Slaughterhouse Five Passage Analysis

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English Essay 500 Word Journal #3 Revision In this passage from Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut argues that Humans use artistic outlets like literature to negate the traumatic influences of horrific events. In this passage, he does this by discussing several ideas, including science fiction, the effects of traumatic experiences, and the manner in which humans reinvent themselves. Kurt Vonnegut uses the thematic idea of Science Fiction to expose how humans deal with traumatic experiences, in this case with science fiction, but in general with literature and other artistic outlets. The end of the passage where the narrator, which can be interpreted to be Kurt Vonnegut, states that “Science Fiction” (pg. 101) could be used in dealing with traumas. Here, Vonnegut reuses the motif of aliens and science fiction that surrounds the entirety of the novel. The use of Science…show more content…
In the passage Vonnegut alludes to the “fire-bombing of dresden” calling it “the greatest massacre in European history” (pg. 101). This use of both a hyperbole and allusion, represents the great traumatic effect that the bombing had on both the character Billy Pilgrim and the narrator, Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut uses a hyperbole here, because the bombing of dresden was not the the most deadly event in Europe, to show the extreme effect the war has on people, because in their minds the event becomes larger, deadlier and hence more traumatic to them. This allows the reader to see the effects of these experiences, throughout the novel, and therefore to see how the men live with the effects. In this passage Vonnegut also uses the motif “So it goes” (pg 110), which is a representation of the cold outlook that soldiers must take to be able to deal with the issues that they are faced with, which in the case of the novel is death, and thus deal with
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