Slaughterhouse Five Kurt Vonnegut Analysis

Tesher Zafrin

Summer Reading

Slaughterhouse Five – Kurt Vonnegut

1.

In Chapter One, the writer goes to O’Hare’s house to find some inspiration for the book. Having been discussing the war for a while now, he (and the reader) notices that O’Hare’s wife seems to be upset. Kurt Vonnegut 7% (I read the book on a kindle) “She was moving all over the house opening and shutting doors, even moving furniture around to work off anger.” O’Hare insists that it has nothing to do with the writer yet it clearly does and soon his wife snaps, and explains herself. Kurt Vonnegut 8% “Well, I know, she said. “You’ll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you’ll be played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we’ll have a lot more of them. And they’ll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs.” This passage is essentially shouting the minds of common people at the time, the people who had to send their loved ones to war, the people who had to sit and pray every day for their family to be okay. To me the passage is not only intriguing for how well it shows what people at the time (and still know) were thinking, but I also liked how seamlessly this very vocal (to the era)

Curt Vonnegut 100% “One bird said to Billy Pilgrim, Poo-tee-tweet?” This passage is tying in with the beginning of the book were the bird is mentioned in chapter one. Curt Vonnegut 10% “And what do birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like Poo-tee-tweet?” Although this is a very common stylistic choice – to tie the first chapter in with the last; I appreciated the fact that it was subtle enough to be easily skipped if not read carefully. Furthermore every chapter in the book seemed to foreshadow the next and reminisce the previous one so it seemed fitting to have the first and last chapters tie in the same