Slaughterhouse 5 Violence as an Element of Conflict and Resolution
Book: Slaughterhouse Five
Topics: Conflict, Understatement
Pages: 6 Words: 1480 Views: 1600
Q: It is often argued that violence in texts is overdone and unnecessary, but can also be regarded as an element of conflict and resolution. Many literary texts glorify violence and war, presenting it as a noble and heroic cause, which for readers creates and exciting, fulfilling plot. In Slaughterhouse 5, the author Kurt Vonnegut uses atypical methods of presenting violence in the novel, which becomes important in the conveyance of the novels ideas. Vonnegut, although incorporating violence into the novel (It is a book about war after all), he understates it to shocking effect, and neglects to provide a traditional or intelligent resolution.
His portrayal of certain key characters, such as Billy Pilgrim, Edgar Derby, the scouts, and the hobo, works together to convey the novels overall antiwar message, by using an atypical presentation of violence that shows us that the romance of war is false, and nobody wins in war. The Character of Edgar Derby in the novel is used to remove the so called "Romance of war," through the understatement of the violence of his death. Edgar Derby was a high school teacher, who was captured by the Germans along with Billy Pilgrim in 1943, and survived the bombing of Dresden with Billy Pilgrim in a slaughterhouse's underground meat safe.
In the first chapter, when Vonnegut places himself in the story by discussing the narrative and making himself a background character, and establishing his representative relationship with Pilgrim, he discusses the death of Edgar Derby as the climax of the novel. Yet when we reach this "climax," in the last few pages of the novel, all the reader is given is "Edgar Derby, was caught with a teapot he had taken from the catacombs. He was arrested for plundering. He was tried and shot. So it goes. " This understatement of a central characters passing works as more of an anti-climax than a climax.
This shocking understatement of seems emotionless and apathetic, and the authors use of the short bland account does not allow any reader the satisfaction of an exciting and emotional climatic death sequence. The "so it goes," on the end also reflects on the character of Billy Pilgrim, which will be discussed later, but also has the effect of almost asking a question of the reader, in relation to the war, violence, they are encouraged to examine the big picture of the novel, and the fact that every death in the novel is followed by this "So it goes," phrase.
Edgar Derby's death and its atypical understating, downgrades sensationalist and romanticised understandings of war and death in the reader. Although it functions very little as an element of conflict, it does show a strange, unusual kind of resolution, as through his understated death Edgar derby stays in the readers mind, and becomes essential in the novels anti-war message. Billy Pilgrim, the central character of the novel, functions as a reflection of the novels author, Kurt Vonnegut.
Pilgrims explanation of the world around him, conveyed through a 3rd person omniscient narration, often incorporates an understatement of violence, which is quite necessary in the novels presentation of its anti-war theme. Billy is captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge in 1943. He is taken to the industrial city of Dresden as a Prisoner of war. He experiences the Bombing of Dresden, a military venture that resulted in an estimated 200,000 deaths, and survives it by taking shelter in an underground meat locker.
Much of the rest of the novel, functions as an explanation of his psychological damage due to the war and the death he was surrounded with. The novels structure itself, built upon the idea that "Billy is unstuck in time," where he flits randomly to different moments in his life, teleporting through space and time randomly, is a symbolic reflection of this emotional trauma and resulting mental instability. Various other symbols also occur in relation to this idea. Pilgrim several times through the novel describes his feet as being "blue and ivory. As we progress further into the novel, to a moment when Pilgrim teleports back to 1943 when he is in a train carriage overloaded with American Prisoners of war, we discover the origin of this symbol. The character of the hobo, who was a brief friend of pilgrims, lies dead on the ground outside the train, with his bare feet in the snow described as "blue and ivory. " The association of the colour with corpses now, shows a thin fragile curtain in Pilgrims mind between life and death.
It also shows the effect of violence on Pilgrim, the fact that this symbol and others such as the "mustard gas and roses," smell that together permeate Pilgrim's entire life, and all of which originate in his wartime experiences, reflect the trauma he has suffered and the fact that the war is always with him. The "So it goes," phrase, repeated every time a death is told of in the novel, is another reflection of Billy's psychological damage. The fact that he is unable to distinguish between the death of his father and the death of bubbles in his lass of champagne highlights this. "His father died in a hunting accident during the war. So it goes. " "The champagne was dead. So it goes. " Because of the mass slaughter he witnessed as a prisoner of war, the massacre that was the Dresden bombings, he is unable for the rest of his life to distinguish the tragedy of one death from another. His apathetic and emotionless response to death through his whole life is always to say "So it goes," which also imparts the sense of approaching resolution, which is let down by the understatement of Derby's death.
The death Billy saw all around him in the war, and the way it stays in his mind his whole life, is an important element of conflict in the novel, we as the readers can almost see Billy fighting these mental and emotional demons. When Billy enters German territory as a young private, he loses most of his original company and ends up travelling with a glory seeking anti-tank gunner, Roland Weary, and two professional, well trained military "Scouts. Weary is an aggressive and overly cruel soldier, who delights in thinking up intriguing methods of torturing and killing enemy soldiers "Weary told billy about… neat tortures he had invented himself. One of these was sticking a dentist's drill in a guy's ear. " Roland Weary's mindset in the war might be considered the perfect for a soldier, he fears very little, and in many ways could be considered the perfect soldier, at least next the Billy Pilgrim, who is nearly useless as a soldier, having no desire to be violent, no drive for survival, and just being generally weak and pathetic.
Weary's glorification of violence continues throughout the novel, and his disgusting love for inflicting pain and death makes us as readers hate him completely. In this case, violence IS overdone, but it could also be considered necessary, as it portrays a negative side to the mindset of many military men today. The Scouts on the other hand, are professional, well trained soldiers "First came the scouts, graceful, quiet. They had rifles… Last came Billy, empty handed, bleakly ready for death. Again, the good military skills of the scouts, like the violence loving mindset of Weary, are juxtaposed to the uselessness of Billy Pilgrim. Yet, for all the Scouts qualities, and all of Weary's aggressive warlike attitudes, Billy is the only member of the company who survives. "Roland Weary died, of Gangrene. " The two scouts… had just been shot. They had been discovered and shot from behind. " The depiction of the Scouts death is moderately violent, using a simile to describe their blood seeping into the snow like "Strawberry Sherbet. The idea that this conveys, is that no amount of aggression, or tactical skills will make survival in a war more likely. Through the examples shown, it's quite obvious that violence in texts isn't always overdone or unnecessary. In the case of slaughterhouse 5, it is in many cases in fact the opposite; the violence is understated and quite necessary. But its necessity is the formation of both the novels "climax," and a resolution that although unconventional, delivers the novels anti-war punch line perfectly, which is that nobody wins in war.
You can be well trained, professional soldiers like the scouts, or a glory seeking soldier whose mindset is fully invested in the violence of war like Roland Weary, and be just as likely to die as a pathetic figure such as Billy Pilgrim, you can survive like Billy, and be haunted for life by the traumatic experience of war, and you can die like Edgar Derby, and have your apparently meaningless death dismissed by a simple "So it goes. "
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