The Indeterminacy In Slaughterhouse-Five: Dual Dance With Deconstruction

American novelist Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922-2007) is one of the most active writers in American literature after World Warâ…¡and well-known for his representative work Slaughterhouse-Five. His works usually come unstuck in traditional literary stereotypes, especially in time and space, and show a significant style with free association. At the same time, Vonnegut demonstrates a perfect combination of the strange imagination of science fiction, the strong style of black humor and all kinds of postmodernist writing techniques which are used to express the existential predicament of people in postmodernist society.Slaughterhouse-Five shows a world filled with indeterminacies and Vonnegut's deep thoughts about the existential predicament and outlet of mankind by means of the collage of scenes, schizophrenia, and fragmented time and space. This thesis is based on indeterminacy which is the fundamental aesthetic feature of postmodern literature, and aims to combine reception aesthetics and deconstructionism to analyze all kinds of indeterminacies in Slaughterhouse-Five.This thesis consists of three parts including introduction, body and conclusion, and the body part is made up of three chapters.The introductory section contains three aspects of information. First, it introduces Vonnegut's life, his works and the content of Slaughterhouse-Five. Secondly, it gives a concise review of the previous comprehensive studies of Vonnegut and his works carried out by scholars both at home and abroad. Finally, it gives a brief introduction of indeterminacy and deconstructionism, and discusses the feasibility to analyze Slaughterhouse-Five with them.In Chapter one, the indeterminacy and deconstruction of the theme are demonstrated mainly in the multi-theme of the novel, for instance, history, religion, death, and time and space, etc. In Chapter two, the indeterminacy and deconstruction of character images are discussed in three specific aspects:duality, obscurity and fragmentation. In Chapter three, the indeterminacy and deconstruction of language are analyzed mainly in the following respects: signifier-sliding, intertextuality and fictionalization.The conclusion gives a summary of the main ideas, and points out that indeterminacy and deconstruction are the aims, means and results of each other in Slaughterhouse-Five, and form a special, inseparable relationship. It is just this relationship that promotes Vonnegut's subversion and reconstruction of the novel world and the real world, that would be helpful for readers to understand Vonnegut's writing style and the artistic characteristics in Slaughterhouse-Five, read and appreciate postmodernist works, and think deeply about a diversity of problems in postmodernist society.