Slaughterhouse Five Lecture Notes

Chapter 1

Conventions of the Novel

● Basically a preface or forward

● Creation of novel - metafiction

○ Not all of it is true

○ Specifically poioumena

● Exposition - enough background information to start constructing meaning

○ Autobiographical information becomes part of the narrative

○ Establishes settings, times, etc

○ Chapter 1 reveal opening line, closing line, climax, justification of the title, and

the subtitle

● “All this happened, more or less.”

○ Blurring lines between fiction and reality

Blurring the lines between autobiography and fiction

● POW

● Student of anthropology

● Editor for Cornell Daily Sun and reporter for City News Bureau of Chicago

● Publicist for General Electric in Schenectady, NY

● Volunteer fireman in Alplaus, NY

● Taught creative writing at University of Iowa

● War buddy Bernard V. O’Hare

Motifs
 ● War

● “So it goes.”

● Anti-war

● Time

● “...breath like mustard gas and roses”

● Memories

● Babies

● The grotesque

● Three Musketeers

● Capitalism and Consumerism

● Religion

● Illustrations randomly inserted

● Cyclical

● Language

Subversion of Conventions

● Character Types (Billy Pilgrim is flat, static, symbolic, and Christ)

● Character development (Its protagonist is a flat, static character)

● Irony (wars are fought by children)

● Narrative structure (BP has begun unstuck in time, maximalism)

● POV (Chapter 1’s first person narration is an anomaly, but reappears for metatextuality)

● Setting (different places, different times)

● Style (cyclical)

● Tone (playful about everything)

Chapter 2

● Postmodern temporal distortion!

○ Distorting chronology of narration

○ Time for Billy has become inexplicably distorted (also magical realism,

unexplained by author)

○ Time is being distorted for the reader

○ Subverts conventions about exposition

● Intertextuality

○ Pilgrim - someone who makes a trip for religious reasons

○ The Pilgrim’s Progress - a book about a guy named Christian’s progress from the

City of Destruction to the Celestial City

○ Mayflower pilgrims

● Circling topics

○ Capture by Germans

○ Plane crash

○ Valencia’s death

○ Spreading the word about Tralfamadorians

○ Optometrist

■ How does Billy seek to correct people’s visions?

■ “Frames are where the money is”

■ Tralfamadorian eyes

○ Firebombing of Dresden

● Insignificant Details
 ○ Direct and indirect characterization of Barbara

○ Organ has stops titled “human voice” and “celestial voice”

○ Promise to Mary O’Hare saying soldiers won’t be portrayed as war heroes,

characterization ridiculous

Chapter 3