Slaughterhouse V -4

1
Slaughterhouse V -4

• Historical Representation
• as Discourse

2
The Topics Covered

1. Metafiction and Novelistic Frame
2. War (cruel irrational where myth and heroism
   are impossible) v.s. the Postmodern World
   (experience mediated by popular culture)
3. Vonneguts, Billy Pilgrims and Roland Wearys
   Responses to the War
4. Tralfamodores alternative reality

3
Starting Questions about Chaps 7-10

• The Dresden Experience of beauty and syrup?
• What roles do the following historical figures
  play?
• Women such as Valencia and Montana Wildhack
• Authors such as Howard W. Campbell Jr., Kilgore
  Trout (introduced by Eliot Rosewater), Rumford
• Post-bombing experience and post-plane crash
  experience

4
Outline

• Plot
• Parodies of authorial figure
• Discursive Formation radio program and book
  store
• Two Alternative Perspectives beside the Dark
  Comic one.
• Trauma ? fragmentation (? reconstruction)

5
Plot and Time

• 1022 Young Billy in Ilium
• 1944 Luxemburg forest/unstuck in time? English
  compound hospital? Dresden
• 1945-47 Studies Optometry hospital
• 1957 --set up in business (optometry)
• 1964 V meet OHare
• 1967 Lion Club meeting kidnapped by
  Tralfamadorians
• 1967 V go back to Dresden
• 1968 airplane crash
• 1968 V the novel SH-V
• 1976 (future) US balkanized, BP killed

Tralfamadore
6
Plot and Time

• VII--1968 plane--on the plane--'44 in Luxemburg
  forest--plane--unconscious--slaughterhouse--work--
  spooning the syrup 160-161
• VIII --Campbell--Trout--the song about old
  gangs--a big secret in him 172-73--the bombing
  and the four guards--Montana Rumfold--travel
  back to 1958--back to 16 yr old
• IX--Valencia died--in the hospital with
  Rumfoord--Billy cries over the two horses' poor
  condition 197 Billy in radio station and
  bookstore, with Montana
• X Vonnegut about Billy, about going back to
  Dresden, I was there. Ending with Billy and
  Maori

7
Self-Reconstructions through Author Surrogates
Kilgore Trout

• from Ilium 111
• The Gospel from Outer Space 108-109 New
  Gospel dont kill people with no connections
• Fourth Dimension 104
• (Money Tree 167
• Gutless wonder 168-(halitosis ??, drop gasoline
  bombs)
• KT with his fans happy and loud 170 view about
  fiction 171 (It happened.)
• about time machine 202? Jesus dead
• Big Boardabout kidnap and investment 201)

8
Self-Reconstructions through Author Surrogates
Kilgore Trout

• with critical messages
• Criticize Christianity -- about time machine 202?
  Jesus dead
• Human Oppression--The Gospel from Outer Space
  108-109
• Satirize human greed -- Money Tree 167
• Emphasis on appearance -- Gutless wonder
• Human Limitation -- Fourth Dimension
• Self-Parody
• KT with his fans happy and loud 170 view about
  fiction 171 (It happened.)
• Big Boardabout kidnap and investment 201
• No Positive or Constructive Messages

9
Authors (2)? Author Functions

• Be-littled, but human
• Vonnegut I was there. 125 148
• Eliot Rosewater 102 (like Derby)
• Ridiculed
• Official Historian -- Rumford183-191 198
• Literary critics and the death of fiction 205 ?
  author functions in discursive apparatuses such
  as bookstore and radio

10
Two Alternative Views(1) Tralfamadorian --Review

• Why me? 77 Ts novel 88
• The moment simply is. We are all bugs in amber.
  27 86
• five sexes on T, seven on earth 114
• human beings as millepedes 87 their view of our
  concept of time 115
• War Peace "We spend eternity looking at the
  peaceful moment" 116-17
• "Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurts" 122
• interest in Darwin 210

11
Two Alternative Views(1) Tralfamadorian

• in their zoo 111--his life in the zoo, think
  nothing of the Gay Nineties couple on the wall
  happy with his body 113
• Montana Wildhack 132
• ? Would you like to live in such a world?
• ? Do you agree with their world views? Billy
  does. p. 190

12
Tralfamadorian ViewsPossible Interpretations

1. Fatalist
2. Denies progressive views of history arbitrary
   causal connections.
3. Aesthetic an image of life that is beautiful
   and surprising and deep.
4. Escapist Non-Human just look at the good
   moments
5. Cosmic or Macrocosmic we are just a bug frozen
   in amber.
6. ? discourse and discursive formation

13
Repetitions Obsession or Humanist Concern

• ??????? (echolalia) Echolalia?192
• So it goes. 27 candle and soap made from dead
  Jews 96 water 101 Billy's own death 143
• I was there. Billy//Vonnegut.
• Edgar Derby p. 83 poor old
• Ask about Wild Bob 188 212
• SongsYon Yonson to Cotton workers p. 176
• ? Patterns created but not fixed.

14
Two Alternative Views(2) Humanist

• Dreams/fantasies of Adam and Eve, giraffes (99)

15
Ending

• 161 births
• the innkeeper says in German, Good night,
  Americans. Sleep well. 181
• the horse 197,
• the bird syrup,