Mother Night and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

In Mother Night and SlaughterhouserFive by Kurt Vonnegut. the use of being “unstuck” in time. Having no time restraints, allows the author to foreshadow important events and create links between events separated In time. Billy Pilgrim, the main character In SlaughterhouserFive, travels back and forth In time to events that are significant In his life. Just as Pilgrim travels In time, so does Howard W. Campbell, Jr. from Mother Night. There are significant differences In the way that each character travels in time: Billy honestly believes that he relives certain parts of his life, while Howard moves in time with the use of flashbacks.

As Billy can travel forward and backward In time, Howard solely recalls events In his life and cannot travel into the future. Billy is taken to Tralfamadore, a planet in another dimension, Where he is taught to become “unstuck” In time. Vonnegut, at the beginning of the second chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five, confirms the belief that Billy travels in time: ” Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time”.

Therefore, there is no confusion that Billy’s descriptions of past events are not flashbacks but actual visits to the past The Tralfamadorians understand time and believe that they can look at any moment that interests them at any given time. The Tralfamadorians tell Billy that the Idea of time on Earth Is an Illusion that one moment follows another and that once a moment Is gone, It Is gone forever. Vonnegut In Slaughterhouse-Five describes the Traifamadorian’s VleW of time as “All moments, past, present.

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and future, always have existed, always will exist”. Vonnegut’s book Is mirrored by the Tralfamadorians’ idea of time. having no time restraints. This allows Vonnegut to describe events in order of importance, not in chronological order. With this theory of being “unstuck” in time, Vonnegut leaves no surprises in the book.

The reader is aware of everything before it happens in the Earthling sense of time, such as Billy’s death, his capture. and his airplane crash. All these events. which are important to the plot of the story, are revealed before they actually happen. This allows Vonnegut to go back and fill In all the details Some critics say that this takes away from the suspense in SlaughterhouserFive, but this also adds to the suspense. Simply addressing what happens in Pilgrim’s life makes the reader want to know why and how, Questions flow through the reader‘s stimulating them to discover more details about a drastic event In the character‘s life. With the Tralfamadorians’ explanation of time, Vonnegut can justify why the Dresden bombing occurred. why an open-city, off limits to Allied bombing, was destroyed. it simply was supposed to happen. and Will continue to happen and there Is nothing anyone can do about It.

The Tralfamadorians have a similar opinion about death: “When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is Just line in plenty other moments”. This answers the question posed by so many people today: Why me7 By not lollowrng a typical chronological path in SlaughterhouserFive, Vonnegut forces the reader to make parallels between key events in Pilgrim‘s life, which would have been overlooked In a ClaSSIC novel containing an episodic structure. For example, on the night of his daughter’s wedding day. Billy Pilgrim cannot sleep. He knows he Will be kidnapped by the Tralfamadorian flying saucer in an hour. He Watches a late—night documentary on gallant American bombers in World War II. but since he is slightly unstuck in time, Billy watches the movie forward and backward.

Then he heads out to the backyard to meet the saucer. Once on board. he‘s asked if he has any questions. Billy is then anesthetized, The crush of the spaceship’s acceleration sends him hurtling through time, and he’s back on a boxcar traveling across Germany. The men take turns sleeping and standing. No one wants to let Billy sleep beside him because Billy yells and kicks In his sleep; therelore, Billy sleeps standing up. The fact that Billy watches the mowe forward and backward represents the way he travels forward and backward in time Another similarity between these events is that Billy cannot sleep on the night of his daughter’s wedding day, nor can he sleep In the boxcar traveling across Germany. This shows that Billy Pilgrim’s life is a circle, like the Tralfamadorian concept of time, and he encounters events In his life that have already taken place In some shape or form. Mother Night, although it contains flashbacks, Is Written in a more typical episodic structure The flashbacks, however, are a type of writing Without time restraints.

With the use of flashbacks, Vonnegut can maintain order in his writing, but does not have to stay Within the restraints of time. He can expand outside of the chains and discuss topics out of order, ultimately giving the reader the story In the first few chapters, Vonnegut takes some ol the suspense out of the novel by doing this, but also adds a desire to continue and fill in the holes, For instance in the first chapter, Campbell says, “I am behind bars”. Only a few sentences later, he states, “I am awaiting a fair trial for my war crimes by the Republic of |srae|, Immediately, the anticipation is taken away from the novel because the reader already knows Campbell goes to jail, and if that isn‘t enough. the reader knows why he is placed in prison. Vonnegut’s use of flashbacks allows him to place events, which need to go together, together. For example, directly after Campbell has his last flashback, he says, “So here l am in Israel, of my own free will though my cell is locked and my guards have guns”.

The flashback he has before this describes why he is in prison by his own choice, but if placed in chronological order, these events would not be connected. Campbell is placed in prison because he chooses to be, a choice that foreshadows how the book ends. At the end of the book Campbell commits suicide: “I think that tonight is the night I will hang Howard W. Campbell, Jr., for crimes against himself, I know that tonight is the night”. Howard chose to give himself up and be arrested. and then ultimately, commit suicide for the same crimes, crimes against humanity that he could not understand, Vonnegut‘s work is life with instances of lies becoming truth. Howard Campbell‘s own double identity is a particularly strong example, although Vonnegut’s message is subtle. Slaughterhouse-Five and Mother Night are books based in truth. These books are about real human lives and how they react to their surroundings and their previous actions.

Who does not, on a day—to—day basis, think about a past event? Most people throughout the entire course of a day dwell on some past event that has drastically influenced them; therefore, Vonnegut’s use of flashbacks in Mother Night are realistic. The flashbacks in this book make it believable, and this poor man, who was mistreated by two countries, comes alive to the reader. Contrary to Mother Night, Vonnegut’s use of no time restraints leaves the reader feeling disillusioned at some points In the novel. This is Vonnegut’s purpose. The confusion Pilgrim feels in his life. because he has no power over where he goes or when he goes there, is felt by the author due to the bizarre time travels. This technique makes the characters Jump out at the reader to embrace them; the reader feels somewhat of a connection with Billy because he or she is confused as well. Because the main character in Slaughterhouse-Five visits the planet Tralfamadore. Vonnegut is often mislabeled as only a science fiction writer.

This same character. Billy, travels in time throughout the book also. His time-traveling abilities, Without close scrutiny, appear to be science fiction. However, under intense investigation, the time travels are not merely science fiction but a means to relate events together that would not fit together if placed chronologically and to loreshadow key events in the character’s life. Mother Night has no time restraints as well, but this book contains flashbacks to differ itself from the characteristic episodic structure novels rather than being “unstuck” in time. Again, Vonnegut is able to show connections between important events in this book and decrease the suspense by outlining the story at the very beginning. This causes the reader to thirst for more after given only a little taste of the plot.