The author even inserts himself as a character throughout key events, such as the latrine at the OW camp and digging in the corpse mines in Dresden. The insertions serve to remind the reader that though fiction, the events described in the novel actually happened, to people like Billy ilgrim/Kurt Vonnegut.
However, Vonnegut also uses several techniques not found in the works of noted memoir writers such as Tobias Wolff and Anne Frank. For example, Vonnegut also employs a third-person point-of-view, where an omniscient narrator goes into the minds of several other characters. Thus, in addition to Billy ilgrim, the reader also gains insight into the motivations and thoughts of other characters as well. Vonnegut also employs a time-shifting progression that takes the reader back and forth from the present (1968), to the meat locker in World War II to Billy's birth (1920) and even to his death (1976). The…...

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Parts of Slaughterhouse-Five read like a memoir, particularly where Vonnegut uses the first person voice, using the character of Billy Pilgrim to narrate his experiences in Dresden. The author even inserts himself as a character throughout key events, such as the latrine at the POW camp and digging in the corpse mines in Dresden. The insertions serve to remind the reader that though fiction, the events described in the novel actually happened, to people like Billy Pilgrim/Kurt Vonnegut.

However, Vonnegut also uses several techniques not found in the works of noted memoir writers such as Tobias Wolff and Anne Frank. For example, Vonnegut also employs a third-person point-of-view, where an omniscient narrator goes into the minds of several other characters. Thus, in addition to Billy Pilgrim, the reader also gains insight into the motivations and thoughts of other characters as well. Vonnegut also employs a time-shifting progression that takes the reader back and forth from the present (1968), to the meat locker in World War II to Billy's birth (1920) and even to his death (1976). The novel thus covers a much greater time period than most memoirs. Vonnegut even uses science fiction techniques as Billy travels to the planet Trafalmadore to live in a zoo, a technique that helps Vonnegut convey the nonsensical and incomprehensible nature of war.

In conclusion, though Slaughterhouse-Five chronicles real events, it is also a work of autobiographical fiction. Writing a novel rather than a memoir allowed Vonnegut to employ important fiction techniques - such as the omniscient narrator, a shifting timeline and even fantastic events such as a trip to another planet. Through these techniques, Vonnegut is able to construct the bombing of Dresden in great detail. The result is a novel of surprising power, one that conveys to the reader the unimaginable and ultimately useless nature of war.

The best evidence for this suffusion in the author's own life is in the final chapter, when the main character/author returns in full force. Traveling peacefully and happily in a plane above erlin, during a moment he considers "one of the nicest ones in recent times" (Vonnegut, p. 211), removed in time and space from Dresden, Vonnegut "imagined dropping bombs on those lights, those villages and cities and towns," (Vonnegut, p. 211).

The best evidence for the author's failure to reconcile, for the negative answer to the plot's central question, comes earlier in the same passage and needs little exegetic:

If what illy Pilgrim learned from the Tralfamadoreans is true, that we will 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…...

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Bibliography

1. Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse Five. New York: Random House, 1969. Print.

2. Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995. Print.

I enjoyed Vonnegut's commentary on the strangeness of humankind's foibles and I was not shocked by some of his matter-of-fact depictions. Indeed, when Vonnegut draws on his own real-life experiences, the novel takes on an air of authenticity. This authenticity coupled with Vonnegut's wry, black humor makes the novel seem caustic and ironic, but at heart it is neither -- it is simply a record of things both real and imaginary told with the same kind of remove that Voltaire employs as he pushes Candide along on his ridiculous adventures.

I hesitate to say that I was enlightened by reading the novel. I might say I was as enlightened as I was entertained, and cannot say I found it to be the most entertaining novel I have ever read. The non-linear narrative is so full of false-starts and proceeds in fits that it is difficult to truly become engaged in it.…...

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Works Cited

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five. NY: Random House, 2009. Print.

Through his experiences and adventures, Billy becomes a symbol more than a mere character. He obviously has more insight into how things truly are, than the rest of the characters in the book. Not accidentally, Billy becomes unstuck in time precisely during the Second orld ar, hinting thus at the need to escape the imminence of death as a constantly pending menace: "The Tralfamadorians didn't have anything to do with his coming unstuck They were simply able to give him insights into what was really going on."(Vonnegut, 18) as such, Billy is the best optometrist because he can correct the vision of the other people, by letting them see "what was really going on." His role is to take the reader away from the immediate reality, and prove the inconsistency of war.
Eliot Rosewater is another important character, introduced as Billy's companion in a mental institution. Rosewater is the one…...

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Works Cited

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse Five. New York: Dial Press Trade, 1999.

