An Analysis Of Slaughterhouse-Five From The Perspective Of Existentialism

As one of the most famous writers, Kurt Vonnegut lays a solid foundation in literature due to his unique creative style, distinctive writing technique, as well as the readers’deep thinking aroused by the themes in his works. Besides, his masterpiece Slaughterhouse-Five is one of the famous works even in literary history.To some extent, Slaughterhouse-Five is the autobiography of Kurt Vonnegut in that the novel is mostly based on the author’s own experiences. The protagonist Billy Pilgrim’s experiences of World War Ⅱ is portrayed in this works, together with the most notorious and disastrous firebombing of Dresden(a non-military beautiful city of Germany). Vonnegut does not adopt the traditional-narrative method of writing in a linear order. He presents the readers the whole life of the protagonist Billy Pilgrim by means of his time and space travels. Furthermore, the feelings of the uncertainty caused by the time and space travel coincide with the ups and downs of people’s lives.The publication of this novel, on the one hand, is popular in the public readers; on the other hand, it attracts the critics’much attention. There are a large number of papers and articles, most of which are concerned with traumatic theory, black humor, absurdity and alienation, writing techniques, narrative methods, theme analysis and so on and so forth. Almost all those papers have analyzed this novel from the perspective of pessimism. In this thesis, attempt is made to analyze this novel from the perspective of existentialism, especially Sartrean existentialism. In Slaughterhouse-Five, no matter what difficulty he meets, the protagonist Billy can always find a way to’escape’from the terrible situation in mind. And in this way, he can, to some degree, give himself a kind of relaxation. So from Billy’s action or reaction to the appalling condition, we not only see the possibility of living, but also find a gleam of hope in despair as well as "the severe optimism when in desperate situation." This point of view is not only the conclusion of this thesis, but also the innovative part of this paper.The whole thesis consists of four parts. The first part is the introduction, which includes the author, Kurt Vonnegut’s personal experiences, his main works, creative career as well as brief introduction of his masterpiece Slaughterhouse-Five. Literature review, including the studies of this novel at home and abroad.The second part briefly introduces the appearance and development of existentialism together with some representatives of this theory of different phases. Emphasis is put on the Sartrean existentialism and some of his main concepts:existence precedes essence, being-in-self, being-for-self, bad faith, value of time and the relations with others. All these concepts are closely related to the analysis of the novel Slaughterhouse-Five. The third part makes an analysis of Slaughterhouse-Five from the perspective of Existentialism and finds the evidence of the author’s thought of existentialism, especially Sartrean existentialism presented in this works, such as, the value of time illustrated by means of the protagonist Billy’s time and space travelling; the relations with others by means of Billy’s relationships with different people; the exchange of being-in-self and being-for-self and bad faith/self-deception though he is in appalling living condition.The last part is the conclusion. We clearly see the cruelty of war, the helplessness of human beings, the harmony and conflict between different persons; we also witness the ideas of existentialism everywhere through the deep and thorough understanding of existentialism and the analysis of Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five. Due to "existence precedes essence", we can always find a way to make our own lives different. Existentialism "puts the destiny of human beings in their own hand" and "tells them that there is no hope except taking actions and this is the only way for them to make their life possible."...