Slaughterhouse Five: Characterization of War

Analysis of Slaughterhouse Five
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Introduction
In the Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut keeps telling us that war is not glamorous and, furthermore, that it is inevitable. In this way as much as he wants to say to us that war should be avoided, he knows that his message will fall on deaf ears since it’s only a matter of time before we wage war on each other again. The narrator illustrates this idea through his unique humanism, literary techniques, and author position. Throughout the novel, Vonnegut was inspired by his encounters during the war. And this is mainly seen through the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim which seems to express the narrator’s perspective regarding the horrors of the war. The most outstanding evidences he uses to express his attitude against war are the use of science fiction ‘Tralfamadorians’ to express human nature. Secondly in his prayer, the narrator expresses his feelings about war and lastly he narrates the incident of firebombing at Dresden in Germany to convince us that war is horrific and bad. In the end of the novel, the theme of anti-war appears to be the prominent theme of the Novel. The paper therefore analyzes this novel in regard to the above three evidences to bring out the anti-war theme as the prominent theme.
The first evidence showing anti-war attitude by the narrator is expressed in the use of the Tralfamadorians. Tralfamadorians is a science fiction which the narrator uses to express his feelings against war. These creatures are capable of observing the fourth dimension hence their mentality is always different from that of human beings. The belief of fatalism expressed by the Tralfamadorians justifies the absurdity of war. The belief criticizes people’s stupid decisions on starting wars. For instance, the narrator uses Tralfamadorians to represent his stand that war is caused by human actions. Tralfamadorians say “how only on earth is their talk of free will”, (pg. 133). Here, the narrator uses the Tralfamadorians to defend his position on the irrationality of war by criticizing human beings stupid decisions on initiating war. Normally, the narrator uses the Tralfamadorians to change the mind of people like protagonists Billy, primarily through the horrific experiences after the war. Billy describing the Tralfamadorians says that when he is alone he hears that somebody is dead; he thinks about what Tralfamadorian’s say about death “So it goes” (pg. 135). “So it goes” simply means the interpretation of time by Tralfamadorians, as much as they die they continue to live in other life moments. The narrator deploys authorial voice technique to express his take on way of life towards the readers. He achieves this by differentiating the human’s philosophy and that of the Tralfamadorian’s.
The second evidence used by the narrator to express his feelings against war is through his prayer. This prayer conveys the message to the readers that various life parts are unavoidable and must be accredited and some life aspects must be changed. For instance, Billy Pilgrim could not change the past, present and the future, everything is ...