Slaughter House-Five Analysis

Slaughter House-Five Analysis

        Slaughter House-Five has the characteristics of many disturbing pro-war and anti-war movies, but is far from any war movie to date. I believe movie does not display any characteristics of a either being anti or pro-war, but it does display a very disturbing way of how what was then none as “combat neurosis” or “battle fatigue”. Bill Pilgrim, the main character of the film is used to show how the writer, Kurt Vonnegut dealt with the atrocities of war and mainly the firebombing of Dresden that is a major point in the movie. Kurt Vonnegut was also considered a pacifist and there for Billy Pilgrim is also displayed as one too. Theories to support this would be how Billy did not do anything to change certain events in his life, such as when his father was teaching him how to swim and he just allowed himself to sink to the bottom and refuse to change something so minor in his life. Billy also does not try to resist any conflict or situation that happens to him in the movie, he seems to just go along with everything. He also refuses to change some life events in his past since he is aware of the time change.

        Billy also fails to stand up for himself most of the time. This could be because either his free will is being taken away from him right before a time jump or because as a true pacifist he just goes with the flow of life and adapts to life rather than change it or cause a conflict. Billy does stand up for others such as when his friend Edgar Derby is shot and killed by an SS officer for looting. This all reflects Vonnegut's well know belief in humanism, in that all humans have value.

        All this ties into the time jumps and how each time jump was conveniently synced with any type of traumatic event in Billy's life. From Billy learning to swim, his wife dying an to his most traumatic event of the Dresden fire bombing. All of these time jumps provide an effective way of how billy is trying to cope with all of these traumatic events, specifically the Dresden bombings.