Slaughterhouse Five (Part One) Journal - Zach Vance
For this week I had the role of "Discussion Director," which entailed creating my own analysis and coming up with two questions for the group to discuss.
My first impression of the book is that is intended to represent a sort of stream-of-consciousness feel, but from the perspective of a man with severe psychological trauma. On top of the narrative being comprised of a random and sometimes nonsensical sequence of events, Billy will sometimes use inappropriate word choice, such as when he says "I didn't think the time was ripe." What's really intriguing is the many references to time travel, in which Billy seems to literally jump between points of time. I believe this may be the narrator/Billy trying to quantify his scattered or altered memory by believing it is literally time travel.
The two questions I will be asking during discussion are:
1. Do you think that the bizarre structure merely serves a narrative purpose or is it how Vonnegut views his memories of the war?
2. Why do you think Vonnegut chose to write this instead of a simple non-fiction book about the Dresden Bombing.
When reading this book, especially the parts relating to time travel, I immediately made a connection to the film "The Time Traveler's Wife," which is about a man who (as the title suggests) can travel through time, but cannot control when he does so or where (when) he ends up. It's not a very profound connection and there isn't much similarity beyond this, but it's what I immediately thought of.
My first impression of the book is that is intended to represent a sort of stream-of-consciousness feel, but from the perspective of a man with severe psychological trauma. On top of the narrative being comprised of a random and sometimes nonsensical sequence of events, Billy will sometimes use inappropriate word choice, such as when he says "I didn't think the time was ripe." What's really intriguing is the many references to time travel, in which Billy seems to literally jump between points of time. I believe this may be the narrator/Billy trying to quantify his scattered or altered memory by believing it is literally time travel.
The two questions I will be asking during discussion are:
1. Do you think that the bizarre structure merely serves a narrative purpose or is it how Vonnegut views his memories of the war?
2. Why do you think Vonnegut chose to write this instead of a simple non-fiction book about the Dresden Bombing.
When reading this book, especially the parts relating to time travel, I immediately made a connection to the film "The Time Traveler's Wife," which is about a man who (as the title suggests) can travel through time, but cannot control when he does so or where (when) he ends up. It's not a very profound connection and there isn't much similarity beyond this, but it's what I immediately thought of.
Hi Zach,
ReplyDeleteSome great connections you are making here. You might want to consider how the stream of consciousness narrative technique works here in regards to the first person. For instance, how is the reader connected to the narrator throughout the book as the narrator seems to meander through time? Does communicating the experience from first person point of view versus third person affect the reliability of events being described?