Slaughterhouse five comparison to the stone angel
Slaughterhouse five comparison to the stone angelIntroduction
The book that I read for my ISU was ‘Slaughterhouse-Five’ by Kurt Vonnegut. The reason I chose this book was that I read ‘Cat’s Cradle’ by the same author previously. Both books share the similar anti war themes. Cats Cradle paralleled the Cuban missile crisis of 1963.
His unique writing style was what interested me in reading another book by him. Kurt VONNEGUT, Jr.’s innovative sixth novel, Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) tells the story of the World War II firebombing of Dresden and its effect on the life of a young American PRISONER OF WAR, Billy Pilgrim, who travels back and forth through time. The novel synthesizes Vonnegut’s previous work, and it proved so central to the American quest for literary equivalent to its own turmoil during the Vietnam War that within a year it had established Vonnegut as one of the country’s leading writers.
Both books are written in the style of a parable, a children’s story with an underlying message. An example of such a story would be ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’.
*briefly mention Billy’s life in 1964, plane crash ,bouncing through time
the messages explared in the book include learning from history ,enjoying life ,and learning from history
It is our duty to learn form history, or else we will be condemned to repeat it. Kurt Vonnegut named his book ‘Slaughterhouse Five or The Children’s Crusade,’ because it compared World War 2 to the Children’s Crusades. The Children’s Crusade took place in 1213, when 30 000 children, from Germany and France volunteered thinking they were going to Palestine. The Crusades had been glamorized as ‘treks by the English to Holy Land to take back what was theirs by ‘divine right’. The truth was that they were going to be sold into slavery in North Africa. Two monks came up with this idea. About half the children died on transport ships; the others were sold. World War 2 as Vonnegut saw it, was fought by children as well, and glamorized by the media to get you to join. Vonnegut’s friend in the introduction said to him that “You’ll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you’ll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatara and John Wayne or some of those glamorous war loving dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so that we’ll have a lot more of them. And they’ll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs.” The point trying...
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