Conquering trauma Coping strategies and repressed memories in Slaughterhouse five Although widely considered an anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse five seems to be a rather war-acceptance kind of novel – not so much attempting to disclaim it, but rather claiming that war just existed, and nothing could be undone. Writing a book about the traumatic experiences he went through in the Dresden bombing has been more of a therapeutic practice for Vonnegut, than a plea against war. He begins with a personal confession about how tempting, and yet impossible turned out to be to write about the destruction of Dresden, part which appears to have been added after he completed writing the novel. Vonnegut insists on the lack of memories related to his experience in the war. Moreover, his former companions during the bombing of Dresden seemed to experience the same amnesia phenomena, not being able to recount any of the events.
Slaughterhouse 5 has no chronological order. The book starts off with Vonnegut describing his experience of writing the novel, then the middle of the novel is filled with random jumps in time that Billy Pilgrim makes, before Vonnegut ends by picking up where he left off in chapter 1. To reveal the truth about what really happened in Dresden, Vonnegut could have just written another ordinary war novel, like “Generals Die in Bed” by Charles Yale Harrison, but instead he chose to grab his readers’ attention
Critical Essay of Slaughterhouse- Five Slaughterhouse-Five, a novel written by Kurt Vonnegut, had many themes and symbols that were prominent in Billy Pilgrim’s life. The novel is a biography of Billy Pilgrim and his time travels through his life at war, his time on Tralfamador, and his death. The symbols include: time traveling, “Fourth-Dimension,” Montana Wildhack’s locket, Billy’s diamond, and Edgar Derby. The themes include: being optimistic, Billy’s motto, free will, and the destruction of war. The phrase, “So it goes,” will also be analyzed.
It is interesting to observe the author’s note at the beginning of this publication of his essay; Clark informs the reader that this writing was first published twenty years earlier, and how disappointed he was to realize that the article is just as relevant at the present time as it was then. He presents several additional examples of using writing as punishment, and the “grotesque consequences” (Clark, 2009, p. 4) of such measures, including the Harry Potter movie in which Harry is forced to write the sentence “I will not lie” over and over with a magic pen that would leave bloody marks on his hand with each letter that he wrote, scars that would never heal (Clark, 2009, p. 4). The author begins his essay with a story of two fifth grade girls, researching materials in a school library to use to write a term paper. As the principle
Catcher in the Rye: Journal Assignment Throughout the novel, Holden uses his isolation from society as a form of protection. He feels as if he is excluded from society, has no purpose in life and is constantly trying to find meaning for his existence. As the novel progresses, readers see that Holden uses his sense of superiority as a way to cover up his insecurities. Holden feels that because he is better than everyone else, there is no reason to interact with them. However, even though Holden acts emotionless he does have feelings but expresses them differently.
It’s Worth a Couple Tears In Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut presents death as common and unimportant in order to satirize death. Vonnegut uses the phrase “so it goes” after every death in the novel regardless of the circumstances. Billy Pilgrim’s ability to time travel allows him to brush off deaths as if they have no importance. Billy is abducted by aliens called Tramalfadorians who have a very different view on time as humans do. They believe all moments have already taken place, and they cannot be changed.
Flypaper The short story Flypaper is written by Simon Armitage, is at first hand a tragic story about the law-breaking and provocative artist who gets caught up by the authorities. By analyzing you do see a connection between Flypaper and the tale of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for mankind on the cross. The story takes place in a small town in Northern England, where one of our main characters resides as a council leader – Perry. It’s hard to tell at what time the story takes place – the narrator tells: “It was an age like today.” which means that the story could take place at any time: the past, the present and even the future. You can divide the text into two parts: in the first part we hear a lot about how the artist becomes famous
“Billy is spastic in time, has no control over where he is going next, and the trips aren’t necessarily fun. He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next” (pg 23). He could travel through the past, or future, life at the Optometry School, parts before the bombing of Dresden, or his time with the Tralfamadorians. He never knows. Billy Pilgrim’s thoughts roam around, believing the only cure is to have belief in the Tralfamadorians.
In Dan Brown’s novel, Inferno, the main character, Robert Langdon, learns how you shouldn’t believe everything that people tell you and that many people have more than one reason for doing something. Throughout the novel, Professor Langdon has to use his university-level symbology and art knowledge to try and decrypt Dante’s Inferno into a map to stop global bioterrorism. In the novel, the world meets the diabolical plans of a single biochemist to stop overpopulation. “The doors were never sealed, Brüder realised to his horror. Containment has failed.” This shows that the World Health Organization (WHO) knows that the biochemist, Dr Bertrand Zobrist, leader of the Transhumanist movement and ancient art enthusiast obsessed with Dante, had released some kind of virus to infect humanity.
A desire to rewrite history, leads the characters in Crabwalk towards “Negationism”. Crabwalk is essentially a historical novel in which Grass employees the sinking of Wilhelm Gustloff, the ship to reveal the history of Nazi Germany and attempts of its second generation to forget it. In this novel Grass makes his readers as well as characters go through a process of self evaluation. Thus the historical event of the sinking of the ship becomes a minor incident in comparison to the hatred and racial prejudice which had been affecting Germans, Russian and Jews on a larger level. In Lukács words “What matters therefore in the historical novel is not the retelling of