The Incapability of Time and History in Slaughterhouse-Five

Fengyuan Zheng

doi:10.54254/2753-7064/2/2022595

Research Article

Open access

Published on 28 February 2023

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Zheng,F. (2023). The Incapability of Time and History in Slaughterhouse-Five. Communications in Humanities Research,2,514-520.

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The Incapability of Time and History in Slaughterhouse-Five

Fengyuan Zheng *^,1,

¹ Shanghai World Foreign Language Academy, Shanghai, 200032, China

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

https://doi.org/10.54254/2753-7064/2/2022595

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

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References

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Cite this article

Zheng,F. (2023). The Incapability of Time and History in Slaughterhouse-Five. Communications in Humanities Research,2,514-520.

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About volume

Volume title: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Educational Innovation and Philosophical Inquiries (ICEIPI 2022), Part III

Conference website: https://www.iceipi.org/

ISBN：978-1-915371-11-9(Print) / 978-1-915371-12-6(Online)

Conference date: 4 August 2022

Editor：Nasir Mahmood, Abdullah Laghari

Series: Communications in Humanities Research

Volume number: Vol.2

ISSN：2753-7064(Print) / 2753-7072(Online)

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