Slaughterhouse Five and the Art of Kurt Vonnegut
Questions for a Book Club Discussion of This American Novelist
Jul 29, 2009
The novels of Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) are as relevant today as they were when Slaughterhouse Five was first published in 1969. While Slaughterhouse Five is a semi-autobiographical novel about Vonnegut's experience in World War II, it is also a novel about the Vietnam War. Perhaps it is this historical context as well as the quality of the book that place Slaughterhouse Five on Time Magazine's Top 100 Novels.
The Themes
Slaughterhouse Five is an anti-war novel and it is an anti-bureaucracy novel. More proof of the challenge and significance of Slaughterhouse Five is that it is on the American Library Association's list of the 100 most frequently challenged books. (That's a euphemism for books that people want to ban from libraries.)
The Plot Synopsis
Perhaps the most unusual quality of Slaughterhouse Five is that it combines the genres of historical fiction and science fiction. Sound unique? That's Vonnegut. The main character of Slaughterhouse Five is named Billy Pilgrim. Pilgrim survives the Battle of the Bulge and the bombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war, just like Vonnegut. Pilgrim is then kidnapped by the Tralfamadorians and taken to their planet to be a human exhibit in their zoo.
Book Club Discussion Questions
Book clubs will find lots of food for discussion from Slaughterhouse Five, and the following is a list of questions to help keep the conversation rolling about this classic work of American literature.
- Why does Billy Pilgrim become unstuck in time?
- Slaughterhouse Five is autobiographical. How do readers separate what really happened to Kurt Vonnegut and what didn't? Why didn't Vonnegut write a straight memoir-type account of what he went through during World War II?
- Why is Billy Pilgrim kidnapped by Tralfamadorians and what purpose does this plot line serve?
- What is the Tralfamadorian view on life and death?
- What are the parallels between Billy's Tralfamadorian life and his life on earth?
- Slaughterhouse Five was published in 1969 during the Vietnam War. What are the correlations between Vietnam and World War II?
- What is the significance of the airplane crash in which Billy is the only survivor?
- The phrase "So It Goes" appears 116 times in Slaughterhouse Five. Why?
The Novels of Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut goes on to write over a dozen novels including The Sirens of Titan (1959), Cat's Cradle (1963), Slapstick (1976) and Galapagos (1985). Vonnegut also published nine collections of short stories and essays.
here is also a posthumous collection of Vonnegut essays Armageddon in Retrospect that is worth buying if only for the reproduction of a typewritten letter written by Vonnegut to his family after being liberated as a Prisoner of War during WWII. The letter begins, "Dear people: I'm told that you were probably never informed that I was anything other than "missing in action". Chances are that you failed to receive any of the letters I wrote from Germany. That leaves me a lot of explaining to do." In this poignant letter, Vonnegut describes some of his horrible experiences from WWII with his trademark wit, irony and warmth, already established at age 22.
Check out the work of Kurt Vonnegut to have a glimpse into one of the most unique and charming voices in American literature of the 20th century. So it goes.
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