The Poweful Message of Kurt Vonneguts Slaughterhouse Five Essay

The Poweful Message of Kurt Vonneguts Slaughterhouse FiveFrom Ancient Hellenic playwright, Euripides, (To die is a debt we must all of us discharge (Fitzhenry 122)) to historied Nineteenth Century poet, Emily Dickinson, (Because I could not stop for Death/ He kindly stopped for me -/ The carriage held but just ourselves/ And Immortality (Fitzhenry 126)) the c oncept of death, reincarnation, rebirth, and bereavement have been brooded over time and time again. And with no definite answers to lifes about puzzling question of death being given, it only seems natural that this correction is further explored. Kurt Vonnegut is one of galore(postnominal) modern writers obsessed with this idea and spends many of his novels thematically infatuated with death. His semi- autobiographical novel, dealing with his experiences in Dresden during WWII, named Slaughterhouse Five, The Childrens private road or A Duty Dance With Death, is no exception to his fixation. A work of transparent simplici ty and a modern allegory, whose hero, Billy Pilgrim, shuffles amid Earth and its timeless surrogate, Tralfamadore (Riley and Harte 452), Slaughterhouse Five shows a sympathetic and sorrow evaluation of Billys response to the cruelty of life (Bryfonski and Senick 614). This cruelty stems from death, time, renewal, war, and the lack of gentleness for human life all large themes inextricably bound up (Bryfonski and Mendelson 529) in this cyclically natured novel that tries to solve the great mystery of death for us, once and for all. Billys life had revolved around these ideas from the time he was a child. At the age of twelve Billy had undergone the real crises of his life, had found life hollow even if he could not then articulate that concept, an... ...Vol. 12. Detroit Gale look for Company, 1980. Bryfonski and Phyllis Carmel Mendelson, eds. Kurt Vonnegut, jr. Contemporary literary Criticism. Vol. 8. Detroit Gale Research Company, 1978. Fitzhenry, Robert I., ed. The Harper Bo ok of Quotations. New York city Harper Collins Publishers, 1993. Gurton and Jean C. Stine, eds. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 22. Detroit Gale Research Company, 1982. Riley and Barbara Harte, eds. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 2. Detroit Gale Research Company, 1974. Riley, Carolyn, ed. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 3. Detroit Gale Research Company, 1975. Shepard, Sean. Kurt Vonnegut and Slaughterhouse Five. http//erme.bgsu.edu/jdowell/kvandsh5.htmlVonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse Five. New York City Laurel Books, 1969.