Slaughterhouse Five

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

has many things in common with his creator: an American artist within Nazi Germany, doing what he felt was necessary to stay alive and to further his work. The author himself tells us he had to write this book. His subtitle “A Duty-Dance with Death” also takes on a personal aspect. Vonnegut had to reconcile himself with the war, the death, and its impact on him.
Tools and Context (war)

Through the use of philosophies and ideas, characters, and entire settings, Kurt Vonnegut makes his experiences as a soldier and a prisoner in the Germany of World War II an important part of his writing, as it is no doubt an important part of his life. He is able to take the attitudes and feelings of himself and of the general population during and following the war, and to use them to spin fabulous yarns warning against the dangers of militarism and excessive scientific zeal, without detracting from his own story. There is no doubt that World War II played a crucial role in ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

The bombing of Dresden, Germany is why it took Kurt Vonnegut so long to write this book. The human pain and suffering is still fresh in the mind of the author twenty-three years later. One can only imagine the intense emotional scarring that one would suffer after exiting an underground shelter with a dozen other men to find a city destroyed and its people dead, corpses laying all around. The main character of this novel mirrors the author in many ways, but the striking similarity is their inability to deal with the events of Dresden on the night of February 13, 1945.


Themes


The theme that Kurt Vonnegut wanted everyone who ...

Succeed in your coursework without stepping into a library. Get access to a growing library of notes, book reports, and research papers in 2 minutes or less.

CITE THIS PAGE: