Uvod
Kurt Vonnegut was an American writer known for mixing humor, satire, and science fiction. He wrote
Slaughterhouse-Five after his own experience in World War II, where he was a soldier and a prisoner
of war. The book was published in 1969 and became one of his most famous works. It’s well-known for
its anti-war message and unique way of telling the story.
Slaughterhouse-Five is about the horrors of war, the idea that we don’t control our own fate, and how
time works in strange ways. The story shows the bombing of Dresden during WWII and criticizes the
pointless violence of war. The way the story jumps back and forth in time reflects how trauma and
memories can be disconnected.
Glavni dio
Billy Pilgrim is born in 1922 and grows up in Ilium, New York. He is a skinny, awkward boy who does
fairly well in high school. He enrolls in night classes at the Ilium School of Optometry but is drafted into
the army during World War II. In South Carolina, he trains as a chaplain’s assistant. During training, an
umpire oversees practice battles, announcing who "dies" and who survives before everyone sits down
for lunch together. Shortly before Billy is sent overseas to join an infantry regiment in Luxembourg, his
father dies in a hunting accident. Billy is thrown into the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium and is quickly
captured behind German lines. Just before his capture, he has his first time-shift—he suddenly sees
his entire life, from birth to death, in a single moment.
Billy is transported to a POW camp in Germany in a packed railway boxcar. When he arrives, he and
the other captured soldiers are welcomed with a feast provided by British officers who had been
prisoners for much longer. Billy suffers a mental breakdown and is given morphine, which triggers
another time-travel experience. Soon, he and the other American prisoners are sent to Dresden, a
beautiful city that has been mostly untouched by war. The prisoners are put to work doing various jobs,
including making nutritional malt syrup. They are housed in Slaughterhouse-Five, a former
slaughterhouse.
One night, Allied forces bomb Dresden in waves. First, they carpet bomb the city, and then they drop
incendiary bombs, creating a firestorm that sucks the oxygen out of the air, suffocating or burning
about 130,000 people. Billy and a few other POWs survive only because they are trapped in an airtight
meat locker. When they emerge, the city is completely destroyed, reduced to rubble and ash. Their job
is to help dig out dead bodies buried under the ruins. A few days later, Russian troops arrive and take
control of the city, marking the end of Billy’s role in the war.
After returning home to Ilium, Billy completes optometry school and gets engaged to Valencia Merble,
the overweight daughter of the school’s founder. Following a nervous breakdown, Billy commits
himself to a veterans’ hospital, where he undergoes shock therapy. While recovering, a fellow patient
introduces him to Kilgore Trout’s science fiction novels. After leaving the hospital, Billy marries
Valencia. His wealthy father-in-law sets him up in the optometry business, and Billy and Valencia
become rich, raising two children. Billy acquires everything associated with the American dream—a
Cadillac, a big house with modern appliances, and a high status in the community, even becoming the
president of the Lions Club.
For years, Billy believes he has no hidden memories of the war, but during his 18th wedding
anniversary party, the sight of a barbershop quartet makes him break down. He later realizes that their
singing reminds him of the silence after the bombing of Dresden.
The night after his daughter’s wedding in 1967, Billy claims he is kidnapped by aliens—the
Tralfamadorians. These creatures are only two feet tall, shaped like upside-down toilet plungers, with
one hand-like eye on top. They take him to their planet in a flying saucer. There, they mate him with
Montana Wildhack, a Hollywood actress who has also been abducted. They live together inside a
transparent geodesic dome, displayed in a zoo for Tralfamadorians to observe.
The Tralfamadorians explain their view of time—they do not experience it linearly like humans do.
Instead, they see all moments at once. For them, when a person dies, they are only dead at that
particular moment, but they are still alive at many other points in time. Because of this, the
Tralfamadorians choose to focus only on life’s good moments.
When Billy returns to Earth, he says nothing about his experience for a long time. Then, in 1968, he
boards a chartered plane to attend an optometry conference in Montreal. The plane crashes into a
mountain, killing almost everyone on board—except Billy. He undergoes brain surgery in a Vermont
hospital. While rushing to visit him, Valencia crashes her car and dies from carbon monoxide
poisoning. After he recovers, Billy’s daughter takes him home and hires a nurse to care for him.
But Billy feels it is time to share what he has learned. He has already foreseen this moment while time-
traveling and knows that his message will eventually be accepted. He sneaks off to New York City and
talks about the Tralfamadorians on a radio show. Later, he writes a letter to the local newspaper. His
daughter is desperate and doesn’t know what to do with him.
Billy makes a tape recording of how he will die. He predicts that in 1976, after Chicago has been
destroyed by a hydrogen bomb, a man he knew in the war will hire an assassin to kill him. When it
happens, Billy will hear the violet hum of death—and then, just like always, he will time-travel to
another moment in his life. He has already seen it happen, over and over again
Zaključak
Slaughterhouse-Five is a deep story about how pointless and destructive war can be. Vonnegut mixes
real history with science fiction to make us think about violence, fate, and time. The phrase "So it
goes" is used throughout the book to remind us that death is a part of life, and we should focus on the
good moments we have.
The novel is still important today because it makes us think about the consequences of violence and
how we see the world around us.
