Comparing Slaughterhouse-Five 'And The Things They Carried'

Under brutal circumstances of warfare, people have decided soldiers’ manipulated perspectives was subsequent to violence. In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, readers are introduced to the protagonist named Billy Pilgrim, a cowardly soldier that witnessed the firebombing of Dresden. Moreover, Tim O’Brien was a character throughout his own story The Things They Carried, he, too provided insight on (admittedly made-up) events that occurred during his time at Vietnam. In spite of these two soldiers having completely opposite experiences, the reality of war is the fact that encountering death on a regular basis would drive one to blatantly accept it or become numb towards it. To be specific, from Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut showcases numbness towards death through Billy Pilgrim. Prior to the soldier interacting with Tralfamadorians

Slaughterhouse-Five, a phenomenon written by Kurt Vonnegut, features his protagonist Billy Pilgrim who discovered a new fundamental of death and became disconnected from actuality. It is concluded that Billy does not feel the need to be terrorized by the countless amount of corpses he encountered at war; resulting to his numbness. On the contrary, Tim O’Brien was able to make peace with death in The Things They Carried due to the realization that he can keep his friends (and himself) alive via stories. Many observations were made across both novels, although some were contradicting, there were ideas that enhanced each other. It is prominent as readers to be aware of the multiple connotations within a single quote. Ultimately, interpretations can vary but it is transparent that these authors wanted to draw out contrasting perspectives so that we can depict it ourselves. For all one knows, there is a possibility that Billy Pilgrim accepted death and Tim O’Brien was the one who no longer felt toward