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Literary Analysis Of Slaughterhouse Five

845 Words4 Pages

Nickens Lemba
English 12B
Breeden
February 10, 2023
Slaughterhouse Five Literary Analysis Paper. This is weird Many words invade my mind as I contemplate the purpose, position, and prominence of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. I must assert, after a thorough review, that his work is surprising. From the start, Slaughterhouse-Five seems weird, yet the more you read, the more entrancing it becomes. He masterfully merges melancholy and comedy to expose the fact that war is a senseless tragedy plagued by violence, evil, depression, and anxiety. For Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five represented an unholy trinity as it was a metaphor, the main character’s struggle, and Vonnegut’s literal place of shelter during imprisonment. Slaughterhouse-Five is, first of all, where Billy Pilgrim - the main character, winds up during the war; however, it is also the interpretation of what war is; and is, lastly, the place where Vonnegut actually spent several months at the end of World War II. Through metaphors, motifs, and imagery, Vonnegut presents a surprising text that both captivates and baffles its readers. When I read the first words of the text, I began to feel a sense of melancholy or utter unhappiness. Understandably because it is the tone of voice of someone …show more content…

Time to Tralfamadorians is an enigma because they can experience past, present, and future all at once. This causes him to grapple with the ability to change or even to accept changes as they occur. He states, “Among the things that Billy could not change were the past, the present, and the future” (55). All of this after observing the Serenity prayer on Billy’s wall that read, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference” (54). Essentially, he cannot change what has already happened to him and realizes that he literally has no free

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