“Slaughterhouse
Five” by Kurt Vonnegut is a book about his experience at the bombing of the
city of Dresden during World War Two. Using a fictional character named Billy
Pilgrim, Vonnegut describes his reaction to the war while making the book seem
more fictional than nonfiction. While writing about the events that Billy
experiences, Vonnegut is sending out a big anti-war message. He is stating that
war isn’t all about glory and heroism; it is about human suffering and loss.
First
off, the title of the book isn’t just Slaughterhouse Five. The book also has
another title called The Children’s Crusade. This is important in that Vonnegut
is sending the message that the war wasn’t fought by men, it was fought by
people who were too young to be experience the horrors of war. In the beginning
chapter of the Book, Vonnegut tells us the story about how the title came to
be. When he was meeting with fellow veteran O’Hare, the wife of O’Hare got angry.
She didn’t want Vonnegut to write about how he marched off to Europe and
claimed a lot of glory. She says, “You'll pretend you were men instead of
babies, and you'll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or
some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look
just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them. And they'll be fought by babies
like the babies upstairs”. She wanted him to write the book in a way that it
wouldn’t encourage others to go off to war. By including this story, Vonnegut
is taking a more serious stance on the war. He is stating that the events that
happened in the book shouldn’t be taken lightly, and should be respect in their
brutal nature.
In the
actual text that features Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut keeps his promise to O’Hare’s
wife. Rather than having the events in the book seem heroic, he makes everything
brutal and states that heroism has no place in the book. One stand-out scene is
the capture of Robert Weary and Billy Pilgrim by German soldiers. At first, you
get sense of their being almost this fantasy happening with Weary and the two scouts.
Vonnegut writes that the trio call themselves the Three Musketeers. This gives
us an image of three heroes marching off the fight the big bad Germans. Unfortunately,
this comes to a sad, and realistic end. The two scouts get shot in the back,
while Weary ends up dying from Gangrene. Vonnegut is stating that fantasy and
happy endings don’t exist in war. Instead, you just get lots of death. He
writes “Three inoffensive bangs came from far away. They came from German
rifles. The two scouts who had ditched Billy and Weary had just been shot”.
Vonnegut has this casual tone of voice, almost like the deaths of the scouts
were just another statistic. This sends the message that war isn’t all fun and
games, it is just a game of death.
Overall,
Slaughterhouse Five really has this anti-war vibe to it. The mere descriptions
of what happens to Billy is enough to almost frighten readers away. The discussing
the reality of war, Vonnegut sends a message that states that war is not fun
for anybody.
