... February of 1945, the greatest man-caused massacre in history. The novel is about the life and times of a World War 2 veteran named Billy Pilgrim. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut uses structure and point of view to portray the theme that time is relative. The way Kurt Vonnegut ... no chronological order. This mirrors the structure of the novel, which has a beginning, middle, and end, but not in their respective places. (Dawley 1) Billy states numerous times in the novel that he has becomeunstuck in time? and that the time travel periodsaren't necessarily fun?. (Vonnegut 23) While t...

• Word Count: 1028
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... fear of. There is an expression that appears several times, `so it goes', that becomes visible after death is mentioned, which is something Tralfamadorians tough Billy when he was kidnapped by a flying saucer (" When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad ... . What made the Dresden bombing even more horrible to him was that as a prisoner, he was ironically protected from the bombs and fire. Billy's being always bemused, utterly helpless, even ridiculous, fits him for the role of an innocent man in a cruel world. The innocence of those ... who...

• Word Count: 1047
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... a much greater meaning and message behind it. "So it goes" is a phrase used throughout the entire book many times. This phrase shows up whenever the character Billy Pilgrim encounters death. He is basically saying that death is no big deal. Vonnegut even uses the phrase "so it goes" in the first chapter to describe himself ... silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist" (26,27). The fact that Billy looks at death this way helps explain why he is so numb to death. Vonnegut wants to show that war is not glorious a...

• Word Count: 679
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... of telling his story of Dresden. The setting of Slaughterhouse-Five is wide-ranged, each place having a significant effect on Vonnegut's story through the life of Billy Pilgrim. The three most important places are Germany during world war two; Ilium, New York, before and after the war; and an alien planet called Tralfamadore ... . Ilium, New York is the fictional town in New York where Billy Pilgrim is born in 1922 and where he lives most of his life. In Chapter 1, Vonnegut tells us that after the war he and his wife ... mirrors the narrators the most. Vonnegut having experienced war and...

• Word Count: 521
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... in the basement of Slaughterhouse Five during the bombing and manage to escape unharmed. Another important setting in the book is the planet of Tralfamadore, where Billy is taken by aliens. There he is held captive and displayed in a zoo, along with his earthling mate, Montana Wildhack, an american star of pornographic ... about himself, the story, and how he wrote it. Vonnegut actually appears as a character in some of the war scenes. The protagonist of the novel is Billy Pilgrim, a mild man. Even though he becomes a successful optometrist, gets married to Valencia, and has two children...

• Word Count: 803
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... we go throughout life chronologically, he slips in and out of periods of his life, in and out of time and lives in that moment. One time Billy was abducted by aliens called Trafamadorians. These aliens experience life in the 4th dimension, time. "A Trafamadorian sees all time as you might see a stretch ... is important and defines the person's character. This book is written very much in a Trafamadorian style. It does not focus on the entire life of Billy Pilgrim, but instead focuses on certain moments of his life. When humans look at another's life, they do not focus on death but on how...

• Word Count: 1091
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... , "so it goes" followed. The first use of this phrase was right in the beginning; the narrator was referring to a cab driver that Billy Pilgrim and his old friend from war were acquaintances with, "His mother was incinerated in the Dresden fire-storm. So it goes" (Vonnegut 2). This ... the Bulge, Vonnegut was there during the bombing of Dresden. He was sent there as prisoner of war, which the antagonist in the novel, Billy Pilgrim, was as well. During the actual bombing, Vonnegut was luckily underground inside an air-raid shelter, with the other American prisoners. He saw ... mentions of...

• Word Count: 1071
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School