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Archetypes In Slaughterhouse Five

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Throughout Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut intertwines reality and fiction to provide the reader with an anti-war book in a more abstract form. To achieve this abstraction, Kurt Vonnegut utilizes descriptive images, character archetypes, and various themes within the novel. By doing so, he created a unique form of literature that causes the reader to separate reality from falsehood in both their world, and in the world within Vonnegut’s mind.
Vonnegut focuses a lot on the characters and their actions in “Slaughterhouse Five.” Within the novel characters are stripped of their human identity. Soldiers are forced to be naked and bare, and pornography or sexual dialogue plagues the interactions between many of the characters. These individuals are then forced to evolve into a new being, whether that be from a teacher to a soldier, or a porn star to a …show more content…

The concept of a hero and villain are not prevalent within the novel, because that would imply a winner or a loser. The narrator, who the reader can assume shares similar ideologies to Vonnegut, explains how he does not believe that war should be glorified nor does it warrant any victors. Instead, Vonnegut focuses his attention on the idea of an outcast or an underdog. In a way every character has these qualities, Billy is made to seem crazy by his daughter, Montana is extremely sexualized, and Weary is damaged and alone. All of these characters are struggling because they are trying to make sense of what they have endured (this concept of soul searching, and going within one’s subconcious is seen metaphorically in the constant appearance of caves). Regardless, the only characters that are able to truly decipher anything are the narrator and the tralfamadorians, or the wise characters. Both of these characters explain essentially that life is what it is, and it will always be; no action or reaction matters because in the end it will

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In order to convey a message author sometimes breaks away from the traditional way of portraying a protagonist. They do this to maybe go against other books written within the same genre or to make them stand out. Some books that have exhibited this characteristic are; Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and the fairy tale The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter. In each of these stories, the author creates a protagonist that goes against the norms of the genre.

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Schlachthof-fA1/4nf is German for “Slaughterhouse-Five”, the name of the building that he lives and he works in at the concentration camp, and if a guard ever approaches him he is to recite those words. The war traumatizes Billy so much that after being in the plane crash he does not know where or when he is and thinks the German speaking ski instructor is a German guard. Billy continuously re-experiences events in forms of distressing images, thoughts, perceptions, and dreams – his trauma is an aspect of his life that is beyond his control. The trauma from war exists in the lives of soldiers even after combat and veterans, including Billy, often mask their trauma rather than trying to cope.

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In the film American Sniper directed by Clint Eastwood and the novel Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, both works exhibit depiction of war through the protagonist. However, each work is portrayed differently as they each show a representation with opposite depiction of war. While one decides to promote war, the other diminish it. In Eastwood’s adaptation of American Sniper, his insight appears as a promotion for pro-war propaganda, in contrast, Slaughterhouse Five depicts ideas that portray the war in a poor light. American Sniper retells the story of Chris Kyle, a Navy Seal who was reported to have 160 confirmed kills.

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