A Study Of Parody In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-five

Kurt Vonnegut is one of the most prestigious postmodern writers in American literary history.His works often point out the threat of militaristic barbarity,social and economic inequality and environmental disruption to human beings.Slaughterhouse-Five is Vonnegut's masterpiece and wins him a worldwide reputation.It is the representation and rewriting of the Firebombing of Dresden and the Second World War.Different from most novels of war,Slaughterhouse-Five gives a description of the warfare from the perspective of an antihero protagonist named Billy Pilgrim in a non-linear narration and circular structure.Parody is an important postmodern writing technique.This thesis investigates the use of parody in Slaughterhouse-Five with the method of close reading.The introduction part gives an introduction of Vonnegut's life and works,Slaughterhouse-Five,the theory of parody and literature review.The first chapter concentrates on the parodic representation of two historical events,namely,the Children's Crusade and the bombing of Dresden.The second chapter probes into the parody of autobiography and science fiction and how it subverts traditional characterization and plot structure and defies the readers' expectations.The third chapter points out that Slaughterhouse-Five satirizes the callous and hypocritical Christianity by parodying The Pilgrim's Progress in image and character and Genesis.Vonnegut applied parody to the recreation of the parodied texts and the deconstruction and reconstruction of historical events,literary genres and literary work.The use of parody plays an important role in the deconstruction of the chaotic world and reconstruction of a peaceful fictional world in Slaughterhouse-Five in a comical tone.It is not only a crucial technique for expressing Vonnegut's antiwar ideas and his fears that science would cause the destruction of the whole world but also an important rewriting strategy of criticizing the callousness and hypocrisy of religion.