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Rafael Rivera
Rhetoric 102
Mr. Hackney
5/16/15
Slaughterhouse 5: To Planet Tralfamadore
In New York Times review of Slaughterhouse-Five, Or the Childrens Crusade, the
writer, Christopher Lehman-Haupt states how Kurt Vonnegut Jr.s book is not a failure and is a
success in many ways. He talks about how the books usage of the time travel gimmick is genius
and that the scenes from the war make the book a successful war novel. He also shows a great
appreciation for the science fiction aspects of the story with Billys interactions with the fictitious
Tralfamadorians. While Lehman-Haupt talks about the war and patriotic scenes being the most
influential pieces of work within the novel I maintain that the moments that included Billys
PTSD were the most influential scenes to take place in the book. Vonneguts book about Dresden
transcends the war itself. It delves deeper into the psychology of man faced with a traumatic
experience and how he has to cope with these experiences for the rest of his life.
Mental illness and coping is quite prominent within the book as Billy suffers from posttraumatic stress disorder throughout the novel. Billys post-traumatic stress disorder starts off
years after Billy was freed during the Dresden bombings. After Billy survives a crash in Vermont
the trauma from the plane crash intensifies Billys PTSD. The once seemingly normal man now
suffers from a fractured memory. This show of mental illness impacts the novel greatly. It
provides the story with a sense of great distress as the beloved character who is followed

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throughout the story whose life we are glimpsing through descends into madness. The reader
feels bad for Billy as he truly believes that he was abducted by aliens.
The unique writing style in Vonneguts novel may be confusing to first time readers,
however this was the authors intention. By having Billys memories spread throughout the book
the reader is able to get a sense of how unfocused and scattered Billys memories are after his
experience in Dresden. The scattered plot truly shows what it could be like for a person with
PTSD. While this plot device may be unconventional and make it difficult to follow the story it
serves a purpose in not only showing the reader Billys PTSD but also to give the reader
moments of amazement as two points in the story become linked together by a memory
appearing later in the book and filling in the plot holes and unanswered questions.
The moments of war throughout the book provide more context as to why Billy has
PTSD after the war during his later life. After witnessing the atrocities committed by the Nazi
party in Dresden Billys mind became fractured from the stress of war. The war itself is not the
main focus of the book as it can easily be seen by much of the story taking place after Billys
return from the war in his later age. Vonnegut states it himself during the first chapter of the book
saying that he could barely remember anything that happened during his time in Dresden and
how he failed to write a book about war.
Many of the more powerful moments in Slaughterhouse 5 occur during Billys
interactions within his own psyche. The themes of science fiction that occur during Billys
interactions with the fictional Tralfamadorians spawned from Billys post-traumatic stress
disorder. For Billy to fully cope with his trauma he creates the Tralfamadorians an alien race who
sees all moments in time as one. Billy glorifies these beings for the innate ability to see all of
time as one moment and having the higher understanding that all things are predetermined and

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Billy accepts this as the truth. With Billys acceptance of this truth he becomes more apathetic to
all the horrible things that have happened to him. Billy uses the Tralfamadorians truth as a
device to cope with his past. Billy unable to fully cope with what he saw in Dresden.
Coping with mental disorders seems to be the main theme of the book. While some
would argue that a story about Dresden is obviously a story about war the author himself states
that the book is not a war story as there is nothing intelligent to say about war. The true
purpose of Vonneguts classic novel was to show the public what the life of a soldier entails. War
leaves the soldiers fractured and broken unable to fully cope with the horrors that theyve seen.
While Billy was able to cope with Dresden by creating the Tralfamadorians the average soldier
will have a much tougher time and that is what makes Slaughterhouse 5 a great novel.