Slaughterhouse Five - Criticism

Jacob Miller
Dawn Weathersbee
AP Literature & Comp.
17 October 2013

Literary Criticism: Slaughterhouse Five
I'm going to be taking the psychological approach to my novel Slaughterhouse Five. The
mind plays a big part in the story, I would like to think about how Billy Pilgrim, the main
character, deals with his post-war problems and his unfortunate time-traveling situations. I like
to think about what the characters think about throughout the course of the story and how
they cope with the problems they come across.
"A fresh look at Slaughterhouse-Five using psychiatric theory not only offers new insight
into the work but also opens a window on the author himself." (Susanne Vees-Gulanni) Being a
prisoner of war puts a huge strain on a person's psyche. "When I got home from the Second
World War twenty-three years ago, I thought it would be easy for me to write about the
destruction of Dresden, since all I would have to do is report what I would have seen" (Page 2)
As you can see, the war has put such a huge toll on Billy Pilgrim, mentally and physically.
As the novel progresses, you start to see his biggest issue put into perspective, he time
travels uncontrollably to different part of his life, seeing his death before it happened, even
reliving his birth over again. Billy doesn't know what to do, he's lulled into a state of confusion,
many thought to be schizophrenia. "Attempting to define Billy's psychological state more
precisely, critics have frequently associated Slaughterhouse-Five and its protagonist with
schizophrenia, most likely inspired by the author's own comments on the title page
characterizing the novel as "somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the
planet of Tralfamadore." (Susanne Vees-Gulanni) As you can see, even the critics agree that he
has mental problems from what he has seen and what will come into play later in his life.
One night Billy Pilgrim is abducted by what he thinks is aliens, and what is later
described to him as the "Tralfamadorians". They tell him about free will and the progress of
time. Billy has figured out that he has no reign over his own free will, the future is already
planned for him, and there's no changing it. "Psychiatry can provide tools for a systematic
approach to the trauma visible in the novel. The psychological consequences of the experience
of war and especially the Dresden bombings can be ready analyzed using the criteria now
established by psychiatrists to diagnose post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)" (Susanne Vees-
Gualanni)
Psychologically, Billy has never really left World War 2, his spasms in time and space
make him relive traumatic experiences over and over, punishing him mentally and physically,
destroying his sense of time and memory. "So it goes" is Billy's main quote throughout the
novel. That is his response to death and destruction, he has experienced it so much it does not
seem to affect him anymore.
Some critics argue that perhaps his time traveling is not as spastic as it seems and is in
more of a logical order. "In spite of Vonneguts insinuation, most critics accept the nonlinear
time structures of Billys story according to his description of them. Sharon Sieber even
introduces the chaos theory of the twentieth century and James Gleicks opinion that chaos
and arbitrary or random events, characterized by a lack of any perceivable pattern, often
involve the perception of yet a larger circle (Page. 149). Their analyses are right in a way but
Billys spastic condition is not so unpredictable as he claims. His narrative is structured in a
far more logical order than at first appears." (Reiko Nitta) I personally believe it is in a logical
enough order to tell the story without confusion, but spastic enough to leave you not knowing
what will happen next.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is probably the biggest mental problem displayed in this
book, as Billy must re-experience the worse times in his life, you just have to think about what a
struggle that is for his mental state to hold it all in. War is such a terrible thing, nobody comes
back the same, it forever warps people's minds and not for the better.

Citations
Susanne V. "Diagnosing Billy Pilgrim: A Psychiatric Approach to Kurt Vonnegut's
Slaughterhouse-Five." Discus. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.scdiscus.org/discus-resources>.

Reikko N. "Kurt Vonnegut's Psychological Strategies in Slaughterhouse-Five." PsyArt: An Online
Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2013.

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Jacob Miller

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