Slaughterhouse-Five Summary: Analyzing the Themes of Destruction in Kurt Vonnegut’s Novel

Kurt Vonnegut has been an exemplary author with most of his works gaining international acclaim from literature pundits. He has been excellent at fictional material which he mostly derives from life experiences of war. His great craftsmanship has gifted him the ability to put his ideas to paper and he has entertained, educated and enlightened his audiences in numerous ways. Slaughterhouse Five is Vonnegut's attempt to explain the bombings and destruction of Dresden which claimed up to 100,000 lives and with his own war experiences, he uses Billy Pilgrim as a character to narrate the story. He employs numerous literature devices to get his message home and a variety of themes have been used in adequate proportions. The theme of war has been particularly pronounced as the book's central idea and this will be explained in a number of instances in this paper.

Slaughterhouse Five is not necessarily about war; in an attempt to narrate war, Vonnegut explains the anti-war aspects. The author speaks of the unpleasantness of war and how he has warned his sons in participating in any form of war. He explains that "I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee" (Vonnegut 19). Here the author's distaste for war is clear and how he intends to bring a generation after him that has the same opinion.

At the start of the book, Vonnegut narrates to his publisher Seymour how war experiences have no intelligence in them because wars leave quietness - which is symbolic for lifelessness. He explains that the book is "so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre" (Vonnegut 18). Even the birds have nothing to say about war due to its destructiveness other than "... things like "Poo-tee-weet?"(Vonnegut 18).

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Sadly, the destructiveness of war does not only dawn on the participants. It affects all those who are interested in it or not. In fact, those who dislike and are most afraid of it are the ones who get most involved in it. Vonnegut even explains "The nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought" (Vonnegut). The effects of war are so extensive that they even children are caught up in it and are portrayed in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne who are war-loving men.

Other than affecting those who dislike war, those involved in war get to experience far much worse consequences. In the fourth chapter of Slaughterhouse Five, when Billy was travelling through time very often across the story, he is able to see the destruction that the war causes. Most obviously, the war causes massive death of the participants. Vonnegut narrates that "American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses, took off backwards from an airfield in England". These were some of the horrific sights that Billy saw and it was here that he started questioning why he was to experience this.

Just like Vonnegut narrated that the war affected even the non-participants, it was clear here that war had immeasurable consequences. Other than the America planes that had bullet holes, Billy was subjected to more horrifying sights of war by the Tralfamadorians. He saw the "German fighter planes flew at them (wounded men and corpses) backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen" and how the same was done to American bombers. It was here that he even began to understand the meaning of free will and that war reduces man's choices; it steals from them their free will.

At the loss of free will is where Billy asks God of "the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can" (Vonnegut 60). Vonnegut is also surprised at how some people love war despite is negative outcomes. He explains how the combatants rejoice at the success and victory at the battlefield that it is equated to orgasm. In the third chapter, Vonnegut narrates how it is "in the imagination of combat's fans, the divinely listless love play that follows the orgasm of victory" (Vonnegut 52).

According to Vonnegut, war is triggered by the most basic reasons. Very minor issue are often the cause of war. Other than lust and enmity, he explains how money could start war; the war could even start from narrations about money. For instance, human beings fought over the only trees that Trout wrote in the books. Vonnegut explains "Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree. It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. Its flowers were government bonds. Its fruit was diamonds" (Vonnegut). Sadly, the human beings would fight and even die to make the soils fertile; "It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer" (Vonnegut). The author satirizes how the burial of human beings contribute to soil fertility after they die.

In summary, Slaughterhouse Five, is Kurt Vonnegut's approach to describe war as he understands it. Generally, however, he explains his displeasure at war, and most probably because of the destruction of Dresden and other major cities that fell victim to merciless war. In most instances, the repercussions of warfare are often retrogressive and this is the reason he warns his sons of taking part in any of them. Cut to the bone, the book is an anti-war apparatus.

Works Cited

1. Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five. [New York]: Delacorte Press, 1969. Print.

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