University of Jnos Selye Komrno

American literature 2

Seminar Work
Vizvry Erika (Aj-Mj) 2011/2012

Destruction in Slaughterhouse Five

I chose the motif of destruction in the novel of Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse Five. In my opinion, this can be related to another motifs too. What I mean is that destruction is introduced not just in the movements of war, like firebombing of Dresden. It can be connected to the time, for example when Billy gets unstuck in time. It also appears related to characters, the destruction of the personality. They lose their dignity and mind, finally getting insane. Destruction can cause the lack of the feelings towards the unfortunate fate of the other people, in this case expressed by a repeated sentence. Losing the correct sight, I mean when people can't see the violence of the war, or they just won't see it. Even the novel itself can be destroyed, or that pattern what we call conventional in novels. The war connects these several kinds of destructions, in that way that it causes them. So, we can say, that destruction can be the effect of the war. Tanner also states that Vonnegut makes several references to death and destruction, such as the concentration camps, the destruction of European Jewry, the bombing of Hiroshima, and the Children's Crusade.1 The destruction of the novel and the time The first thing I would like to explain is the question of the novel. As we can see the Slaughterhouse-Five is not a conventional novel. The events doesn't come in a linear order. Sometimes it is hard to follow the happenings. Charles B. Harris, who wrote "Time, Uncertainty, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: A Reading of 'Slaughterhouse-Five'" for The Centennial Review. He thinks that the novel is not a conventional anti-war novel at all, but an experimental novel of considerable complexity.2 We don't know what is the main plot. The writer plays with the flashbacks and flashforwards. The role of these is to introduce that Billy is mentally instabil. He doesn't want to face the truth. He is always travelling in time, when something bad happens. The plot is not linear, nor circular in the conventional way. It is because of these travellings forwards and backwards in time. There can't be found a pattern, that which happening comes after which. Vonnegut is interested in protecting his novel from becoming a conventional war narrative, the kind of conventional narrative that makes war look like something exciting or fun.3 To the destruction of the conventional plot comes the destruction of time. We are jumping in time from one memory in the past to another in the future or present. There is not a system in the travelling in time. The future can come after past, or past after present and so on. Billy Pilgrim gets unstuck in time. He doesn't want to face the violence of the Second World War. He jumps to a time, which is better, and not so stressful. The novel is less about Dresden than about the psychological impact of time, death, and uncertainty on its main character.(Charles B. Harris in Time, Uncertainty, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: A Reading of 'Slaughterhouse-Five) The destruction of time can be caught in the Tralfamadorian view of time. They broke the linearity of the time. They see happenings in time simultaneously. This is why they think that noone dies, but everyone lives forever. So they don't think of death as a terrible thing.
1

"Analysis of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five." 123HelpMe.com. 31 Oct 2011 http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=19262 2 "Analysis of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five." 123HelpMe.com. 31 Oct 2011 http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=19262 3 http://www.gradesaver.com/slaughterhouse-five/study-guide/major-themes/

Tralfamadorians see the fourth dimension too: contains all moments of time occurring and reoccurring endlessly and simultaneously(Lichtenstein)4 Billy's memory of the Tralfamadorians could be a hallucination. He tries to escape the reality in that way. Maybe, he tries to escape the time, cause when he is on Tralfamador, he says, that there is no exchanging of night and day, in that way like on the Earth. Tralfamadorians drop a blue canopy over the dome in which was Billy, to simulate night inside. Billy Pilgrim can get out of the real time. He wants to escape from the horrors of the war. When he gets in a terrible situation, he falls asleep, and travels in time. He tries to find the better times in his life. There is another referring to destruction of the time, which I liked the most. When Billy sees a late movie backwards in television. It is about the American bombers in the Second World War. The American planes fly backwards. They take back the bombs to America. Where in the factory they are taken to pieces. The American pilots go back to school. Vonnegut writes it like it was really a movie, with short cuts, which are put near each other. It destroys not just the time, but the war too. The destruction of the personality and mind The war has an effect on the personality too. When Vonnegut writes of the ways Billy views things, especially in the war, he makes Billy's view "slanted, which makes the reader perceive the war as something absurd, grotesque, macabre--in any case, not quite real" (Mayer 6 March).5 Vonnegut doesn't give us a whole picture of his characters in his novel. We get some informations trought another characters sight. For example, Dresdeners while not seeing American soldiers think that they are great, and murderous, but when they meet them they see hundred ridiculous creatures. Vonnegut describes Billy Pilgrim as a funny-looking child, who is like a Coca Cola bottle. He doesn't tell us concrete things, like the colour of his eyes or describing his personality. From the given things, we can think, that Billy is crazy. If we take the others, we get a little information of their character. For example there is the poor old Edgar Derby. Except of that he is old, we know nothing about him, just that he would be shot in Dresden. There is Roland Weary, the antitank gunner, his appearance is described quite well. He is fat, mean and unpopular. He carries several stuff with him. He had all the presents he got from home on him. He is harsh with Billy, and always beats and kicks him. He thinks that his task is to save Billy's life. The war makes everyone insane. Billy sometimes acts like he was retarded. For example, when someone asks something from him, he just looks and doesn't tell anything. Once he just smiles, and shows what is in his hand. The teeth which he had found in the coat he got. Another case, when they want to escape the German soldiers. They shoot at them and Billy is just standing, while the others lay down. He is nearly shot. The war also destroys the man's dignity. When Billy and the other prisoners arrive in the prison, which was an extermination camp before, Billy gets a small coat, which was frozen and looked like a hat. Everyone else got a normal coat. Billy looks funny in his coat. He carries it like it was a lady's muff. Everyone in the prison looks ridiculous, and they also act like if they were patients in a mental hospital.
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War in Slaughterhouse-Five, Michael S. Miska, 2002., http://www.kurtvonnegutcorner.eu/essaycollection/c2006013109-war-in--i-slaughterhouse-five--i-.html 5 War in Slaughterhouse-Five, Michael S. Miska, 2002, http://www.kurtvonnegutcorner.eu/essaycollection/c2006013109-war-in--i-slaughterhouse-five--i-.html

