Unconventional Writing in Slaughterhouse-Five

            Kurt Vonnegut tells the story of Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five; His uncontrollable time traveling takes Billy back to his experiences in World War II and on the planet which is called Traflamadore. Throughout this novel Vonnegut blatantly disobeys the conventional rules of storytelling. He does this after trying multiple times to write a straight-forward book on the bombing of Dresden. After realizing he does not want it to be a regular war book, Vonnegut tries a different strategy of writing. He boldly inserts more than one surrogate, ignores chronology and disregards sticking to one perspective of narration. This is because he does not know how to write about such a dark topic any other way. He wants to tell the world what really happened, but the only way he can make sense of this terrible event in his life is by inserting these eccentric elements.
             Due to Billy Pilgrim's uncontrollable time-traveling, chronology is almost nonexistent. A reader can first experience Billy's time-traveling when he is with the "Three-musketeers" in Germany. He is leaning against a tree after falling behind the other men. During this, Billy travels through extreme moments of his life such as the violet light of death, the red bubbling of pre-birth, and when his father threw him into the Y.M.C.A pool. The only aspect of chronology in the novel is when Billy time-travels to his experiences in Dresden. Only then is each encounter in order. The time-traveling of Billy and the Tralfamadorian concepts of time are purely coincidental. On Tralfamadore they see all time at once, it's never ending. Every moment is structured a certain way, so it will always happen that way. It is sheerly by chance that Billy can time-travel as well. As a result of his becoming unstuck in time, he understands their concept of destiny to a greater degree. Throughout the book, Billy stays passive to allow everything to happen as it should.