Slaughterhouse-Five

Contributed by Becca, gr. 12, Jan. 2019



World War II ended in 1945, yet the horrific memories of war haunt the soldiers.After reading a few pages of this book, I expected this book to be another anti-war novel that tells the story of Kurt Vonnegut in WWII, but it is more than this.

The book indeed features the life of Billy Pilgrim based on Kurt Vonnegut’s fellow soldiers in the war, and revolves around the destruction of Dresden. Billy believes that he has the gift of time travel, and throughout the novel, he uses his time traveling ability to travel back and forth between his past in WWII and his present life. 

I truly enjoyed parts of the novel when Billy travels back in time, because his experiences are very interesting:  for example, those that relate to his war buddies, “The Three Musketeers”. Billy also believes in aliens, which he calls “The Tralfamadorians”, and people on Earth as “Earthlings”.  The aliens relate to another theme of this novel: absurdity.

 At first, it was hard for me to comprehend the story of Billy; however, as I discovered the reason behind his active imagination, I became less confused and more sorrowful. I would not recommend Slaughterhouse -Five for readers who look for a simple and ordinary anti-war novel, because this literary work by Vonnegut requires readers to pay close attention to details in order to fully understand Billy’s story.