Kurt Vonnegut and Slaughter House Five :: Biography Biographies Essays

Kurt Vonnegut and Slaughter theatre Five   Kurt Vonnegut is one of the favorite dark humorists of the past century. Combining humor and poignancy, he has fit one of the most respected authors of his generation. For twenty years, Kurt Vonnegut worked on writing his most famous novel ever Slaughter House Five. The novelist was called A laughing illusionist of doom by the New York Times, and his novel a cause for celebration by the Chicago Sun-Times. However, Vonnegut himself thought it was a failure. He said that, just as Lots wife turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back, so his book is nothing but a pillar of salt. Kurt Vonnegut tied in personal beliefs, characters, and settings from his flavor into the novel Slaughter House Five.   Kurt Vonnegut grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana. He alluded to Indiana in his writings frequently and considered himself a Midwesterner. There were three traumatic experiences Vonnegut talked near in this novel that hap pened to him as he was growing up. One was when his father took him to the pool when he was young and taught him to swim by the drown if you dont method. Another time, he and his family went out to see the Grand Canyon. As he was looking over the edge his mother touched him and he wet his pants. The third experience he mentioned was when his family was touring a cave, he was very scared and then the tour guide asked everyone to turn off all their lights and it was pitch black except for two lambency red dots from his dad (Modern Critical Interpretations 4). These experiences showed through Vonneguts novel as his alienation from others throughout the book (Novels For Students 464).   Kurt Vonneguts personal beliefs in life, we also in Slaughter House Five. Vonnegut believes that only heart believes in freewill but it is non-existent. In his novel he writes about a group of aliens called tralfamadorians who come and take Billy to their introduction and put him in a zoo (Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 75). While Billy is with them, they teach him this also, and they are obviously the far superior race. Another belief that Vonnegut has, is that war is horrible, he says war is not an enterprise of glory and heroism, but an uncontrolled catastrophe for all involved (Novels For Students 265).