Humanity, Heroes and Seeing in the Fourth Dimension
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So, recently I read Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut. I LOVED the book
although I will admit it took me a little while to get accustomed to Vonnegut’s
chaotic, out-of-order writing style. As previously mentioned the events of the
protagonist, Billy Pilgrim's, life do not follow a straightforward
chronological order, instead they are randomly arranged throughout the book.
Initially, I got a little confused about what was happening in the story but
when I realized that the book was meant to be written in such a manner in order
to mirror the mentality of an actual soldier both during and post war, I could
not believe Vonnegut's ingeniousness.
Naturally, I think the best parts of the book were the numerous sections where Vonnegut specifically included subtle people, such as the German innkeeper outside of Dresden and the poor Russian prisoner of war, whom effectively countered the typical notions of various groups of people during the war and helped focus on the natural humanity within all individuals during WWII regardless of the side they fought on. Specifically, I want to focus on Germans because I feel that they are almost always portrayed as the villains of the war. I am by no means advocating for the Nazis (considering I am neither Aryan nor Christian) and of course, the monstrosities that the Nazis committed were and still are unacceptable; however, I believe that the Germans accepted Hitler, his mentality and his party not out of a pure evil and lack of humanity but because it manipulatively gave the people a way to regain their lost pride from previous wars especially World War I, in which Germany was forced to take the brunt of the punishment with the Treaty of Versailles, established by the Allies. The Nazis gained membership by promoting a sense of national unity and from the recent 1929 depression which Hitler used to undermine the Democratic party that previously held a majority. Therefore, although it is easy to assume that Germany and it's allies were simply composed of inept, heartless brutes the case remains untrue considering much of the Nazi's popularity was due to previous embarrassments which, when correctly exploited by Hitler, developed into an appealing propaganda package that enticed the majority of Germans.
Another cool part of the book was the sci-fi aspect. My favorite idea that Vonnegut developed was the idea of Tralfamadorians seeing events in the Fourth Dimension as a continuous, never-ending stream rather than in a logical, linear progression as humans do. I suppose in the end most people would agree that life is better as a series of progressions because it allows people to work hard rather than loose the enthusiasm for life that knowing your future brings. However, I think that seeing in the Fourth Dimension could have one big positive which is being able to see people as they truly are: a product of their collective actions rather than a single deed. Oftentimes people are quick to judge others based upon one moment rather than taking the time to understand the individual and his story. Regardless, I think we can all agree that being able to see moments and events in the form of a mountain, like the Trafalmadorians, would be pretty awesome. (If you deny it, you are lying to yourself.)
The last point which I like about Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughter-house Five, was the idea of no heroes. Being in high school myself, I feel that in English classes, history classes and in textbooks our society continuously stresses the significance of war heroes who courageously saved our nation from various catastrophic endings. The truth is that there is no universal hero because even though some guy just saved one nation he had to murder others to do so. So, the whole idea of a hero, in terms of war, is totally subjective and therefore I don’t think it truly exists even though we would all like to think it does. Murdering others just because you deem them to be the forsaken “enemy” does not make it okay to kill people. Yeah, yeah, I know that war is unavoidable but I think that our society sometimes stresses the idea of “war heroes” a bit too much without realizing that those people just killed so many others, so should they really be heroes when under any other circumstances killing others would never be acceptable?
Some pretty heavy stuff in this EXTREMELY long post, but hopefully I didn’t bore anyone too much! And if you haven’t already read Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut I definitely recommend you try it out!
‘Till next time :)
Naturally, I think the best parts of the book were the numerous sections where Vonnegut specifically included subtle people, such as the German innkeeper outside of Dresden and the poor Russian prisoner of war, whom effectively countered the typical notions of various groups of people during the war and helped focus on the natural humanity within all individuals during WWII regardless of the side they fought on. Specifically, I want to focus on Germans because I feel that they are almost always portrayed as the villains of the war. I am by no means advocating for the Nazis (considering I am neither Aryan nor Christian) and of course, the monstrosities that the Nazis committed were and still are unacceptable; however, I believe that the Germans accepted Hitler, his mentality and his party not out of a pure evil and lack of humanity but because it manipulatively gave the people a way to regain their lost pride from previous wars especially World War I, in which Germany was forced to take the brunt of the punishment with the Treaty of Versailles, established by the Allies. The Nazis gained membership by promoting a sense of national unity and from the recent 1929 depression which Hitler used to undermine the Democratic party that previously held a majority. Therefore, although it is easy to assume that Germany and it's allies were simply composed of inept, heartless brutes the case remains untrue considering much of the Nazi's popularity was due to previous embarrassments which, when correctly exploited by Hitler, developed into an appealing propaganda package that enticed the majority of Germans.
Germans suffered various embarrassing war losses from the Thirty Years War, to WWI making Hitler's Nazi party appealing to regain their lost dignity
Another cool part of the book was the sci-fi aspect. My favorite idea that Vonnegut developed was the idea of Tralfamadorians seeing events in the Fourth Dimension as a continuous, never-ending stream rather than in a logical, linear progression as humans do. I suppose in the end most people would agree that life is better as a series of progressions because it allows people to work hard rather than loose the enthusiasm for life that knowing your future brings. However, I think that seeing in the Fourth Dimension could have one big positive which is being able to see people as they truly are: a product of their collective actions rather than a single deed. Oftentimes people are quick to judge others based upon one moment rather than taking the time to understand the individual and his story. Regardless, I think we can all agree that being able to see moments and events in the form of a mountain, like the Trafalmadorians, would be pretty awesome. (If you deny it, you are lying to yourself.)
Awesome yet Slightly Disturbing Image of a Tralfamadorian
The last point which I like about Vonnegut’s novel, Slaughter-house Five, was the idea of no heroes. Being in high school myself, I feel that in English classes, history classes and in textbooks our society continuously stresses the significance of war heroes who courageously saved our nation from various catastrophic endings. The truth is that there is no universal hero because even though some guy just saved one nation he had to murder others to do so. So, the whole idea of a hero, in terms of war, is totally subjective and therefore I don’t think it truly exists even though we would all like to think it does. Murdering others just because you deem them to be the forsaken “enemy” does not make it okay to kill people. Yeah, yeah, I know that war is unavoidable but I think that our society sometimes stresses the idea of “war heroes” a bit too much without realizing that those people just killed so many others, so should they really be heroes when under any other circumstances killing others would never be acceptable?
Some pretty heavy stuff in this EXTREMELY long post, but hopefully I didn’t bore anyone too much! And if you haven’t already read Slaughter-House Five by Kurt Vonnegut I definitely recommend you try it out!
‘Till next time :)
