Communications in Humanities Research ISSN: 2753-7072
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Research Article

The Incapability of Time and History in Slaughterhouse-Five

Fengyuan ZhengShanghai World Foreign Language Academy, Shanghai, 200032, China*

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

Slaughterhouse-Five written by Kurt Vonnegut is a science fiction that depicts the depicts the main character Billy Pilgrim’s time travelling after experiencing the bombing of Dresden. This paper interprets the relationship between Billy Pilgrim and Kilgore Trout based on Fredric Jameson’s theory of mode of pastiche and nostalgia to analyse the incapability of time and history reflected from Billy Pilgrim. From the strategy of presenting this relationship, a wildly shared postmodern character can be suggested, which is the incapability of time and history in the contemporary society. Furthermore, this paper discusses Kurt Vonnegut’s dilemmatic stance towards the postmodern symptom and the contemporary society by explaining the writers’ condition in postmodern time. The paper aims to concretize the connection between Slaughterhouse-Five and the contemporary representation in general.

Keywords: postmodern society; Kurt Vonnegut; pastiche mode; Fredric Jameson; Slaughterhouse-Five
Published: February 28, 2023
DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/2/2022595
Volume: CHR Vol.2
pp. 514-520
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