An Analysis Of Time In Slaughterhouse-Five From The Perspective Of Conceptual Metaphor Theory

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut(also called The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death), a classic of American post-modernism, not only convulses the reader’s heart in content but also subverts the traditional approach to form. Through the integration of reality and fiction, history and imagination, and synchronic narration and diachronic narration, Kurt Vonnegut depicts the allied firebombing of Dresden through a soldier named Billy Pilgrim. From Billy’s experience, it can be revealed that those who fall victim to the warfare fall into the disorder of world, the cruelty of war, and the trauma of heart. Confronted with the savage massacre, the protagonist Billy Pilgrim only responds to it with a pet phrase “So it goes”. In fact, his indifference and silence are precisely speechless rebellion against the war. In this novel, what impresses readers most is that Billy’s cognition of time is characterized by jumble and jungle. What’s more, it is described in a metaphorical manner. Time of metaphorical features not only endows the story with abundant symbolic meanings but also offers a new perspective to probe into the theme of the novel.As a matter of fact, the disorder of time in the textual world originates from the chaos in the real world. The physical and psychological trauma left by the war gives rise to the confusion in Billy’s mind and further leads to the temporal disorder in the fictional world. This thesis attempts to dig into the anti-war theme of Slaughterhouse-Five from the perspective of time metaphors. Through the deconstruction of time metaphors in unique character, ingenious plot, and flexible narration, the thesis will give deep insight into the theme of this novel. Based on the consideration, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory gives a better appreciation of the mystery of time in Slaughterhouse-Five.