The other thing, which takes his dignity, is his clothing, when they start to leave the camp. He wears a blue curtain, which is like a toga. He also has a muff (the small coat), and silver boots of Cinderella. With his beard he looks like he was sixty years old. He is ridiculous, but he doesn't care about it. When they arrive to Dresden, he is amazed by the architecture of the houses, while the inhabitants stare at him. In Vonnegut's view, war is not heroic or glamorous. It is messy, often disgusting, and it robs men of their dignity. The problem of dignity comes up again and again in the novel, as we see how easily human dignity can be denied by others.6 As I had mentioned, the war destroys the mind too. Let us see the characters. They all are crazy. I had mentioned Roland Weary. He is possessed with guns, swords and medieval torture instruments. He gave his wife a working Spanish thumbscrew, and a model of the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg as a present. When they are trying to escape the Germans, he always talks about these things. He is dressed and behaves like a parody of a real soldier. Poor old Edgar Derby is writing letters to his wife in his head, that he is well, and she shouldn't worry. The english soldiers in the Dresden prisoner camp also act like insane. They are behaving like if they weren't imprisoned. They wait the americans like children in a summer camp. They make presents and a play (Cinderella) for them, they sing songs when the americans arrive. After when they get known the americans they start to behave like children. They say that americans are disgusting, and they rather abandon their sheds, and move to another shed. Destruction of feelings and free will There are some expressions which are repeated. Every time when something bad happens, or someone dies the narrator says So it goes. This is like if he doesn't have any feelings towards the bad things, or other people. It is like the war itself. Bad things happen, but noone cares about them. People just say, that these things always happen in war, and there have to be innocent victims. Many innocent people are killed, but the war goes on. In Billy's case it looks like if he also hasn't got any feelings towards the happenings. Billy Pilgrim is deeply passive, accepting everything that befalls him. It makes him able to forgive anyone for anything, and he never seems to become angry.7 There are some other repetitions, which have an effect, that Billy has no strong feelings about the events. These are: nestled like spoons, ivory and blue, mustard gas and roses. If we take these one by one, we are not so convienced about that they mean the lack of feelings. What makes them so are the repetitions. Ivory and blue feet, soldiers nestled like spoons, breath like mustard gas and roses repeated several times. We get known, that Valencia, Billy's wife, loved him much, but we doesn't know if Billy had storng feelings towards her. Tralfamadorians tell Billy, that they don't know that thing what is called free will on Earth. They believe in fate. Everything happens, it is because of the fate. The Tralfamadorians think that free will exists in human mind, because they see the time linear, and they don't see the fourth dimension. Not just the Tralfamadorians have unusual sight of the free will. Billy too has an own point of view. He was rescued from the swimming pool, and put in the war against his free will. Roland Weary takes care of him in the war, however he wants to stay still, and wait for the death. I have mentioned that Billy has a wrong sight. It can be expressed by his future profession too. It is ironic, that he is an optometrist. His job is to correct peoples vision, but he
6 7

http://www.gradesaver.com/slaughterhouse-five/study-guide/major-themes/ http://www.gradesaver.com/slaughterhouse-five/study-guide/major-themes/

