Slaughterhouse-Five; or, The Children’s Crusade, a Duty-Dance with Death (1969). Content and Description

Slaughterhouse-Five tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, a middle-aged optometrist and World War II veteran who survives the Allied bombing of Dresden, Germany, with other prisoners of war in the underground cellar of a slaughterhouse-turned-syrup- factory operated by the Nazis. While the novel is never clear about whether Billy is sane or insane, and therefore either having unworldly adventures or hallucinating, the narrator details Billy’s life in the war, his abduction by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, his life on Tralfamadore—where he is kept in a zoo with Montana Wildhack, a movie star who births his child—and his public life after a plane crash from which he sustains a head injury.

After his recovery and space travels, enlightened by the Tralfa- madorans about the nature of living and dying and their conception of the interconnected, nonlinear nature of time, Billy preaches Tralfamadore philosophy to anyone who will listen. Although Billy’s story occupies the main part of the narrative, the book opens and closes with lengthy authorial intrusions, moments when Vonnegut speaks directly to the reader as “Kurt Vonnegut,” a man living, as is Billy, in upstate New York. By framing the book in this way, Vonnegut establishes that his experience as a prisoner of war during the firebombing of Dresden is the primary experience or conflict around which the book is constructed.

Furthermore, by equating the firebombing of Dresden with the Children’s Crusade of 1213, when 30,000 children journeyed to Palestine to wage war and most of them were either shipwrecked or sold as slaves, Vonnegut comments on the way that youth are called upon to fight wars whose causes and purpose they do not understand.

The novel’s structure mirrors its content in many ways. As Billy becomes “unstuck in time,” shifting back and forth to pivotal moments in his life, the story is told with a radical narrative technique, one that presents often-painful moments in Billy’s life in a seemingly random order. In this respect the novel is an antinovel, one that thwarts readers’ usual expectations of what a novel may be. Additionally, Billy is an antihero, an innocent man who, as does Jesus, witnesses the world’s brokenness and becomes the victim of a tragic fate. Vonnegut identifies Billy with Jesus throughout the novel, most notably in the novel’s epigraph, an excerpt from the Christmas carol “Away in a Manger.”

By associating these two Vonnegut presents the universal nature of Billy’s experience. Because it contains many elements of the genre, critics often refer to Slaughterhouse-Five as a science fiction work. As with many works of science fiction, the novel contains fantastic elements, surreal occurrences that defy the tradition of realism so often associated with the novel form and make it difficult for the reader to suspend disbelief, a process that Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the author of such romantic poems such as “Kubla Kahn” (1798), says is necessary when dealing with literature. Thus, the novel defies usual expectations, presenting what Vonnegut refers to as a “schizophrenic” style that embodies Billy’s experience, his mental state, and the psychological malady often experienced by war veterans known as post- traumatic stress disorder.

Significant because it deals with the Dresden bombing, an event often overlooked when examining the Allied forces’ role in World War II, the novel was written and published during the Vietnam War and makes one of the strongest antiwar statements in 20th-century literature. As does Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1961), Slaughterhouse-Five conveys the inhumanity of war and focuses on a key moment that has traumatized its central character. Vonnegut compares the firebombing of Dresden, during which more than 130,000 people lost their lives and the city was reduced to rubble, with the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima, an earth-shattering event that reveals the way that human beings of the technologically advanced 20th century, despite priding themselves on being “civilized,” behaved barbarically.

By representing horrifying events and commenting on the ever-warring nature of human beings, Vonnegut offers a scathing critique of human history, which, from Vonnegut’s perspective, neither progresses nor moves toward a distinct goal and instead repeats itself in a terrifying cycle, at the center of which lie an unchecked will to power and the violent nature of humanity. In this sense the novel is a postmodern work of art, one that challenges accepted notions of truth, questions the nature of authority, and, rather than making meaning out of chaos and suffering, represents the fragmented nature of the modern world.

Billy Pilgrim, surviving the masochist whims of Roland Weary (mock-hero named for Roland from The Song of Roland, an epic poem dating from A.D. 1000), the voyeuristic torture of the zoo-obsessed Tralfamadorans, the nightmarish barbershop quartet singing of the “Febs” (Four-Eyed Bastards), and the unthinkable devastation of Dresden, learns that the universe is really a bunch of spaghetti. Nothing is off limits for Vonnegut. He tackles everything from the ridiculous to the sublime, from Sears furniture to war, with a satirical blowtorch that scorches cherished institutions such as love, war, Christianity, and family life, all of which melt under his fire. Not unlike English satirist Jonathan Swift’s use of fantastical, imaginary societies in his novel Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Vonnegut creates Tralfamadore—a safely distant, make-believe world populated by beings from the “fourth dimension” who communicate telepathically and perceive all of spatial and temporal reality at once—to critique a modern myopia.

