Two books by Kurt Vonnegut Jr

A detailed Summary of Two books by Kurt Vonnegut Jr

In the books Slaughterhouse-Five and Mother Night, the author, Kurt Vonnegut Jr. presents the reader with two entirely different plots and story lines. The underlying theme for both books however, is the same; stop mindless war, stop mindless genocide of the human race, stop hatred for one another.

These zealous antiwar sentiments stem from Vonnegut's personal experiences during World War II. An American ground soldier, Vonnegut was captured and held in the German city of Dresden. During his captivity, the Allied forces fire bombed Dresden, killing 135,000 inhabitants, destroying hospitals, schools, apartment buildings. After the bombing, Vonnegut was assigned the dreadful task of removing and cremating corpses that were rotting throughout city. Recollecting this horrific experience, Vonnegut used his books as a vehicle for emotional truth, namely, hatred for war and murder. The pain of that day was so huge that Vonnegut could not write about it or make reference to it in his books until Slaughterhouse-Five, published in 1969.

The conviction of an antiwar book emerges more evidently in Slaughterhouse-Five. The main character, Billy Pilgrim (Vonnnegut himself), a soldier for the Allies during World War II and just like Vonn

At first glance Slaughterhouse-Five and Mother Night appear to be two books with a huge disparity between them. Seemingly, the only thing the two books have in common is that they are based on events that occurred during World War II. This coincidence is nothing of the sort, Vonnegut utilized the greatest war of them all, the most bloodiest, vicious and inhumane which he was a part to protest all wars. Vonnegut writes social satire and his books tackle many complicated and even obscure societal shortcomings, yet the main grievance underlying these two books connects them; war is worst human action and event because it involves murder, hate, destruction, everything that our society is supposed to condemn. Yet it welcomes war and all its grotesque faults.

egut, is captured by the Nazis and held captive in Dresden where he witnesses the same tragedy as Vonnegut did. Pilgrim, however, comes out of the war a crazed lunatic. He has the hallucination that aliens (tralfamadores) abduct him and make him a exhibit in zoo. He greatly admires these trafalmadores because they have no sense of time, the see things from beginning to end, and therefore have the power of seeing destiny and of time travel. According

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Approximate Word count = 813
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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Two books by Kurt Vonnegut Jr

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