| In my thesis, I examine the ways Kurt Vonnegut pushes theoretical limits of language and time in his masterwork Slaughterhouse Five . Vonnegut undermines a formal narrative structure by constructing a fragmented framework which urges the reader to reconstruct the story retroactively. This formal strategy challenges the reader's assumptions regarding linear constructions of time and replaces them with a spatial reconstruction of nonlinear narrative chronology. Furthermore, the novel's narrative structure also provides a metaphorical arena in which Vonnegut, as both author and narrator, projects the effects of his war trauma onto his doppelganger Billy Pilgrim. Finally, I assert that, by using science fiction as a mode of awareness to explain the temporal challenges of facts, truth, history, and memory, Vonnegut blurs the boundaries separating postmodern and science fiction literature. |
