Billy's Schizophrenia:A Laingian Interpretation Of Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt Vonnegut(1922-2007)is considered as an important American writer of the 20th century.His works demonstrate tragedy and profound connotation through comedy and absurd narration.Kurt Vonnegut is accordingly regarded as one of the representatives of black humor.Slaughterhouse-Five is the most popular work of Kurt Vonnegut.Billy Pilgrim,the main figure of Slaughterhouse-Five,experiences the Dresden Firebombing of World War II and fortunately survives.The whole life of Billy Pilgrim is presented by the way of time travel between battlefield and postwar life.This thesis aims to interpret the inner world of Billy Pilgrim in Slaughterhouse-Five based on the theory of R.D.Laing on schizophrenia.Laing is a famous English psychiatrist and existential psychologist who explains the origin and development of schizophrenia in his first work The Divided Self,which is beneficial to the research of schizophrenia.According to Laing's theory,this thesis is trying to analyze the possible causes as well as embodiments of his schizophrenic symptoms,so as to explore the solution of which Billy takes full advantage to liberate himself.It contributes to deeper understanding and interpretation for Billy and Slaughterhouse-Five.Apart from the Introduction and Conclusion,the main body of the thesis consists of three chapters.The Introduction introduces briefly Kurt Vonnegut and Slaughterhouse-Five,the studies of Slaughterhouse-Five at home and abroad and R.D.Laing's theories on schizophrenia.Chapter One mainly investigates factors of Billy's mental breakdown.It proceeds from the childhood and family life of Billy to explore the origin of Billy's mental state and analyzes the influences that war had on Billy from the Second World War and Dresden Firebombing.In addition,this chapter explores the "ontological insecurity" and accordingly demonstrates the effects it brought to Billy in different phases of his life.Chapter Two presents the embodiments of Billy's schizophrenia.Firstly,this chapter demonstrates Billy's mental symptoms by making an analysis on his mental state on the whole.Second,Billy's false self system is explored based on the Laing's views about "true self ' and "false self" to further explain the image of Billy in battlefield,family and in society.The unembodied self is finally explored by close reading of the novel to present Billy's divorce of self from body.Chapter Three focuses on Billy's attempt to save himself.Billy resorts to science fiction and hallucination to escape from the reality.The Tralfamadore where Billy was kidnapped seems to be a utopia with a different living philosophy.The self-redemption of Billy is turned out to be a failure.Billy's mental state and self-redemption experiences present the struggle and weakness of people who have been suffering from mental crisis,which demonstrates Vonnegut's humanitarian concern on people in modern society.