Time traveling, aliens, war, awkward relationships, and PTSD, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five moves and evolves through every page.

   As a part of the 1818 Social justice and Conflict in Literature course that Cindy Kalachek is teaching, students have been dissecting Slaughterhouse Five. This book follows Billy Pilgrim, a pathetic and confused veteran, as he experiences post traumatic stress disorder. He time travels to different points in his life and is captured and taken to a different planet, Tralfalmadore.  The creatures on this planet help Billy cope with the horrors that he experienced during the bombing of Dresden during World War II*. 

 This book does not follow a chronological order, it skips around and gives you bits of information, so you have to keep reading to fully understand Billy’s life.

   The author, Kurt Vonnegut, was a survivor of the Dresden bombing, so the reader gets glimpses of his personal experiences through the novel. Vonnegut experienced tremendous amounts of death and destruction throughout the war, and uses postmodernism to express how it has changed him. Throughout the book he emphasizes how people with PTSD are not given the help that they need.  He also brings in themes of what truly matters in life, why we fight against the inevitable, the pros and cons of religion, and how war destroys places as well as people.

   Slaughterhouse Five is a heavy book.  It can be tough to follow at times because it constantly jumps around to different points in Billy’s life. It has long sections that are not riveting or exciting. However, this is a book that will make you think and reevaluate how you interact with the world around you and how your experiences have shaped you. I strongly recommend finding a copy of Slaughterhouse Five and delving into the complex world of Billy Pilgrim and the Tralfalmadorians.

*Editor’s note: The author originally incorrectly stated that the Dresden Bombing was during World War I. The bombing was during the second World War and the article has been updated to reflect that.