Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Throughout this term you will need to engage in the wide reading of a novel related to the idea of challenging perceptions. Choose one from the list below; any other novels need to be approved by me first.

Divide your novel roughly into 5 sections; use page numbers to calculate this if necessary. Following the completion of each section, you will compose a journal entry on your reading experience. Your entries should consider the prompts below, but be structured into cohesive paragraphs rather than individual sentence responses. Each entry should be a minimum of 300 words

Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Section 1

• Why did you choose this book?

• Are there chapters and/or chapter titles? What information can you glean from these?

• How effective are the opening lines at grabbing your attention?

• How early are the main characters and setting(s) established? Is this effective or not?

• Record your first initial impressions of the book. Make a prediction about what will happen in the rest of the book, and whether or not you will enjoy it.

Journal Entry 1: Chapter 1-2

While browsing through the options of books we needed to read as our novel, none of them quite caught my attention, like Slaughterhouse-five. The name itself seemed so interesting that I searched for its blurb. The reviews and summary of the book made me only more excited to purchase this anti-war novel. Prior to reading the novel, I was given the impression that it would reject a structured style due to it being a Post-modern text, so I was quite confused to find that it had numbered chapters instead of just titles. Upon opening the pages of this book and having a glimpse, there were ten chapters, where I will divide each section up into two chapters to discuss.

The first page of this book presented an epigraph, which I have no clue how it could relate to the plot. The first line of this novel dove deep into the action with no context given; It made me, as a reader, question the intentions of the book and where it was heading. The first chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five leads me to believe that this novel will be a metafiction and continuously switch from first person to third-person perspective. Already, we are given the beginning and end lines of the book.

Vonnegut establishes the character of Billy and tells the way he wants him to be portrayed as he does not waste his time to always "show" or imply this as other fictional texts would have. He completely disregards the conventional way of writing by ditching a non-linear structure and going off a non-chronological order. The plotline is given but isn't made predictable. This engages the reader but also undeniably confuses them. It is difficult to properly establish a prediction that isn't already given to you. Billy's time travels within his life, to the war, his family life and time on Tralfamadore (an alien planet) and this book ends with the phrase "Poo Tee Weet?".

I am intrigued by this writing style and Vonnegut's humour within his writing. It is evident that Vonnegut wants the reader to view human concepts such as time, death and love through a nonsensical lens. To neglect conventional ideas surrounding these themes of time, death and love and simply live the human experience.

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Sections 2, 3, and 4

• Record your emotional responses. How did the author induce these?

• How would you describe the narrative voice and its purpose?

• What perspective is the book written from, and to what effect?

• How closely does it follow genre conventions, if any?

• What core ideas are presented? How are the perceptions of characters within and yourself as a reader challenged?

• How are chapter openings and closings used, and to what effect?

Journal Entry 2: Chapter 3-4

The beginning of these chapters do not correlate, and these chapters' endings don't either. This novel incorporates the many techniques that came out of the Post-modern era of literature. This era looked towards deconstruction and wanted the audience to reject the structure and ideas of a novel and look beyond the words presented to them on the page. Vonnegut - a post-modern writer- has incorporated fragmentation into his work.

The time is constantly changing, and the reader becomes almost desensitised to the concept. And it isn't just time Billy Pilgrim becomes detached from, so is the concept of death.

"When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just One in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is 'So it goes.'"

This Tralfamdorian ideology comforts Billy Pilgrim, who has witnessed many deaths in the war. When he detaches himself and looks through the lens of a third foreign party (aliens), he can digest that humans are always going to die. Billy was quick to accept these values that Tarlfamadorians held, as the war too had this effect on those that fought it. They became desensitised to the mere idea of death.

"Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future."

Slaughterhouse-Five suggests that any attempt to alter Billy's destined timeline is inefficacious. Everything will occur because it needs to. Vonnegut has made this clear throughout the novel as everything in Billy's past, present and future are fragmented. This novel does not go by a chronological and linear time frame and therefore could not exist or be consistent without other events.

"Billy could almost smell his breath—mustard gas and roses."

These lines have already made an appearance in earlier chapters. It could be a motif to the war. In this situation, however, Billy Pilgrim knows that he will meet the Tralfamadorians soon. He has lived this moment before and knows what he is required to do for the moment to play out as it should.

Journal Entry 3: Chapter 5

Billy Pilgrim had travelled to his younger years when he visited the Great Canyon. He had been afraid of the darkness and prayed to god despite not being religious. He almost peed his pants as a frightened child until his father handed him a radium dial. He is brought back to the showers during the war, going from total darkness to light. Vonnegut executes a pleasing transition between these two scenes, which I believe is one of his best transitions during these sequences. As stated at the beginning of the book by Vonnegut's good friend Mary, Bily Pilgrim and many other soldiers were bare of age. They were "babies". It is difficult to imagine Vonnegut's trepidation during the war. Unlike Billy Pilgrim, who knows what will happen and how he will die, Vonnegut wouldn't have known whether he was going to survive the war or if that was even an option for him. Billy Pilgrim would have been to the Grand Canyon only a few years prior to the shower scene in the war.

During the play of Cinderella, Billy Pilgrim laughed hysterically at the lines, "Goodness me, the clock has struck- Alackday, and fuck my luck." Such an innocent children's narrative had been displayed obscenely. This play had been modified to suit the humour of the "adult" soldiers. Vonnegut finds a way to incorporate an innocent fairytale into a cruel war. I find that his way of incorporating a humorous tone and referring to how these children in the war had their lives modified to suit the war.

