Slaughterhouse Five

1
Slaughterhouse Five

• Characters and Themes
• Introduction

2
Kurt Vonnegut

• The author and a minor character.
• Struggled to write the novel about his
  experiences during WII

3
Bernhard V. OHare 

• Bernhard V. OHare -  A wartime pal of Vonnegut.
  OHare appears when Vonnegut visits him and his
  wife in Pennsylvania while trying to do research
  and collect remembrances for his Dresden book.

4
Billy Pilgrim

• A World War II veteran, POW survivor of the
  firebombing of Dresden, prospering optometrist,
  husband, and father. Billy Pilgrim is the
  protagonist of the novel.
• Pilgrim has the unique ability to come unstuck
  in time.
• Uncontrollable/ the trips arent necessarily
  fun(23).

5
Mary OHare 

•  Bernhard OHares wife. Mary gets upset with
  Vonnegut because she believes that he will
  glorify war in his novel Vonnegut, however,
  promises not to do so.

6
Gerhard Müller 

• The non-fictional taxi driver who takes Vonnegut
  and OHare back to their Dresden slaughterhouse.

7
War

• Remember, war in itself is not a THEME, but
  Vonneguts story SHOWS things about war.
• The absurdity of war
• The glorification of war
• The life-changing effects of war
• The destructiveness of war

8
Death

• The inevitability of death
• How do we, as humans, view death vs. the
  actuality of death?
• Should the fact that death is inevitable make it
  lose any of its sadness to us?

9
Time

• What are the properties of time?
• Chronological time vs. true time
• How do we, as human-beings, accept times
  properties?

10
Humanity vs. Dehumanization

• Lots wife as a pillar of salt
• Vonneguts comparison to himself
• Wars dehumanizing effects
• I looked through the Gideon Bible in my motel
  room for tales of great destruction. The sun was
  risen upon the Earth when Lot entered into Zo-ar,
  I read. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and
  upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Lord out
  of Heaven and He overthrew those cities, and
  all the plain, and all the inhabitants of
  the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
  So it goes.
• Those were vile people in both those cities, as
  is well known. The world was better off without
  them. And Lot's wife, of course, was told not
  to look back where all those people and their
  homes had been. But she did look back, and I
  love her for that, because it was so human. So
  she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes.
  (Vonnegut 21-22).

11
Free Will/ The Illusion of Free Will

• 'Welcome aboard, Mr. Pilgrim,' said the
  loudspeaker. 'Any questions?'
• Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired
  at last 'Why me?'
• 'That is a very Earthling question to ask,
  Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter?
  Why anything? Because this moment simply is.
  Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?'
  
• 'Yes.' Billy, in fact, had a paperweight in his
  office which was a blob of polished amber
  with three lady-bugs embedded in it.
  
• 'Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the
  amber of this moment. There is no why.' (Vonnegut
  76-77)

12
MOTIF

• A recurring image, word, object, phrase, or
  action that tends to unify a literary work.
• Motifs lead the reader to understand the
  overarching themes.
• On the back of your paper, please answer the
  following question
• what examples of motifs are present in your own
  life? What images, words, objects, phrases, or
  actions recur throughout your life thus far?