The Catastrophe Of War In Slaughterhouse Five
The Catastrophe of War in Slaughterhouse-Five
Russian Prime Minister Joseph Stalin once said, "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic." The impersonalization of war and death that he shares is an realistic characterization of war; originally intending to improve the lives of people, yet inevitably leading to the destruction of human life. Author Kurt Vonnegut endorses this view in his novel Slaughterhouse-Five; he shows that war can never be justified as long as innocent life is lost. Throughout Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut explores the theme of free will in order to illustrate the absurdity of war. Vonnegut conveys this through setting, characters, structure, and style.
Vonnegut uses setting to convey the terrors of war by juxtaposing the hell-like Dresden with the heavenly Trafalmador. After the firebombing of Dresden, when the soldiers emerge out of a slaughterhouse, they find the entire city desolate and destroyed. As the soldiers wander out of the......
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Approximate Word Count: 1974
Approximate Pages: 8 (250 words per double-spaced page)
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