Near the end of chapter 5, we revisit the quote, "Father, Father. Father, Father- what are we going to do with you?." When reading these words, I could have sworn I had seen them before. Then I came to realise that it had been used in the earlier chapters, but more was added to the story. Whenever Vonnegut circles back to finally finish one story, it feels pretty accomplishing. It's as though you have just finished a circle and have other circles to finish. As a reader, I quite enjoyed this way of writing as although the plot is already spoiled and you already know what will occur, you can't control the need for the spare details Vonnegut missed out on while reading the first portion. Barbra, in this scene, also fails to connect with her father and only tries to make a logical sense of him instead of creating an emotional connection to understand him.

Journal Entry 4: Chapter 6-10

These chapters finally discuss the events that happened in Dresden. Reading the lines, “Listen: BILLY PILGRIM says he went to Dresden, Germany on the day after his morphine night in the British compound…” brought me to sigh with the words “oh god, finally.” Even though I was already told what would happen at Dresden, I wanted Billy Pilgrim to discuss it for himself. To see it from his view, not just have the events stated.

“I, Billy Pilgrim, the tape begins, will die, have died, and always

will die on February thirteenth, 1976.”

Pilgrim describes a dystopian future and discusses his death in a matter of fact tone. This quote is then followed by the next page:

“In the next moment, Billy Pilgrim is

dead. So it goes.”

Billy Pilgrim dies pathetically. Despite his adventurous and meaningful insights, he dies as he needed to in the end. His death was the result of another man’s pride. Many died at the hands of another due to the need to fill the bigger man’s pride and ego for power. I believe this to be an analogy for the war where mass mortality results from large-scale ignorance and pride.

As Billy Pilgrim crashed into the top of a mountain in Vermont, everybody was killed but him. This memory is presented right after his experiences in Dresden.

“Billy thought the golliwog had something to do with World War

Two, and he whispered to him his address: “Schlachthof-fünf.”

I noticed that this is the first time in the novel where Billy Pilgrim had messed up which timeline he had been present in compared to the others. It may have been due to the crash.

I appreciate Vonnegut’s humour but did not appreciate his description of a person being similar to the anti-black caricature of a golliwog. I can understand that this novel is from a different time that does not take racism seriously, but that does not mean I cannot recognise its political incorrectness and feel uncomfortable at times.

“When Billy saw the condition of his means of transportation, he burst into

tears. He hadn’t cried about anything else in the war.”

In the final chapter, I realised that these horses from chapter 9 were from the end of the book when the war had ended, and Billy was to return home.

“There was only one vehicle, an abandoned wagon drawnby two horses. The wagon was green and coffin-shaped.”

Billy hadn’t been given a chance to process his trauma and life. This scene where he weeps after seeing the state of the horses could be him finally grieving the life he lived during the war. Throughout the book, you recognise that Billy sometimes weeps for no apparent reason and the fact that is revealed in the final chapter provides a perfect close to this novel. The war had always impacted him. He never got over the horses a decade after the war had ended. He always has and will always keep grieving.

“There were hundreds of corpse mines operating by and by.

They didn’t smell bad at first, were wax museums. But then the

bodies rotted and liquefied, and the stink was like roses and

mustard gas.

So it goes.”

Vonnegut had used the description like roses and mustard gas as a motif a few times throughout the novel. It shows again how the war and the revolting scent of corpses stayed with him whether he wanted to or not.

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Section 5

• Re-visit your journal entry from section 1. Have your perceptions changed about it, and if so, why? How accurate were your predictions?

• What ideas and inspiration did you glean that might benefit your own imaginative writing?

• What connections did you make between this text and others you have read/experienced (voice, style, perspective, genre, thematic, etc.)?

• Would you recommend this book to others? Why or why not? If so, to who?

Journal Entry 5:

I had dived into this book not having many predictions as the plot was already presented to me in the first chapter. I initially believed this book to have some sort of non-linear time structure, but I couldn’t completely predict how it would look in terms of structure. I had thought this book would be non-sensical and tedious (which it had been in some ways), but overall this novel was an incredible read. Reading Slaughterhouse-Five, I want to experiment with the way Vonnegut structures specific sentences and ideas. He experiments with drawings, random narration, and a unique outlook in his works. I want to take this and explore weirder and more Absurd ideas when it comes to writing imaginative pieces. This novel is the first post-modern text I have ever read, so it is difficult to think of other books and texts similar to this. The only one that comes to mind is The Book Thief by Mark Zusak, where the traumatic parts of the Second World War are explored alongside philosophical themes. The first person narration and adding random existential ideas and rhetorical questions in their works, there are similarities. The difference is that symbolism in Slaughterhouse-Five was portrayed pretty. Differently, the Tralfamadorian Aliens could have symbolised the Nazi’s in WWII. Their lack care for the human race and only go by their own ideologies. The Book Thief seems to find purpose in life through the lens of a child whereas Slaughterhouse-Five does not try to find an overarching meaning of life but instead evaluates human life and the war. I would recommend this book to those interested in learning more about the Post-modernism era of literature. I speak highly of this book regarding its nature of delivering existential questions. If reading this book in the future, my perception and what I think of the book today would be very different. I would have had more experience in literature and have a mature understanding of novels (hopefully). I would recommend this book to a mature audience.