How Is Formalism Illustrated in Slaughterhouse Five?

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                        How is Formalism Illustrated in Slaughterhouse-Five?

Formalism is a writing style that gives very great attention to rules and traditional forms by observing. This form shows literature as a peculiar illustration of the knowledge of humans and needs to be looked at independently. In this formalist criticism, all the concepts required to understand the story are within work itself. It lays emphasis on the content; however, criticism is largely seen. Formalists' criticism focuses on discourse genres and modes rather than content and culture (Bharvard 2).  People who write about formalism use certain literary terms to past the message. These terms include imagery, plot, character, theme, setting, the figure of speech. Formalism is used to determine how these elements work together with the content a message to the readers.

 The author of Slaughterhouse-five, Kurt Vonnegut, decides to write about history by using formalism. In an attempt create a more pleasant piece of writing; he uses the style of formalism to write about his experience in Dresden. Several examples of formalism are seen in the story. One quote illustrating this is " Billy Graham has become unstuck in time. Billy has gone to sleep a senile widower and awakened on his wedding day. He has walked through a door in 1955 and come out another one in 1941” (Moretti 208). Billy is confident that he does not exist in an exact time; he lives in all the time frames. He lives in the past, present, and future. This affects the way the story is written because the story does not have a smooth flow from the beginning to the end but it shifts around in time to different settings and all these work to bring out the big picture of the story.

 Symbolism and imagery have been used in this slaughterhouse-five story explicitly (Moretti 20). In the story, Billy does not spend most of his time searching for things, rather, he sits calmly on a horse-driven wagon that is coffin shaped which is green, and he waits for other comrades. He lies in the wagon and two doctors, who have a German origin, rebuke his act terming it as a mistreatment of the horses. The hooves of these horses are cracked and broken and thus they feel the pain as they walk through. The horses seem to be very thirsty as they pass through the ashy rubble of Dresden. The horses are shown to experience a lot of pain. Billy first weeps at the sight of observing the suffering that the animals are undergoing. Given that this is the only time that is recorded where Billy cries, this must be very important.

There is the similarity between the suffering that the horses undergo and the suffering that Bill undergoes. The horses do not have any ability to understand all the activities that are going on around them nor can they understand the commands and orders near them. The horses cannot complain about the way they are being treated. Day after day they keep walking through the rubble of Dresden, even though their hooves are damaged by each and every step they make. In the same way, Billy also suffers without understanding why. This is why Billy finds himself in tears.

Symbolism and imagery are also seen by comparing the horses and Roland weary, who is the first character to die in the story. Billy is almost shot by the bully weary before the Germans capture them. The Germans force their prisoner, Weary; to give away his boots for a pair of wooden clogs that is being worn by a German recruit. These wooden clogs are so rough. They end up injuring Weary as he walks and he develops gangrene and eventually dies. There exists a similarity between the suffering of Weary through the wooden clogs he wears at the beginning of Billy's experience of war and also the cracked hooves of the horses at the end.

The setting of Slaughterhouse-five covers a wide range of places. The two most important places are Germany during the Second World War and the fictional state in called Ilium where Billy stays for a greater part of his life. The harsh and painful experiences of violence and captivity in Germany make Billy begin skipping through time. The experience of the authors in Dresden is actually what makes the slaughterhouse-five to be written (Merill, Robert & Peter 70). We are shown in the first chapter that Billy and his wife spent time after the war in New York and this seems to be where the pilgrim of Billy, Ilium, is based. The similarities that exist between the experiences of Billy during the war and after the war and the narrator lay proof that this story is an autobiographical novel.
         The hospital is also another setting that is recurring in major parts of the story. The first night that Bill spends is in the POW camp in the hospital. While high on morphine, he meets Edgar Derby. After the war, Billy has a major breakdown and decides to check himself into a veteran's hospital. In this hospital, he meets a veteran called rosewater and also discovers novels about science fiction that seem to change his life for the next thirty years. Recovery is associated with the scenes of the hospital. As soon as Billy leaves the hospital, he appears to lose control again. When he is released from the prison hospital, he is shipped to Dresden. When he leaves the Veteran's hospital, he marries Valencia and starts a difficult life. Billy also gets into conflict with his daughter Barbara due to his escape from Vermont Hospital.

The tone is also illustrated in this story. The writer disregards emotion by saying that Valencia ‘yelps’ when crying over her husband’s almost fatal accident. This is insensitive as we know that Valencia adores her husband and her reaction is real. The writer goes on to say that the American fighters that die in the war are just not as fortunate as Billy. This way, he seems to trivialize something as emotionally involving as losing a human life. In addition, when describing the death of American POWs from friendly fire, he avoids proper adjectives such as ‘devastating’ and ‘tragic’ which would convey the real gravity of the occurrences (Pavlich 2).  The writer deadpans emotion throughout the scene, even though he manages to convey rage and sorrow, he does this in a very elusive away.