Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-FiveMark NaffPer.5BeckerAP Lit

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)•War veteran. POW at Dresden.•From family of German free thinkers.•Prominent family.•Created his own world of fiction.•Wrote in an often darkly comic tone. •Known for socialist beliefs.

Context•Response to Dresden.•1960’s: war’s portrayal.•Vietnam War.•Space Age.

Setting•Constant change in settings:-1945 Dresden.-Late 1960’s Ilium, New York.-Tralfamadore, 1967.-Late 1960’s New York city.

Plot Synopsis•Disjointed narrative with multiple

threads.•Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time.•Billy lived through the Dresden bombing,

was abducted by aliens, survived a plane crash.

Synopsis Timeline (1923-1976)

Character Analsyis.Billy Pilgrim (1923-1976 Edgar Derby (1900?-1944)• Tall, funny looking

character.• Everyman.• Prisoner of war.• Abducted be aliens.• Avid fan of Kilgore Trout.

• Teacher.• Better shape than most of

the soldiers.• Always referred to as

“poor Edgar Derby.”• Shot at Dresden.

Character Analysis 2Valencia Merble Barbara Pilgrim• Billy’s plump wife who

admires him.• Good natured.• Daughter of a rich

optometrist.• Dies of carbon monoxide

poisoning.

• Controlling daughter of Billy.

• Acts as a mother to him after the plane crash.

• Considers her father crazy after he claims to be abducted by aliens on her wedding night.

Character Analysis 3Paul Lazzaro Roland Weary• Vows revenge against

anybody who hurt him in the war.

• Believe Billy killed Roland.• Kills Billy in 1976.

• Hero in his mind.• Member of “The Three

Musketeers.” • Dies on the way to the

POW camps.

Tralfamadorians•Appear as plungers to us.•Similar to the humans.•Know the end of the universe.•Stay in good times.

Vonnegut’s world•Howard W. Campbell from Mother Night

(1961).•Rosewater (God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater

(1965))•Kilgore Trout from many novels.•Bertram Copeland Rumfoord.

Motifs•“So it goes.”-Phrase constantly uttered

after all tragedies.•“Poo-Too-weet?”-bird call.•Narrator in story.

Themes•Destructiveness of War.-Destroys all including Billy.•How humans do not have free will.-All moments occur according to a

schedule.-The end of the universe always occurs.-“So it goes.”

Rhetorical Devices•Satire.•Irony.•Allusion.•Foreshadowing.•Flashback, flash-forward.•Change in perspective.