has a not good visionof things too. This theme relates to the idea that Billy has sight before he goes to war, then goes to war and goes insane, thus losing his own "true-sight.8'' Weary has also a limited vision. Not just because of the things he had on him, but because he sees the war like he wants it to be. The destruction of war itself Vonnegut uses irony and black humour to destroy the war. All of the characters in the war are in some way funny, crazy creatures. Roland Weary calls himself and the two other soldiers he doesn't even know The Three Musketeers. He think them to be close friends, but they don't know him, even they abandon him and Billy. Rolands view of war was not the same like the reality. He thinks that he had fight very hard, but the truth was, that he had just shot once, than they were hit by a tank. There is irony too in the death of the two trained scouts, while the untrained Billy and Roland stays alive. Ironic is that Billy who tries to correct the vision of others is the most blind towards the things in the war. There is black humor too. We meet with things which are normally not funny, but Vonnegut makes them funny. An example can be, when Billy is described as a filthy flamingo, or when he tries to publish writings about the Tralfamadorians. Donald G. Marshall, a professor of English at the University of Illinois, Chicago, claims that Vonnegut uses this black humor to, "satirize the self-satisfaction they felt resulted from the war"9 Roland Weary is not the one, who has absolutely wrong visions of war. There are English and German soldiers, who think that American soldiers are brave, grate and cool, before they meet them. Then this picture suddenly changes when they see the Americans, who are the same crazy, poor creatures like they are. They also think that Dresden would be never bombed, because it is an open city, and after some days it gets completely destroyed. Another unespected thing about war is, that the untrained Roland Weary and Billy survive, while the trained scouts get killed. Lazzaro is possessed by killing Billy, because he is convienced by dying Roland, whom he never met before, just in the train, that Pilgrim murders him. He died of gangrene, that started from his feet. These are things which are strange and absurd, and that makes the war itself destroyed. Conclusion Vonnegut's novel can be a science fiction, but an anti-war novel too. We can see, that the narrator is balancing between the reality and the hallucinations or memories. He gaves us a picture of the war and destruction. In these case destruction is connected with the effects that the war has on the soldiers. Vonnegut destroys the war itself making it funny, by using irony, black humour, and absurd tevents. The protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, is in the war just with his body. His feelings, and mind is focused on imagined things. His name Pilgrim also can describe his travelling through time, because pilgrims always travel long ways to a sacred place. The war and the story of Pilgrim is so terrible, that Billy tries to escape the reality and destruction. The repetitions in the novel try to express the views of Billy towards death. Billy is often passive, he doesn't show deeper feelings. If everyone dies he says So it goes and moves forward without thinking more about the victim.
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War in Slaughterhouse-Five, Michael S. Miska, 2002, http://www.kurtvonnegutcorner.eu/essaycollection/c2006013109-war-in--i-slaughterhouse-five--i-.html 9 War in Slaughterhouse-Five, Michael S. Miska, 2002, http://www.kurtvonnegutcorner.eu/essaycollection/c2006013109-war-in--i-slaughterhouse-five--i-.html

The reality appears in the movements of the Second World War, the bombing of Dresden, and the prisoner camps. Also in the first chapter, which is about the writing of the novel itself. Nearly at the middle of the novel Vonnegut appears too, saying that he was a captured soldier. As we could see, the destruction can be connected almost to all of the motifs in the novel. The difference, from other anti-war novels is, that Vonnegut introduces the destruction ironically. Works used: "Analysis of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five." 123HelpMe.com. 31 Oct 2011 http://www.123HelpMe.com/view.asp?id=19262 War in Slaughterhouse-Five, Michael S. Miska, 2002, http://www.kurtvonnegutcorner.eu/essay-collection/c2006013109-war-in--i-slaughterhousefive--i-.html Marshall, Donald G. American Literature. 21 Feb. 2002 http://www.doser.org/eng12/am_lit.htm http://www.gradesaver.com/slaughterhouse-five/study-guide/major-themes/ Works related to the Slaughterhouse-Five: 1969 Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. 21 Feb. 2002. http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/quickstep/1103/book107.htm Critics on Slaughterhouse-Five. 12 Feb. 2002. http://www.digischool.nl/en/files/slaughter5.htm Dunstan, Brittany. "Destruction of Dresdon, Destruction of Vonnegut's Dream." Marek Vit's Kurt Vonnegut Corner. Ed. Marek Vit. May 1999. 22 Feb 2002 http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/4953/kv_dream.html "Insanity of War in Slaughterhouse-Five." Classic Notes by Grade Saver. 2000. Grade Saver. 11 Feb. 2002 http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/titles /slaughterhousefive/essays/insanitywar.html "Kurt Vonnegut." American Writers. Vol. 2 Supplement II, Part 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981. "Kurt Vonnegut, Jr." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Sharon R. Gunton and Jean C. Stine. Volume 22. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1982. Lichtenstein, Jesse. "Slaughterhouse-Five: Themes, Motifs, and Symbols." Spark Notes. 2002. Spark Notes LLC. 29 Jan. 2002 http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/slaughter/themes.html Marshall, Donald G. American Literature. 21 Feb. 2002 http://www.doser.org/eng12/am_lit.htm

Quinn, Lewis. "A Critical Analysis of Slaughterhouse-Five." Marek Vit's Kurt Vonnegut Corner. Ed. Marek Vit. Jan. 1998. 22 Feb 2002 http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/4953/kv_slaughter.html "Slaughterhouse-Five." Novels for Students. Ed. Diane Telgen and Kevin Hile. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998. 264-70. Vit, Marek. "The Themes of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five." Marek Vit's Kurt Vonnegut Corner. Ed. Marek Vit. Sept. 1997. 21 Feb. 2002 http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/4953/themes.html http://faculty.atu.edu/cbrucker/Vonnegut.html