Slaughterhouse Five is a roundabout story containing themes and ideas of War, PTSD, and the effects of what it can do to somebody. The story is inspired by the author's Kurt Vonnguts life, and his experiences as a soldier in World War II. The story follows the main character of Billy. The main plot of the story incorporates parallels to Billy doing very similar things that Vonngut did, such as writing a novel, or being held as a war prisoner.

Slaughterhouse Five is a story about how a man named Bill Pilgrim “jumps” throughout his life. Bill experiences his life in a nonlinear fashion, due to the trauma he experienced during the war. The story begins with him experiencing his time as a war prisoner of World War II, being held in a slaughterhouse named Schlachthof-fünf. Billy survives a bombind due to being held so deep in the ground and eventually is forced to clean up the charred bodies. He becomes an optometrist later in life, and then begins to notice his insanity when marrying an ugly woman named valencia. Billy supposedly reaches the “american dream” of having daughters, a nice house, job, and a wife. Billy then jumps to a time of being held captive in a zoo by aliens when viewing a barbershop quartet. After this vision he jumps to 1968 on a plane ride in which the plane crashes and only he survives. His wife then dies of carbon monoxide poisoning as a result of a car crash. Billy’s daughters try to care for him, yet Billy sneaks off into New York city and begins to write a newspaper letter. His daughters are lost and don’t know what to do with Billy's insanity, and Billy then records a tape predicting his death in 1976 due to an assassin's bullet. Billy then decides to “time jump” and live his life in a happier time.

The realism of the text is one of its biggest strengths. As seen in the summary, Slaughterhouse Five takes real events from our world to paint a realism setting of the trauma that people experienced during that bombing. However what makes this more interesting than a standard book is the interesting time flow that progresses in the book. The fact that the time jumps around adds to the horror of what Billy experienced in the book.

The setting of the book is one of the biggest strengths in the book, having notable realism and imagery.  The author lived through the same bombing, so he was able to paint not just a picture, but a whole canvas for what it was like at that specific time. One example from the book is his description of the slaughterhouse “The Americans were taken to the fifth building inside the gate. It was a one-story cement-block cube with sliding doors in front and back. It had been built as a shelter for pigs about to be butchered. Now it was going to serve as a home away from home for one hundred American prisoners of war. There were bunks in there, and two pot bellied stoves and a water tap.” (Vonnegut, 70). He does not brush off this experience, and the setting has very gruesome details, such as specifically describing the dead and charred bodies. 

The book’s main character Billy is very likable. He starts off as almost a cowardly character prior to the war, and is an absolute joke of a soldier. After the bombing, he transforms into this insanity, war ripped man after the war. He even follows the mindset of the figurative Transformations of not fearing death, and just accepting it. Billy was, in my opinion, the best written character in this book, due to the realism set in order to create him.

The story tends to have its humorous moments within the story. Multiple jokes are made, such as the song that drunk guys were singing at a bar. Some people may not like the comedy, however I think that it lightens up the story at times in order to make the sad and depressing moments in the story more impactful due to the change in atmosphere.

Another good part about this book is the abstract plot that unfolds in the book. One moment in the book, Billy is in a barbershop and the next moment he is in an alien planet. Then The book uses aliens as a symbol for insanity, as well as a symbol for what Billy has become after the bombing. That is an idea so wild and interesting that you would not connect it to other American classical books. And after this Alien encounter he returns back on a flight, wich out of the books I have read, none of them have this many time jumps and to these different locations. The idea of the American Dream is also presented in the book, with the author having an interesting take on the idea when compared to other authors. Even though Billy obtained the dream in the end, having a wife, kids, and a house, he still had scars from past events in his life. This shows that Vonnegut doesn’t believe the american dream is everything in life, and you can still remain scarred from the steps it took you to get there, witch I find to be the most interesting interpretation of that dream that I have read

Even though the concept of the time jumping around is a good one, the fact that it does means that at times the book can be difficult to follow or understand. Specifically, when the aliens first showed up, I was completely thrown for a loop and very confused about what was happening. And just when I was about grasping the concept of what was happening, another time jump happened, which added to some of the confusion. 

In conclusion, I can say that my opinion on the story was a relatively positive one. The use of an abstract plot, realistic setting, comedy, and likable main character create a unique classic that outshines others for me. However, I did enjoy interpreting the meaning of the story more than actually reading it due to the chunky flow of the story.