Forming the central trope for the human blindness that Vonnegut so powerfully satirizes is the bombing of Dresden in 1945, one of the many atavistic horrors of the 20th century. Dresden’s bombing is an unspeakable memory, a psychological imprint that changes Billy Pilgrim and Kurt Vonnegut. In dealing with this pivotal event, Vonnegut does not paint it in a melodramatic manner or try to make meaning out of what seems to be senseless. Instead, he makes a horrific event comic.

While wars are not usually the stuff of which comedy is made, Vonnegut takes a German concentration camp, for example, and creates a fallen city. In this city, Brits and Americans battle continually over the correct, “civilized” way to comport themselves in time of war, and Billy Pilgrim appears as a pantaloon in an undersized jacket continually pursued by the avengers of Roland, who has announced to his fellow deportees, train-imprisoned and concentration- camp-bound, that Billy is responsible for his death. Yet, this revenge quest is not tragic but comic, for Billy learns that life is a never-ending maze of simultaneity that can be entered at any point, place, and time. Thus, Billy’s own death, his assassination during a public lecture on space aliens that he has already witnessed in his time travel, is not a threat to him, but one thin strand in Billy’s own spaghettilike conception of life that can be nibbled at or eaten around with ease, an inconsequential act that does not cancel out previous moments or end life but merely forms one instance in a never-ending experience.

Although Vonnegut is merciless, slamming institutions, entrenched beliefs, and values, Slaughterhouse-Five is a powerful affirmation of life. It challenges the world’s myopic vision by presenting an alternative to our conceptions of history, truth, and godliness. Slaughterhouse-Five, therefore, is an engaging, provoking examination of our humanity, with all of its imperfections, which will engender strong readings for generations to come. The novel is widely viewed as Vonnegut’s most significant work. It earned him an international reputation and enabled him to record an experience that he had wanted to write about for 23 years. Furthermore, it provided an opportunity to experiment, to liberate his style from the previous conventions to which he felt bound. Coinciding with 1960s protests and the peace movement, the novel appealed to youth, those for whom the Vietnam War was an ever-present danger. The novel was adapted for a film produced by

George Roy Hill in 1972 and received critical praise. In commenting on war, human dignity, and genocide, Vonnegut also details the process of creating fiction and the inherent problems therein. By placing himself in the novel and by creating a science fiction novelist character, Kilgore Trout, whose works parallel the action of the book, Vonnegut reveals his anxiety about fiction making and the effectiveness of the techniques he employs. He creates a “self- referential” text, one that comments on itself and on writing, that foils the expectations of readers and forces them to construct a cohesive story line from a disjunctive narrative. Despite its authorial intrusions and self-reflexive commentary, the novel relies on the reader.

In this sense Vonnegut relinquishes control over the event that has haunted him and leaves the reader to make sense out of the atavistic past and of the increasing inhumanity of the Vietnam experience. As a work incumbent upon the reader for its construction and interpretation, Slaughterhouse-Five is not merely a platform for Vonnegut’s ideas. It is an artwork that sustains multiple readings, one that can be applied to many different situations, including the many contemporary conflicts in which the world continues to engage. As such, it remains a pivotal 20th-century American novel, a bold experiment in narrative form that addresses significant social issues.

Because of its realistic and frequent depiction of what many consider to be foul language and sexually explicit content, Slaughterhouse-Five has been viewed as unfit for young minds. In fact, it is one of the most frequently banned works in American literature and has often been removed from school libraries and curriculums. Yet, many schools include the book as part of their curriculum and spend a good bit of time defending its worth. The Supreme Court of the United States even weighed the book’s merits in a landmark case, where it was one of the works scrutinized in Island Trees School District v. Pico 457 US 853 (1982).

The novel appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 at number 69. Like Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, James Joyce, and many other great writers, Vonnegut is often misunderstood and accused of being a pessimistic, amoral writer. Yet, he remains one of America’s great satirists and most profound moral thinkers. Slaughterhouse-Five marks the beginning of Vonnegut’s fame and the launching of a long and illustrious career.

This work, perhaps more than any of his others, challenges the status quo, causes us to rethink the way we live, leads us to imagine a new way of understanding our mortality, and shows us the brutality of war. To do all of this in the realm of comedy is no small feat. Slaughterhouse- Five remains a testimony to Vonnegut’s humor and depth, his biting satire and compassion for humanity. As such it remains a vital, pertinent work from which we all can learn not only about the culture in which we live but also about the way we all attempt to survive with some sense of dignity. In the words of the novel’s litany, one that follows every death it accounts for: And so it goes.

