Slaughterhouse V -2

1
Slaughterhouse V -2

• The War vs. Postmodern World

2
What did we learn last time?

• Metafiction (overplotting underplotting) as a
  postmodern response to the lack of sensible
  history.
• SH-V
• The meaninglessness of the war ? dark comedy,
• Chapter 1 as the novelistic frame(s) of the
  authors writing and multiple histories.
• Multiple interpretation of So it goes
  minimalist style, ineffable trauma, or simple
  acceptance of death

3
Today War and the Postmodern World

• The novel as a dark comic response to the war.
• War and the Postmodern World
• next Time
• Parodies of authorial figure
• Two Alternative Perspectives beside the Dark
  Comic one.
• Trauma ? fragmentation (? reconstruction)

4
Vs and Billys Responses

• Is Vonnegut traumatized?
• How about Billy? Why is he unstuck in time? And
  captured by the Tralfamadorian?
• (e.g. "simultaneously on foot in Germany in 1944
  and riding his Cadillac in 1967" (58) (pp.
  75-77).
• What are the various responses towards war in
  the novel?

5
Vonneguts Responses

• Wordlessness -- I know, I know, I know p. 10
  lack of memories p. 14
• Randomness and inconsequentiality in his life p.
  7 telephoners 11
• Loss of control over time -- p. 18
• Pre-occupied by books re. death and destruction.
  pillar of salt
• "So it goes-- 1) passive and emotionless
  reaction to tragedy and death? 2)Emphasis of
  both their sadness and meaninglessness.

6
Vonneguts Responses (2)

• (Next Time)
• Two constructive responses
• Tralfamadore -- "trying to re-invent themselves
  and their universe" (101)
• Poo-tee-weet

7
Billys Immediate Response

• committed to a mental hospital 3 years
  afterwards p. 100

8
Billys Wordlessness

• Re. his son in Vietnam I am proud of him. I
  certainly am. (61)

9
Billys Obsession

• Sounds and smells which trigger his past
  experience
• a siren (57) -- It "scared the hell out of him"
  (57) and "he was expecting World War Three at any
  time" (57). ? "back in World War Two again" (58).
  
• Cripples (63) as salespersons ? cripples and
  their boss ? the war

10
Billys Obsession (2)

• the neighborhood ? towns in the war p. 59
• Likes to watch war movies plays the movies
  forwards and backwards p. 75

11
Billys time-travel obsession

• Billy has gone to sleep a senile widower and
  awakened on his wedding day. He has walked
  through a door in 1955 and come out another one
  in 1941. He has gone back through that door to
  find himself in 1963. He has seen his birth and
  death many times, he says, and pays random visits
  to all the events in between.
• He says.
• Billy is spastic(???) in time, has no
  control over where he is going next, and the
  trips aren't necessarily fun. (23)

12
The Past Remembered by Billy

• All related to deaths
• Sink-or-swim p. 43
• Aging mother 44
• Marathon runner 45 ? Deserter

13
The War (vs. the Postmodern World)

• A) cruelty and irrationality
• Roland Wearyand Iron Maiden 35 his equipment
  39-40 his narrow vision 41-42 (vs the real
  version 50-) revengeful 79 ? Lazzaro's revenge
  84 139
• Childrens Crusade e.g. Billy as the college boy
  p.33
• the trip to Dresden
• -- river of humiliation 64
• -- the boxcarts that carry the POW 67-69 70
• -- delousing 83

14
The War (vs. the Postmodern World)

• B) heroism, myth vs. reality
• --the Three Musketeers--
• --Wild Bob's heroism (66-67)
• -- momentary relief through fantasies
• the commander and his golden boots,53
• in the prison and as a baby 84-85
• (later--Cinderella myth)

15
Billy in the Postmodern World

• Loss of religion pp. 38-39 (crucifix as gifts)
  and sense of direction p. 46-47
• Ownership and investment 61
• Later Marries Valencia without loving her (107)
  V eating a Three Musketeers Candy Bar
• Makes a lot of money, president of the Lions
  Club
• Helpless p. 60 his motto
• ? (later) prescribing corrective lenses for
  Earthling souls p. 29

16
Vonnegut

• I was there.