P.76-77).
This extraterrestrial opinion can be interpreted as our being physically stuck in this world,...
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