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Slaughterhouse Five Effects Of War Essay

867 Words4 Pages

The Effects of War Throughout history there has been an immense amount of wars. Since World War One which was from 1914-1918 there has been 260 significant wars; one of those wars was World War 2. To be the country we are today it takes many daily sacrifices. In Slaughterhouse Five the main character Billy Pilgrim, is affected mentally, physically, and emotionally from being in war. Being in a war especially World War 2 you see many people die, they can be your friends, family, acquaintances, or even a stranger. All of those deaths do mean something, death is a natural thing that will happen to everyone. Watching people get murdered is definitely something different then you're natural cause of death. It really messes with your head, and the …show more content…

In almost everything he does he is the odd man out. Billy seems like the weird person who just always seems out of place and like he doesn't belong. 1969 was the year that this book was published. PTSD was discovered in 1980, so therefore in the book they couldn't define Billy’s condition. As even in reality they didn't know what it was. PTSD is short for post-traumatic stress disorder. From start to finish of Slaughterhouse Five there are many showings that Billy has PTSD. In this book Billy is “unstuck” in time, but I think that is just how the author portrays his PTSD. In the very beginning of the book Kurt Vonnegut tells us “Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. Billy has gone to sleep a senile widower and awakened on his wedding day” (Vonnegut 23). Billy can go from being a prisoner in war to on a planet called Zircon-212. That was the planet he would frequently visit and stay in a zoo there. He bounces in and out of so many times in his life. Half way through the book he flashes to the day he dies, but since he is unstuck in time it really doesn't matter. In real life no one is unstuck in time, no matter what. We all live one day at a time and there’s nothing more or less we can do about

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