1. Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

2. Slaughterhouse Five 1969
One of his most popular works and widely regarded as a classic, it combines science fiction elements with an analysis of the human condition from an uncommon perspective, using time travel as a plot device.
The bombing of Dresden in WWII, the aftermath of which Vonnegut witnessed, is the starting point.
Among the most frequently banned works in American literature

3. Bombing of Dresden British Royal Air Force (RAF) and United States Army Air Force (USAAF) between February 13 and 15th, 1945

4. Vonnegut and the war (From the NY Times)
(Vonnegut) was accorded the dubious pleasure of witnessing a 20th-century apocalypse
During World War II, at the age of 23, he was captured by the Germans and imprisoned beneath the city of Dresden, "the Florence of the Elbe."
Allies firebombed Dresden in a massive air attack that killed 130,000 people and destroyed a landmark of no military significance
Slideshow:

5. Literary Techniques The novel employs the refrain "So it goes"
As a representative postmodern text, the novel is metafictional.
Non-linear plot structure
Verisimilitude– soldiers’ cursing
irreverent language (including the sentence "The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the zipper on the fly of God Almighty,")

6. Non-linear structure
The story is told out of order but there are only three decades through which the narrative (and Billy) jumps:
1940’s The War. This is the only segment that moves consistently forward through time…even as it is interrupted.
1950’s post war. Billy’s wife and career
1960’s/ Fourth Dimension…

7. Metafiction
fiction that self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction.
It is the literary term describing fictional writing that self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artifact in posing questions about the relationship between fiction and reality, usually, irony and self-reflection.

8. Other postmodern weirdness
The story is sandwiched between an autobiographical introduction and epilogue…this sets up further uses of metafiction
The Narrator/ Author divide is blurred

9. The World of Vonnegut
Kilgore Trout, a major character in many of Vonnegut's novels, appears significantly in Slaughterhouse-Five. He is not real, but I have a copy of one of his novels over there.
cameo appearances include Eliot Rosewater of God Bless You Mr. Rosewater
Howard W. Campbell, Jr. of Mother Night.
There is also a character called Bertram Copeland Rumfoord, a relative of Winston Niles Rumfoord in The Sirens of Titan. Rumfoord family members appear in several of Vonnegut's works

10. NY Times review, 1969:
In the … introduction, which should be read aloud to children, cadets and basic trainees, Mr. Vonnegut pronounces his book a failure "because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre." He's wrong and he knows it.

11. Respond to the following quote:
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies – ‘God Damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”

12. Quotation Response What does this quotation mean to you?
If you could rewrite the last sentence, what would it be?
What rule would you give to future generations?

14. Kurt Vonnegut “And so it goes.” 1922-2007

16. John Wayne Frank Sinatra

17. Tralfamadore Exists in the Fourth Dimension Tralfamadorians can
see all time at once
Think the idea of
free will is ridiculous
Not related to Billy
being unstuck in time

18. Fourth Dimension

19. STYLE Refrain– “so it goes” “Point-connection”
Diction– earthling massacre babies
Motifs—like themes or ideas that keep popping up

20. Recurring motifs/ imagery/refrains
p. 4: "mustard gas and roses"; the phrase is repeated in other places in Sh-5.
I think this page has the first use of "babies"; note that word and its cognates—babies are important in Sh-5.
Note "And so on" and "Three Musketeers" (here, the candy bar); these phrases also recur in Sh-5.
pp : Note the "blue and ivory" of Billy Pilgrim's feet; the colors are another motif in Sh-5.

21. Roland Weary “Stupid, fat, and mean” Dad collected torture devices
Brought his
own knife to
the war
Hates being
ditched

22. Weary’s Version of the War Story: The Three Musketeer’s
Anyone remember where we first heard that name?

23. Princess

24. Machines/ Technology…So it goes.
“I have told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that.” (19; ch. 1)
The elevator – kills the Veteran (senseless death)
The Photograph – the porn arrest leads to senseless death
Weary– iron maiden, triple-blade knife, the cannon
Oh, and planes dropping bombs on Dresden

25. Time
P. 18 “And I asked myself about the present: how wide it was, how deep it was, how much of it was mine to keep.”
P. 20 “As an earthling, I had to believe whatever clocks said– and calendars.”
“it was written by a pillar of salt.”
Billy is unstuck in time.
Tralfamadorians

26. Children/ innocence
Children’s crusade
Mary O’Hare
Adam and Eve

27. Perception Optometry Tralfamadorians
Roland Weary’s version of the war story
Sinatra and Wayne

28. More :
REVENGE
CHRISTIANITY ( hypocrisy of some of them)