Comparing Slaughterhouse Five And On The Natural History Of Destruction
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In Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut the characters attempt to ignore the bombing of Dresden and treat it with no obvious signs of empathy. These actions show a similarity to the passage taken from On the Natural History of Destruction by Sebald which discusses how people deal with destructive events. The characters in both Slaughterhouse Five and the given passage from On the Natural History of Destruction act as if the bombings in Germany had no effect. The passage from Sebald’s book refers to how people in Germany react to the bombings and how their way of coping is to not cope at all, but rather go on as if the event never occurred. Billy Pilgrim reacts a different way by creating his own imaginary world in replacement of the world he knew, the world that was brutally destroyed by the bombings in Dresden, Germany.…show more content… The first line of the book Billy is starting to write is “Listen: Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time” and Billy saying this shows he believes that he uncontrollably time travels to different parts of his life whether it be past, present, or future. He subconsciously leaves intense and difficult situations by time traveling. Billy first time-shifts in the Luxembourg forest because he had fallen behind the others, and no longer had any will to keep going. At this point in time he was in a tough situation and time-shifted to escape. Billy also time-shifts to Tralfamadore, the planet inhabited by Tralfamadorians who had abducted Billy, and finds comfort in their concept of time and life. The Tralfamadorians think all points in time exist simultaneously, and that it is