Slaughterhouse-Five Essay: Irony, Dark Humor, and Satire :: Slaughterhouse-Five Essays

Irony, Dark Humor, and Satire in Slaughterhouse-Five    Kurt Vonnegut uses a combination of sinfulness humor and irony in Slaughterhouse-Five. As a result, the novel enables the reader to realize the horrors of war while simultaneously laughing at virtually of the absurd situations it can generate. Mostly, Vonnegut wants the reader to recognize the fact that one has to take on things as they happen because no one can change the inevitable. Although Slaughterhouse-Five whitethorn not be filled with delightful satire and comical scenes, at that place are accounts which the force the reader to laugh. In one instance, an extremely drunkard Billy Pilgrim is searching desperately for the steering wheel of his car He was in the backseat of his car, which is why he couldnt find the steering wheel, Vonnegut writes (47). In some other episode, Billy becomes unstuck in time while watching television, so that he sees a war film backwards and hence forwards. The just about h umorous sequence takes place when Billy travels from the zoo on Tralfamadore to his unite night with his wife, Valencia. He wakes up to find himself in the German prison camp. He then finds himself back with Valencia aft(prenominal) returning from the bathroom. He goes to sleep, then wakes up on a train on the way to his fathers funeral. In any case, the reader encounters much dark humor in the novel. thither is a sense of an embittered humor with the Tralfamadorian phrase, So it goes, which is repeated over nose candy times in the novel. John May says that Vonneguts purpose in restate the phrase after each statement of death is to build its essence with each incremental refrain (Contemporary Literary unfavorable judgment 8 530). At first, the saying can be looked upon as funny in an humourous way. However, as one reads further, the phrase becomes irritating and irreverent. The reader cannot fathom so many deaths meaning so little. According t o Wayne McGinnis, it is well-n igh likely Vonneguts intent to cause such feelings from the reader (Contemporary Literary Criticism 5 468). This punctuating phrase forces the reader to look at the novels deaths one after the other. Ultimately, the repetition creates a feeling of resentment that too many lot are killed. The saying is a grim reminder that means on the button the opposite of what its words say. Vonnegut ends the novel with the reminder of the deaths of JFK, Martin Luther King, and all of those that died in Vietnam.