The Absurdity In Slaughterhouse-Five

In modern western society, absurdity has become a dominant ideological thought. Consequently, the sense of absurdity has become one of the themes reflected in modern literature. In works of the existentialism, the theater of the absurd and Black Humor in particular, human being is thrown into a world which is unreasonable, inharmonious, illogical and contradictory.Slaughterhouse -Five written by Kurt Vonnegut is classified as a representative novel of the absurd. Based on previous researches of this novel, my paper will attempt at making a further study on the absurdity of the novel. The thesis is composed of three parts: the introduction, the body and the conclusion.The introduction is a survey of the past criticisms of the novel at home and abroad, followed by a brief account of the content of the thesis. The body is made up of four chapters.Chapter One outlines the career of Kurt Vonnegut, focusing on the connection between his life experience and the writing of his works, and then it gives a brief introduction to the novel Slaughterhouse-Five.Chapter Two first makes the definition of absurdity clear, and then analyzes the theme of absurdity from the following four aspects: the absurd as the reflection of the disorder and the absurd in social reality; the absurd as the expression of fatalism; the absurd as the character's "resigned acceptance" of the absurdity; the absurd as the collapse of religious belief.Chapter Three and Chapter Four explore the theme of absurdity reflected in the means of artistic expression, which includes two aspects: the characterization and the absurd form.Chapter Three discusses one of the means of artistic expression, that is, the characterization, which mainly consists of the protagonist and a group of minor characters. The protagonist Billy Pilgrim appears in thenovel as an anti-hero. No matter what role he plays in the work, he is just a "listless playing of enormous forces" without free will. "Resigned acceptance" is Billy's only response to the absurd world. The appearance of such an anti-hero metaphysically conveys the conception that human beings, so powerless and passive, can just take a negative attitude towards absurdity. Meanwhile, the series of minor characters presented as two-dimensional caricatures not only reveals the cruelty of war but also makes a burlesque of American reality. Therefore the helpless and meaningless absurd world is laid bare.Chapter Four discusses another means of artistic expression: the absurd form, which is analyzed in four major aspects: the first one is the circular pattern. The cycles hidden in the novel suggest to the readers the fact that everything moves in a circle with no chance of escape from the control of fate. The second is the use of repetition. For example, the phrase of "so it goes" itself refers to the sense of indifference and nihilism. Furthermore, the phrase repeatedly occurs after every death, in which the fatalism finds its full expression. To some extent, the reiterations of other phrases also convey the sense of absurdity. The third is fragmented plots. To disclose the strong sense of disorder and fragmentation, the novel immensely employs the device of montage to integrate fragmented plots, in which the collage of Billy Pilgrim's life is imbued with fatalism. The last is the parody of Jesus. In many aspects, Billy Pilgrim has striking similarities with Jesus. However in essence his spirit runs counter to that of Jesus. By the poor imitation of Jesus, the novel hints to readers that in an absurd world, the religious belief has collapsed, "God is dead".Finally, the conclusion makes a summary of the thesis and reiterates its main points.