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The Catastrophe of War in Slaughterhouse Five The Catastrophe of War in Slaughterhouse-Five Russian Prime Minister Joseph Stalin once said, "A single death is a
Submitted by saramazing24 on June 9, 2005
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The Catastrophe of War in Slaughterhouse-Five
Russian Prime Minister Joseph Stalin once said, "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." The impersonalization of war and death that he shares is an realistic characterization of war; originally intending to improve the lives of people, yet inevitably leading to the destruction of human life. Author Kurt Vonnegut endorses this view in his novel Slaughterhouse-Five; he shows that war can never be justified as long as innocent life is lost. Throughout Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut explores the theme of free will in order to illustrate the absurdity of war. Vonnegut conveys this through setting, characters, structure, and style.
Vonnegut uses setting to convey the terrors of war by juxtaposing the hell-like Dresden with the heavenly Trafalmador. After the firebombing of Dresden, when the soldiers emerge out of a slaughterhouse, they find the entire city desolate and destroyed. As the soldiers wander out of the slaughterhouse, Vonnegut writes, "One thing was clear: Absolutely everybody in the city was supposed to be dead, regardless of what they were, and that anybody that moved represented a flaw in the design. There were to be no moon men at all. 135,000 civilians are killed in the raid, almost twice the number who would later die at Hiroshima" (Vonnegut 180). While in Dresden, the soldiers were surrounded by death, and even rode in a "coffin-shaped green wagon" (Vonnegut 194) through the ruins. The Dresden firebombing also exemplifies the absurdity of war because Dresden was an open city with no military significance, yet the Allies decided to bomb it anyways. In contrast with Dresden, while held captive on the far-off planet of Tralfamador, Billy Pilgrim lives an ideal life, in which he is sleeping with a beautiful movie star. Also, the Tralfamadorian view on free will releases Billy from any guilt he felt about the war. When describing wars, one Tralfamadorian claims, "There...
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