The failed quest of Vonnegut the character underlines another important theme of the novel -- although life may seem 'fated' as Pilgrim perceives it to be, our own perceptions affect how we see our past and reconstruct the past. Our minds are erasers, always writing and rewriting events. Our perception of time is highly personalized. For example, Vonnegut the character is surprised that his old friend Bernard has changed over the years, and is no longer the young, hard-drinking man he knew in his youth. Vonnegut the character appears in some of Pilgrim's reminisces as a peripheral character, but the reader is never certain how much he or she should trust this strange figure, who speaks with so much authority about how Billy Pilgrim is feeling.
Award 3: A trip around the world for Valencia Pilgrim

Valencia's award, of course, would require her to get a reprieve from her untimely death…...

Interviewer
Good morning Mr. Vonnegut! First of all, I would like to thank you for giving me this wonderful opportunity of having to interview you!

Vonnegut

Good morning to you too! It's actually my honor and pleasure to be interviewed by a popular columnist like you. I hope this will not be the last.

Interviewer

Oh certainly Kurt. I am a very good fan of yours. In fact, I have read a lot of your stories and I find them all very interesting. And speaking of which, such is the reason why I am very eager to have this interview with you -- to talk about your masterpiece, if I must say, the Slaughterhouse-Five.

Vonnegut

Great! Thanks for the compliment! Yes, the Slaughterhouse-Five is among the stories I wrote where I guess I spent so many years before I have the "courage," if that's the right word I must use, to start writing the story. This is…...

The critic called Vonnegut "overrated at best" and goes on to say, "Like many inferior novelists, he films better than he reads" (33).
On the other hand Peter Reed talks of the novel's depiction of many "grim" and "downright painful" scenes sliced together to sustain the impression of concurrent actions that "intensifies" the interrelationship of events transcending time. The novel conveys an image of life that is not always beautiful, sometimes surprising, and "in total effect quite "deep" (52).

These two different views attest to the complexity of the subject and the different perspectives that surface dependent upon the experience of the reader or viewer. Perhaps it is the Tralfamadorian belief that one should concentrate on life's happier moments that is the salient message of both the novel and the film.

2.5 Interview

As part of this assignment a veteran of the Second orld ar who served in the Pacific theater of operations…...

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Works Cited

Hill, George Roy, dir. Slaughterhouse-Five. Universal Pictures, 1972. DVD.

Matheson, T.J. "This Lousy Little Book:' the Genesis and development of Slaughterhouse Five as revealed in Chapter One." Studies in the Novel, Vol. 16, Issue 2, Summer 1984: 228-251. EBSOC. Web. 20 May 2013.

Kaufmann, Stanley. "Stanley Kaufmann on Films." New Republic, Vol. 166, Issue 20, 13 May 1972: 22-36. EBSOC. Web. 20 May 2013.

Lee, Ruben. Personal interview. 19 May 2013.

Reason tells him that there must be something else, still to come, while he is fighting to stay alive and keep feeling.
The author points out that, at some point, he decided to write the book as a "Children's Crusade," as the opposite of every past attempt to present war as something other that what is should be: the worst and most hideous manifestation of the constant of death in humanity's life. Death as a consequence of mass murder becomes monstrous and inexcusable because it is inflicted by human beings upon their fellow human beings with premeditation, in the name of some ideology.

Peter Barry underlines that according to Baudrillard, the distinction between what is real and imagined or illusion is no longer present, because of the new technology that surrounds us. Disneyland is an example that supports the theory that "real is no longer real" (Slaughterhouse Five, p. 89). This…...

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Works Cited:

Barry, Peter. Beginning theory: an introduction to literary and cultural theory. Manchester University Press, 2002

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-five: or, the children's crusade, a duty-dance with death. Random House, Inc., 1999

There is nothing laudable about young people leaving their homes in order to fight for their countries. Moreover, these young people are very different from how they are usually presented. They are frightened, horrified, and it would be absurd to call them war heroes, regardless of the role that they played in the war.
Vonnegut's intention is to condemn war, and, thus, instead of providing his readers with a traditional hero-like figure, he gives Billy. The author sees the injustice in promoting heroes who are fascinating, as he knows that this would only serve in encouraging warfare. hen it sees a model, the general public is normally inclined to become that model, despite the consequences of its actions. Stories of heroes are somewhat similar to advertisements, as they promote concepts that are not entirely true. However, fuelled by the actions performed by various heroes, people are most likely to want…...

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Works cited:

1. Barry, Peter. Beginning theory: an introduction to literary and cultural theory. Manchester University Press, 2002.

2. Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five. Dell, 1969.

Making up the Tralfamadorians and their philosophies can be seen as Billy's way of coming to terms with the things that he cannot understand, a way of silencing the dissonant thoughts in his head. He was shaping his thoughts so that he could live in a world where he understands how it works. It was his way of escaping the things he has experienced, or perhaps also a way of making sense of the things he has experienced.
What this means to our understanding of the Self is that our past experiences shape our present Self. And in the same way, our past experiences shape our future Self. The Self is the totality of our past, present, and future experiences. How we define our Selves now is a product of all our experiences in the past and in the present. The experiences of the people around us also shape our…...

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Reference

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five. Ebook. Dell: 1991.

Destructiveness of War in "The Things They Carried" and "Slaughterhouse Five"
Summary
“The Things They Carried” is a series of stories in which the narrator Tim O’Brien describes the experience of soldiers in the war. The term denotes the things that the soldiers came with to war. Some of the things are intangible such as fear and guilt while others are physical things such as M-16 rifles, morphine, and matches among others. When Lavender is shot during the war, Lieutenant Cross feels guilty for causing his death (O’Brien 56). However, he destructs himself from guilt by thinking about his old crush Martha. The story “On the Rainy River,” recounts the events that led the narrator to the Vietnam War. The story of “The Dentist” gives the story of Lemon a soldier who fainted during the regular military dental check-up and insisted that a proper tooth had to be removed to save his…...

This idea appears repeatedly. hen Billy proposes marriage to Valencia:
Billy didn't want to marry ugly Valencia. She was one of the symptoms of his disease. He knew he was going crazy when he heard himself proposing marriage to her, when he begged her to take the diamond ring and be his companion for life, (ibid p.107).

However, he was trapped in his life, for better or worse, such as the fact that Billy knew when he would be killed, yet didn't try to do anything about it. His death is compared with mankind's fate.

At one point Billy discusses the problem of war with the Tralfamadorians (p.117). They tell him that war is inevitable and he is stupid to try to change it. Humanity is trapped in his human nature, to create war and wreak death. Some people want peace, but they are naive and are unaware of human nature. Humans…...

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Works Cited

Brifonski and Mendelson (Eds). Contemporary Literary Criticism vol.8. Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1978.

Riley, Carolyn (Editor); Contemporary Literary Criticism vol.1. Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1973.

Riley, Carolyn and Barbara Harte (Editors); Contemporary Literary Criticism vol.2. Detroit: Gale Research Co. 1974.

Vit, Marek. "The Themes of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five." Kurt Vonnegut Corner. http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/4953/themes.html.

This author used them to see how Kurt Vonnegut is post-modernist.
Barry begins in number one by asking how authors discover postmodernist themes and attitudes. In the observation, postmodernists foreground fiction which might be said to exemplify the notion of the 'disappearance of the real' in which shifting postmodern identities are seen. For number three, there is use of parody, pastiche and allusion. For number four, there is foreground irony for number five narcissism. For number six, the distinction between the high and low cultures is challenged and highlighted in the texts in which they work as hybrid blends of the two.

In other words, Barry maintains that taking the action out of the "real world" and into an imaginary one that creates and facilitates the postmodern. This would explain the convergence in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five of so many seemingly contradictory elements, from the violence of war to sexual subjects…...

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Works Cited:

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory

(Beginnings). 2nd ed. New York: Manchester University Press, 2002.

Bonin, Sonja. "Farewell, Hello, Mr. Vonnegut." Atlantic Review. Atlantic Review, 26

April 2007. Web. 4 May 2010. .

The Widow and Miss Watson see nothing wrong with slavery in modern society, while Huck actually takes actions to end slavery by leading Jim to freedom and treating Jim like a human being.
6. "To be or not to be, that is the bare bodkin."

Twain, Mark. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Signet, 2002, p. 143.

The Shakespearean 'actors' Jim and Huck befriend are really charlatans, despite their pretence of learning. They cannot even quote William Shakespeare's Hamlet in his "To be or not to be" soliloquy correctly.

7. "He says anyone who doesn't understand the theorems of Euclid is an idiot."

McCourt, Frank. Angela's Ashes. New York: Scribner, 1999, p.151.

The references to Euclid show the disparity between what is taught in Frank's school by an ambitious teacher and the poverty and ignorance of the rest of the boy's life. It also shows the narrow-mindedness of the principal, who is horrified that young boys…...

Thus science and discussions of scientific phenomena with his brother also formed the backdrop to his early life, another reason why technology featured so prominently in his literary works.
Vonnegut is credited with helping to elevate the genre of science fiction, once considered a staple of pulp magazine racks, to that of high art. Cat's Cradle tells the tale of scientists trying to create 'ice-nine,' a crystal that could turn all water solid and thus destroy all life on the earth. In 1963, Cat's Cradle slowly developed a readership as Cold ar Americans were increasingly receptive to a book that showed the dangerous potential of science and technology to develop faster than ethics and morality ("Novelist Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84," CNN.com, 2007) the novel, takes its title from an Eskimo game in which children try to snare the sun with string (Smith, 2007). Although its first printing sold only…...

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Works Cited

Inskeep, Steve,

Renee Montagne & Neda Ulaby. "Novelist Vonnegut Remembered for His Black Humor." NPR.com. 12 Apr 2007. 9 May 2007.  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9533587 

Smith, Dinita. "Kurt Vonnegut, Writer of Classics of the American Counterculture, Dies at 84." The New York Times. 2007. 11 Apr 2007. 9 May 2007.  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/books/11cnd-vonnegut.html?ei=5070&en=db6388ba6f8a0e08&ex=1178856000&pagewanted=all 

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84." CNN.com. Published by the Associated Press.