An expository essay analyzing Kurt Vonnegut's 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five. Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five denotes the inevitability of life amidst the rigid elasticity of time, mirroring young American soldiers’ inability to seize their own destiny during the Vietnam War and in World War II, and capitalized on during Billy’s interactions with the Tralfamadorians. Vonnegut’s use of omnipresent narration allows for Billy’s experiences with the Tralfamadorians to frame their shared lifelong struggles with shellshock and trauma. The resigned tone of the Tralfamadorians when describing life in the fourth dimension symbolizes the dissolution and utter surrender to destiny Billy and other young soldiers experience due to war. Vonnegut bases his retelling of Billy’s life off of Tralfamadorian culture and psychology, by abandoning the linear fashion of storytelling and instead viewing all moments at once. Vonnegut relays Billy Pilgrim’s story in a manner far more intimate than befitting their personal relationship throughout the novel. The handful of scattered lines suggest no kinship between the two men, providing an additional layer of mystique to the Tralfamadorians and Billy’s secret travels through time as well as allowing for a unique type of critique. Near the end of the novel, Vonnegut reflects “if what Billy Pilgrim learned from the Tralfamadorians is true, that we will all live forever, no matter how dead we may sometimes seem to be, I am not overjoyed. Still-if I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice” (95), effectively reclaiming the story as his own. In this way, Vonnegut brings the novel full circle in order to comment on his present, returning to Dresden and still carrying the trauma. The Tralfamadorians always speak to Billy using a resigned, matter-of-fact tone, encapsulating the strange nature of life once detached from time. The beings do not believe in destiny, fate, or free will. They simultaneously see life in the past, present, and future, which forces them to accept things as they are. Billy doesn’t understand how they can stand idly by, even when they describe “there isn't anything we can do about [wars], so we simply don't look at them. We ignore them. We spend eternity looking at pleasant moments-like today at the zoo” (55). This leaves Billy stunned in silence. However, Vonnegut has already shown Billy to have adopted this Tralfamadorian indifference in matters of death and destruction, and has adopted the behavior himself. While imprisoned, young soldiers are exposed to the deaths of countless fellow prisoners of war, and all are shown to eventually adapt a twisted acceptance, exemplified by the phrase “so it goes” which echoes throughout the novel and the rest of their lives. Billy’s ability to become “unstuck” in time forces him to live his life unchronologically, and Vonnegut ensures readers experience Billy’s life in the same way by abandoning the traditional linear style of storytelling. This stylistic choice reflects the structure of Tralfamadorian books, in which “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” (42). Similarly, the true meaning of Vonnegut’s tale cannot be absorbed until the very end, when World War II finally ends, releasing the American prisoners of war. Up until that point, the story is simply a collection of moments, strung together without meaning. While physically released and able to return home, the soldiers’ minds never fully escaped the war. They learned to accept whatever happens to them, and never fully regained control of their lives. Vonnegut’s tale describes how life happens to people, and has now taken on a meaning not even he could have predicted. Uncertainty has settled into American life once again, now due to a viral foe which has forced us apart and taken away the ability to drive our own destinies. Instead we must view life in the way of the Tralfamadorians, and take what comes to us with indifference. Similarly to the books of the Tralfamadorians, our own lives are simply series of events waiting for us to provide them with meaning, and we must understand these moments of our lives are inevitable. October 2020, 12th Grade
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