For Discussion or Writing:
1. Just as Vonnegut is best known for Slaughterhouse-Five, a novel that deals with war, so also are Ernest Hemingway and Stephen Crane known for war novels that help define their writing style, their view toward humanity, and their vision of war. Read Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms (1929) and Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage (1895), the novel Edward Derby reads to Billy Pilgrim as he recovers in the hospital and is heavily sedated on morphine. Although the focus of these three novels is a specific war— World War II, World War I, and the Civil War, respectively—each uses different techniques to capture the war experience. With this in mind, first compare and contrast each of the authors’ views on war. Next, compare and contrast the style, tone, characters, literary devices, and narrative techniques of the three novels. How does each novel help define and/or express the time during which it was written?

2. Read Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and compare it with Slaughterhouse-Five. How do these two novels represent war? What literary techniques and devices do both use? How does time sequence come into play in both, and why is that significant?

3. Research the bombing of Dresden and the bombing of Hiroshima. In terms of the information you find, is Vonnegut justified in saying that the Dresden bombing is “worse” than Hiroshima? Why or why not?

4. Compare and contrast the tone and visual style of the movie version of Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) with those of other antiwar films, such as All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Dr. Strangelove (1963), M*A*S*H* (197o), and Good Morning, Vietnam (1987).

5. Vonnegut employs authorial intrusions in Slaughterhouse-Five, moments when he speaks directly to the reader. How does this affect the novel? What purpose do these intrusions serve?

6. What does Billy learn from the Trafamadorans, and why is what he learns significant?

7. Visit the American Library Association site on challenged or banned books (http://www.ala. org/ala/oif/bannedbooksweek/challenged banned/challengedbanned.htm). After learning about why books are challenged, count the number of books by major American authors that have been challenged. What do you make of this? Evaluate Slaughterhouse- Five and judge whether it is a suitable book for young adults. If so, at what age is the book appropriate to be taught?

Breakfast of Champions; or, Goodbye Blue Monday! (1973). Content and Description

Marking his return to the novel form as well as his recovery from a bout of depression, Vonnegut wrote Breakfast of Champions as a “fiftieth birthday present” to himself, a therapeutic book. As Vonnegut stated in a 1973 interview with Playboy:

Writers get a break in one way, at least: They can treat their mental illnesses every day. If I’m lucky, the books have amounted to more than that. I’d like to be a useful citizen, a specialized cell in the body politic. I have a feeling that Breakfast will be the last of the therapeutic books, which is probably too bad. Craziness makes for some beautiful accidents in art. (Conversations 109)

These remarks betray the intensely personal nature of Breakfast of Champions, a work that also includes numerous authorial intrusions, so many that the line between author and character is blurred. Yet, despite the therapeutic value of the work for Vonnegut, Breakfast remains a biting, hilarious social commentary, a “tale of a meeting of two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet that was dying fast” (7). As Christopher Lehmann-Haupt writes in a New York Times May 3, 1973, review:

He makes pornography seem like old plumbing, violence like lovemaking, innocence like evil, and guilt like child’s play. He wheels out all of the latest fashionable complaints about America— her racism, her gift for destroying language, her technological greed and selfishness—and makes them seem fresh, funny, outrageous, hateful, and lovable, all at the same time.

Vonnegut peppers this whimsical narrative with felt-tip pen drawings, all of which depict life on Earth, and plot descriptions for the works of the pulp-science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout, who, in this novel, is a spiritual guru for the Pontiac dealer Dwayne Hoover, an insane but wealthy businessman on a quest for truth, who, at one time, painted a 500-pound bomb to be dropped on Hamburg, Germany, with the following inscription: “Goodbye Blue Monday.” Incidentally, Hoover is also convinced that everyone on Earth aside from him is a robot. The action of the novel takes place in Midland City, Ohio—“The asshole of the universe”—as Trout has been invited to speak at the city arts festival.

Trout arrives unshaven and filthy after hitchhiking from New York. During his travels he has been beaten and robbed. But, his disheveled appearance that day is usual. All the while, everyone is being watched over by an authorial presence from within the narrative who dictates their lives: Kurt Vonnegut. Trout and Hoover meet via Eliot Rosewater, an eccentric man of wealth, who idealizes Trout. As one might expect from Vonnegut’s scatological imagination, Trout publishes his novels through a pornographic press that fills his works with unrelated, sexually graphic illustrations. When he arrives in Midland City, where antipersonnel bombs and body bags are manufactured, Trout finds a Holiday Inn where Hoover’s son, Bunny, is playing the piano at the bar.

