The Parallel Plot Lines in Slaughterhouse-Five :: Slaughterhouse-Five Essays

The Parallel Plot Lines in Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut is and will always in my look and in the eyesof many others the writer who made the science-fiction genre dependablefor not only mainstream appeal, but also critical acclaim and understanding contemplation. Even though Arthur C. Clarkes 2001A Space Odyssey and Douglas Adams Hitchhiker series werereleased in much or less the same timeframe as Kurt VonnegutsSlaughterhouse-Five, none has held the same aura of respect and moment to the literary zeitgeist as Vonneguts monumentalmasterpiece. The respect Slaughterhouse-Five garnishes amongbookworms and the intellectual elite analogous is no accident. KurtVonneguts universal acclaim and appeal surely comes in no smallpart from his gift for connecting, almost unnoticiably, seeminglyunrelated objects and events to supply them deeper meaning,creating a phenomenon known within Jungian circles assynchronicity. By do his original so multi-layered by drawingthese comparisons, such as in be transported from a train carinto a prisoner of war inhabit to an extraterrestrial piazzaship that hums deala melodious owl, human beings being trapped within each moment intime like an insect in amber, and the writers own repetition ofhis current project to a jokey old song, the writer gives usa deeper insight into the real multi-layeredness of space andtime. When Billy Pilgrim and his fellow POWs are transported turn outof their train car and toward the POW camp, Vonnegut compares thecalm peeking-in and speech of the Axis power guards to thebehavior of an owl. The owl had been mentioned former in thenovel, more specifically in the persona of a quantify hanging inBillys office, and is brought up again here to describe Billysantagonists The guards peeked in Billys car owlishly, cooedcalmingly. By using the owl already mentioned in the novel asa metaphor, Vonnegut m akes an otherwise uncomfortable and tensesituation more familiar. The writer uses this metaphor againwhile telling of the movement of the POWs out of the train car