Reading 3

Vonnegut’s Slaughter-house Five is filled to the brim with instances of cruel irony and dark humor. After completing the novel, I still don’t really feel a sense of closure or an inclination to label the book as one thing or another. Vonnegut switches from war novel to allegory to science fiction and back again far too many times and in such and intermingled and delicate way for the book to be given one simple label. Although this makes the book a bit hard to follow and completely digest, Vonnegut really does employ some effective literary tools.

Perhaps the greatest example of irony is the passage when the Englishman is speaking to the Americans before they leave their camp about Dresden and proclaims, “You needn’t worry about bombs, by the way. Dresden is an open city….” This is very tragic and really made me cringe as I read on about the rambling of the elated Englishman. Going into the book almost every reader knows the fate of Dresden and there are many small instances when the reader and Billy Pilgrim alike are tortured by this foresight.

Another device that Vonnegut employs to help keep the readers cringing is simply his diction. There are many passages in Slaughter-house Five that are so saturated with description and vivid imagery that even though they may be immensely morbid or grotesque you can’t help but read them twice to really appreciate them. Descriptions like, “Next to Lazzarro was the poor old high school teacher, Edgar Derby, mournfully pregnant with patriotism and middle age and imaginary wisdom.” Pregnant with patriotism, both the alliteration coupled with just bizarre and not often associated terms made me really appreciate this passage. This type of passage is not in poor company. There are many grotesque war descriptions or other bizarre perspectives on the people around Billy to keep the reader enticed. One of my other favorite descriptions that Vonnegut used was the description of Dresden after the bombing as the moon. This image is utilized throughout the second half of the book and ties in the reality of what happened with the delusions of Billy’s extraterrestrial life. I think that although Vonnegut’s writing is undeniably scattered there are certainly passages and even whole parts of the novel that deserve recognition for skilled diction and imagery.

In my last post I talked about the effectiveness of the use of repetition in this novel and the last half and end of the book certainly upheld my belief that this is one of the devices that Vonnegut frequently and effectively employs. I noticed that there are two times in the second part of the novel (at least) where passive Billy talks about everything being all right. This repetition really drives the point home. On page 200 when Billy is being taken down the mountain from the accident and is looking at the chairlifts his delusional thoughts are narrated as this, “He supposed that they were a part of an amazing new phase of World War Two. It was all right with him. Everything was pretty much all right with Billy.” This shows both his passiveness in an extreme situation as well as his declining mental state. Later Billy tells Rumfoord in the hospital “Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does, I learned that of Talfamadore.” He again is referencing the war. There is such tragic understatement in both of these instances, but I think that Billy simply feels that he is powerless to do or be anything but passive after his life experiences. As the story is winding down Vonnegut also uses the repetition of soot and chalk, which build some of the closing images, especially of Montana Wildhack. These images are a part of what I would call the final unveiling of Billy’s declined mental state which occurs predominately in the final detailing of his trip to New York.

You find out where a lot of the bizarre elements of Billy’s delusions, like Montana Wildhack and Kilgore Trout’s novels, in such a subtle yet not-so-subtle manner. Billy’s trip to New York therefore is really symbolic of the last of Billy’s sanity and dignity really being taken away from him. Dark is this book indeed. There are glimmers of humor but this novel is not something I would choose for a light and laughable read. I’m not sure that I am much of a fan of dark humor although I can appreciate the instances of irony that are used for such means.

My thoughts on Slaughter-house Five are still a bit disheveled, perhaps because of the book’s format itself. The ending with the repetition of ‘Po-tee-weet?’ was simple and honest and one of the things that sticks out to me in retrospect.  I think that this simple ending is just what the book needed. Vonnegut couldn’t have had an elaborate ending with the glory of the war’s end detailed. That would have been generic and mainstream. Instead, the use of the bird reference and repetition of ‘Po-tee-weet?’ end the book engaging the reader to keep thinking even though the novel has ended.