There, Hoover and the character Vonnegut wait. When they meet, Hoover, in a flight of frenzy, grabs one of Trout’s books, Now It Can Be Told, the story of an autonomous man alone in a world of humanoid robots placed there to amuse him. Luckily, Hoover is a speed reader and quickly makes his way through the book. Unfortunately, Hoover mistakes the plot for reality, becomes insane, hits Bunny, bites Trout’s ring finger, smashes Vonnegut’s watch, and crushes his big toe. At the end of the novel, Vonnegut reveals to Trout that he is his creator and that he intends to set him free. As they part ways, ostensibly for good, the narrative ends with Trout’s pleading with Vonnegut to make him young.

Trout’s emancipation is a symbolically significant act, not only for Vonnegut, who, as he states, tries with the writing of Breakfast of Champions to “clear [his] head of all the junk in there—the assholes, the flags, the underpants,” but also for American society as Vonnegut envisions it (Breakfast 5). As Vonnegut tries to get rid of “all the junk,” he relinquishes his control of Trout. This emancipation signals not only the liberation of a character, but also the liberation of fiction, which, for Vonnegut, means rethinking fiction’s purpose and the relationship between the social world and art. Thus, the novel, with all of its stock characters, becomes a parody of the American experience, which, for Vonnegut, dehumanizes us, making of us mere automatons. These concerns become explicit in the last section of the novel, where the narrator/author intrudes, speaking directly to the reader:

As I approached my fiftieth birthday, I had become more and more enraged and mystified by the idiot decisions made by my countrymen. And then I had come suddenly to pity them, for I understood how innocent and natural it was for them to behave so abominably, and with such abominable results: They were doing their best to live like people invented in story books. This was the reason Americans shot each other so often: It was a convenient literary device for ending short stories and books. . . .

Once I understood what was making America such a dangerous, unhappy nation of people who had nothing to do with real life, I resolved to shun storytelling. I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order, instead, which I think I have done. It is hard to adapt to chaos, but it can be done. I am living proof of that: It can be done. (209-210)

Thus, as do Kilgore Trout’s novels, The Barring-gaffner of Bagnialto or This Tear’s Masterpiece, American people and art become items of economic exchange, created, used, and destroyed. What is lacking in Vonnegut’s depiction of America, beyond the nothingness of fast-food restaurants and neon-lit motels, is care: the redirection of the self’s inward vision. By attempting to release his characters, Vonnegut shows empathy for his creation, a level of concern that is sorely lacking in a world that values order more than people.

Perhaps the only thing Breakfast gives us is a set of haunting questions designed to make us rethink our lives. After reading Breakfast, we may laugh at the musings of a 50-year-old author bent on pulling the world apart. We may see Vonnegut as a pessimist, but we cannot cease to wonder why we continue to perpetrate violent acts against one another, why we continue to destroy the planet, and why we cannot face the ugly specter of race.

For Discussion or Writing:
1. Just as Ernest Hemingway, in his nonfiction book Death in the Afternoon (1932), intrudes into the narrative, so also is Vonnegut a narrative presence in Breakfast of Champions. These authorial insertions, on one level, deal with fiction making: its purpose, its end, and its relationship to the life of the author. Playing the same cat and mouse game literary critics do when they ascribe authorial intention to works, both Vonnegut and Hemingway comment on the nature of interpretation. With these two works in mind, write a well-developed essay on the relationship between fiction and the life of its author. Should such a relationship be explored when studying literature? If not, why not?

2. Vonnegut uses Dwayne Hoover as an embodiment of American culture. With this in mind, write a well-developed essay on the traits Hoover exhibits and their relationship to Vonnegut’s satire of American social ills.

3. What effect do the numerous, often crude drawings scattered throughout the text have? How do the images affect your understanding of the novel?

4. The novel’s epigram is drawn from the Book of Job: “When he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold” (Job 23:10). With this epigram in mind, relate Job’s view of God to the plots of Trout’s fiction. How can both be said to further an understanding of God’s purpose for human life?

Works Cited and Additional Resources:
Allen, William Rodney, ed. Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1988.
Understanding Kurt Vonnegut. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1991.

Boon, Kevin A., ed. At Millennium’s End: New Essays on the Work of Kurt Vonnegut. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001.
Chaos Theory and the Interpretation of Literary Texts: The Case of Kurt Vonnegut. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997.

Bloom, Harold, ed. Kurt Vonnegut. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2000.
Bly, William. Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. Woodbury, N.Y.: Barron’s Educational Series, 1985.
Broer, Lawrence R. Sanity Plea: Schizophrenia in the Novels of Kurt Vonnegut. 2d. ed. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1994.
Chernuchin, Michael, ed. Vonnegut Talks! Forest Hills, N.Y.: Pylon Press, 1977.