"Slaughterhouse Five" Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is a novel involving the character Billy Pilgrim. Billy is a WWII veteran, German prisoner of war, and survivor of the bombing of Dresden, who insists that he has become stuck in time. Having witnessed and survived the atrocities of WWII, there is no doubt that Billy Pilgrim left the war traumatized and unstable. Many events and experiences lived by Billy throughout the novel are parallel to Vonnegut's life. The death and destruction of the war cause Billy Pilgrim to become stuck in time, driving him to the edge of sanity. This causes him to time-travel throughout the events in his own life. In fact, "Slaughterhouse Five" was not published until 23 years after the end of the war; 23 years of desolation and internal angst for Vonnegut. Why in fact did it take 23 years after the war for Vonnegut to publish his novel? The answer to that question lies within the life and experiences of Billy Pilgrim. Billy becomes desensitized towards death, with the common phrase used within the novel, "So it goes," summarizing his emotions. Throughout the novel, the parallels between Vonneguts personal life and Billy Pilgrim illustrate the destructiveness of war.
To understand "Slaughterhouse Five," one must first understand the author himself, Kurt Vonnegut. Enlisted in the armed forced to fight in the second world war, Vonnegut served in Europe and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. During the battle, Vonnegut was captured and became a prisoner of war. Vonnegut was in Dresden, Germany during the Allied firebombing of the city, which resulted in the slaughter of 135,000. A genocide of innocents, mass murdered by a storm of fire. Vonnegut was not among the dead, and escaped death since he was in an underground slaughterhouse with other prisoners of war making vitamin supplements. Vonnegut's 23 year hibernation from writing was due to the event that took place on February 23 1945, The Bombing of Dresden.
