A Visionary Without Talent In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House Five

A visionary without talent

In slaughter house five, written by Kurt Vonnegut, Kilgore Trout is identified as a symbolic figure. He is a character that doesn't have much talent but, when it comes to sharing his insight, he shows his knowledge and speaks on what he knows. In a sense he “ enlarges the scope” of the novel by showing the severity of certain war material. Kilgore Trout, an author of many books is described as a visionary without talent. The stories that he writes have a significant resemblance to Billy’s experience with the Tralfamadorians. He writes many books and the only people that truly knew about his books were Billy Pilgrim and Eliot Rosewater. He's a man with many great ideas he’s just a terrible writer. The stories that Trout

In a way Trout symbolizes Billy. Billy finds himself interested in Trout because he feels as if his ideas on how he sees the world are different. Which is appropriate after what he experienced during the war. Throughout the story we see that Billy and Kilgore are the only characters that seem to relate to one another. Billy experiences a lot of flashbacks and Kilgore Trout refers to those flashbacks by saying that Billy sees through “ a time window”. Trout understands and see’s the way that Billy feels because it relates to him. As referred to earlier in Trouts works that he writes, it’s ironic how his stories relate to the elements of Billy’s life. Trout could also symbolize the role of the author Vonnegut. The reason why is because Vonnegut has different opinions of the world just like Trout. He has his own opinions and as a writer they both write about their opinions and views of the world. He finds a way to make the universe fit in how to his rules are and how he wants life to be viewed as. Although having an opinion isn't necessarily a bad thing, it only begins to be bad if it gets taken to the extreme. For example, the world is full of different people, different voices, and most