Everything was Beautiful, nothing hurt
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. is not complementary to any of the characters in Slaughterhouse-Five; the attitudes entertained by the characters except Billy can be considered to be the ideas that Vonnegut does not like. Most of the women in Slaughterhouse-Five are stupid, materialistic, and treated as sex objects by most of the characters.After Billy's accident, Barbara thought of herself as the head of the family; she had to take care of Billy whom she though was senile because of his accident and unconventional beliefs. While Billy was "devoting himself to a calling much higher than mere business," Barbara felt responsible for guarding his branch of the money tree. She would not let him send more letters to the paper because she feared the rest of the family would look like fools. She denounces all his explanations of Tralfamadore, as if she were omniscient. She treats him like a child: "It was very exciting for her, taking away his dignity in the name of love." This shows Vonnegut thinks women are too overbearing. Barbara tries to take everything she possibly can on her honeymoon. This signifies how tied she was to material goods; she and her husband could not amuse themselves. This opposes Billy, who had one of his most happy moment
Maggie White was dull, and she had given up a technical career as a dental assistance to be a sex object: "Men looked at her and wanted to fill her up with babies right away." Billy also told of the "German colonel" with his "unpainted whore." When Barbara learns of her mother's death, she has to be doped up, "so she could continue to function, even though her father was broken and her mother was dead." Billy did not have anything to help him continue to function when he saw hundreds of thousands of people killed in the war, which shows that Vonnegut sees women as less able to handle losses. By making his most foolish looking characters see women as sex objects, Vonnegut is criticizing the people who believe it. Billy, on the other hand, is not so obsessed. Before 1944, Billy "had never fucked anybody," and had never seen a naked girl. Roland Weary, who Vonnegut disapproves of, had a picture of a woman attempting intercourse with a Shetland pony.
Some common words found in the essay are:
Bertram Rumfoord, Vonnegut Jr, Weary Vonnegut, Dresden Barbara, Gutless Wonder, Montana Wildhack, Mary O'Hare, Lazzaro Billy, Roland Weary, Adam Eve, vonnegut women, sex objects, believe billy, continue function, stupid materialistic, montana wildhack, war vonnegut, roland weary, flying fuck, trout's book,
Approximate Word count = 1463
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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