Physcoanalysis of Slaughterhouse - Five

Psychoanalysis of Slaughterhouse-Five

                                   By Collin Nixon

                                                         Ms. Mouillesseaux

                                         12/15/15

In Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, the reader is able to compare the juxtaposition of cruelty and humanity surrounding the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim in the most violent of settings in World War 2. Vonnegut uses this fictional novel to express his own real anti-war sentiments by exploring his psychoanalytic criticism of man, suggesting that man can be stripped of human compassion by the nature of war. Vonnegut projects his ideas through the characters in the novel, and through his own involvement in the novel as not only an author but as a mirror character who is addressed periodically throughout the novel.

The story behind the novel Slaughterhouse-Five is built around Kurt Vonnegut’s real experience in World War 2 and his story is told vicariously through the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim. Billy’s capture as a war criminal in Dresden during the Dresden fire-bombing is very similar to Vonnegut’s biographical life. Vonnegut on several occasions refers to himself in the story, “That was I, that was me. That was the author of this book” (page 125) is an example of this reference. The literal inclusion of Vonnegut as himself is a technique used frequently throughout the novel in order to remove the idea that this fictional story is far-fetched, because Vonnegut wants the reader to know that Billy’s experiences and emotions are a projection of his own real exposure to the horror of World War 2. Vonnegut does this to express his position of anti-war to his audience that may have otherwise not been able to connect Billy’s fictional hatred of war to Kurt Vonnegut’s actual hatred of war.

It is beyond doubt that the reoccurring message of anti-war in Slaughterhouse-Five is a message that guided the creation of the novel, but it is an ongoing question among critics as to why Vonnegut decided to publish this work twenty three years after his return from the war. During his capture in Dresden as a prisoner of war, Dresden was firebombed by Allied Air Forces which resulted in the death of over 135,000 people, a staggering number greater than the total number of casualties of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined (Encyclopedia Britannica). It can be assumed that any witness to the death of thousands of people would suffer some form of post-traumatic stress, therefore we could assume that Vonnegut was a similar victim to this trauma induced instability, which was arguably the reason he published this novel twenty three years “late”. The time period of Slaughterhouse-Five’s publication was also during the Vietnam War; a period of national resentment to US involved warfare, which perfectly suits the anti-war theme of the novel. Vonnegut portrays his struggle to regain consciousness from the traumatic experience in Dresden directly through Billy. He does this by providing Billy a story similar to his own about an unusual survival during a bombing where almost the entire population is vanquished. The harsh reality that he alone survived out of thousands is a subconscious guilt that eats away at Billy throughout the entire story. Vonnegut’s depiction of Billy during this time as a war-torn, self-loathing being, is another attempt to give the reader a perception of such a grotesque war that Billy’s life is forever tainted by war. As Billy’s post-traumatic stress follows him further into the novel, he is forced to “create” a world free of guilt in his imagination. Billy believes he is taken by aliens called Tralfamadorians, who teach him that time is predetermined and cannot be altered. This escape of fate ultimately results in Billy becoming “unstuck in time” in which he forces his memory to take over his mind in hope of forgetting his horrible past. When Billy traveled forward in time, he still ended up going back to war, this was showing that in the future, even on his death bed, he would not be able to escape the horrors that the war had done to him (Miska). Billy’s traumatic war experience directed him to a life of shame and humility which slowly diminished any fear of death he had. This reality is a huge factor in Billy’s attraction to his Tralfamadorian fallacy, simply because the Tralfamadorian philosophy is an acceptance in death (Lawrence).  Billy’s decreasing pursuit of life is a result of the war induced change of character that he is faced with.