SLAUGHTER HOUSE - FIVE BY KURT VONNEGUT,JR.

SLAUGHTERHOUSE- FIVE 
OR THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE 
- KURT VONNEGUT, JR.

• The book has an antiwar theme. The alternate name of the book is “The children's crusade”
• Talks about Dresden Bombing (Second World War)
• Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist of the book, a prisoner of the war gets flash backs of him in different time periods in his life. This experience of the protagonist has been carefully described by the author as being “unstuck” (i.e escaping the chronological order of the passage of time and jumping back and forth in the time period)
• The non linear narrative that the author used gives authentic feel of what is going on in his head. It creates clear picture of the mental breakdown and the trauma that affects an individual serving in war (an idea that the author got through self experience)
• The first and last chapter are written in first person so as to bring back the reader from the reality of the story.
• Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis in 1922. He spent his time at the cornel university before entering the (U.S) Army at the age of twenty.
• Like the protagonist he was also sent to Europe, had a brief combat experience and then became a[prisoner of the war during”The Battle Of Bulge”. He later was sent to Dresden where he stated in a slaughterhouse.
• Between 13th and 15th of February 1945,British and American Bombers dropped bombs and incendiary devices on Dresden.
• This caused a firestorm burning down and destroying major part of the city. This was followed up by more raids in march and April
• The amount of destruction was so brutal that Vonnegut found it difficult to adequately convey the horrors. He found it hard to state the brutal facts and thus tried to testify the events a narrative fiction that sensitises yet evades direct contacts to facts of horror of the war
• His protagonist gets to know about what is happening in the city through the conversations of the guards.
• The author would intentionally avoid speaking about the horrible details of the war by cleverly using figure of speech.
• This way of writing watered down the the experience of the war for the reader. • Through his writing style the author manages to put the reader in an uneasy state ( funny serious and confused)
 • Vonnegut often describes the feeling of speechlessness thinking about Dresden ( maybe reflects how he is still trying to come to terms with the war sufferings)
• Vonnegut expresses some guilt of benefiting from the war by writing about it.
• Slaughterhouse five provides ways of thinking of how we fight, survive, heal and live. The books seem to plea against the butchery of humanity in the service of authority