blakealfredo

This is for English IV AP LIT.

2008-09-30T03:57:56Z

Slaughterhouse-Five Critical Analysis
By R. Blakely Wentley
Kurt Vonnegut has always had a knack for using writing to express his creativity (or his insanity as the case may be) and Slaughterhouse-Five is no exception. Vonnegut plays around with the idea of time all throughout the book, jumping from event to event with a total disregard for chronology. This style allowed Vonnegut to make a unique novel with a strong anti-war message that is both entertaining and incredibly interesting. Vonnegut takes advantage of this style by creating a sporadic plot line, by manipulating time to serve his purpose, and by including extraterrestrials.
Vonnegut chose not to limit himself with a standard chronological plotline for several reasons. His erratic plot better reflects his overall message of the horrors of war than could a plot that flows smoothly. As F. Brett Cox puts it, this random movement through time is, “…a symbol of the shock, confusion, dislocation, and desire for escape that result from the horrible experiences of war” (Cox). One moment Billy Pilgrim, our protagonist, will be in a box car capture by the Germans, the next he’ll be on an alien planet in the zoo and the next he’ll be at his daughter’s wedding. These events don’t fit together, but neither do the goings-on in war, and that’s Vonnegut’s point.
Vonnegut’s method of writing also opens up many opportunities to draw attention to his message by creating a creative way to set up contrasts and juxtapositions that otherwise would be impossible for the author. For example, Vonnegut would have Billy Pilgrim’s father-in-law sing “humorous” songs about Polish people and the next moment Billy would be seeing a Pole hanged to death in public (Vonnegut 155). This contrast of imagery shows the grisly reality that is war better than just telling about a public hanging would and it’s only through Vonnegut’s style that this is possible.
Vonnegut doesn’t only show us time in forward moving chunks. He also manipulates time by having some things go backwards. One of the strongest anti-war messages he makes is when he shows Billy Pilgrim watching a war movie backwards:
“Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen…some of the bombers were in bad repair…German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new” (Vonnegut 74).
When one looks at war backwards, people aren’t killing people, they’re helping each other. After all of the bombs are sucked back into the bombers, the bombs are sent back to America and disassembled, and then:
“The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again” (Vonnegut 75).
Without Vonnegut experimenting with time, he would never have been able to put this profound observation of war into his novel.
Although his style really helps to bring out his message, it would be utterly impossible with out the help of his little green friends the Tralfamadorians. It’s safe to assume that human beings were Vonnegut’s target audience which creates a little problem with the way this story was written. Human beings are only capable of perceiving the world in three dimensions and the concept of time as a dimension is literally impossible for the human brain to comprehend. Having the main character be ‘unstuck’ in time and thus liable to be anywhen at anytime makes it difficult for the reader to follow all of the time. The Tralfamadorians do their best to help Billy Pilgrim understand his situations; the same situation that governs what the reader sees and when they see it. The Tralfamadorians explain to Billy that they can see, “…all time as you might see a stretch of the Rocky Mountains. All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is” (Vonnegut 85-86). They also tell Billy what they think about wars. They say, “…we have wars as horrible as any you’ve ever seen or read about. There isn’t anything we can do about them, so we simply don’t look at them” (117). The beings that can see every war that ever happened and every war that ever will happen, all happening at the same time choose to ignore all those wars for the simple reason that there are so many things in life that are better than war. Without the Tralfamadorians this book might be lost among the masses and its message with it.
Vonnegut was able to turn such a horrible catastrophe as the Dresden firebombing into a strong anti-war message that is just as powerful today as it was when it was written. Vonnegut pulls you in with an erratic plot line, keeps you entertained with his disregard to the laws of physics as we know them and sends you home with the knowledge imparted onto you by little green men. His novel has remained humorous and relevant for almost 30 years and it’s safe to say that it will for years to come.

Works Cited
Cox, F. B. "Slaughterhouse-Five (Critisism)." Novels for Students. 23 Sept. 2008
<http://www.answers.com/topic/slaughterhouse-five-novel-7>.
Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse-Five. New York, NY: Dell, 1991.

blakealfredo @ 2008-01-16T18:59:00

2008-01-17T00:01:29Z

This is Caitb00.

Blake left his laptop here, and when I went to eljay he was logged in.

I'm eating tasty noodles :)

:D

2007-11-17T23:02:01Z

This is not Caitlan!

>.>
<.<

<3!

blakealfredo @ 2007-09-30T00:12:00

2007-09-30T04:14:04Z

I hate myself and I want to die v.v

blakealfredo @ 2007-08-26T00:18:00

2007-08-26T04:23:42Z

Caitlan wanted me to post my research paper from last year.
Here's a live journal cut so it doesn't rape your friends page.

The Red Guards in China’s Cultural Revolution

Imagine a 6th grade classroom where a student walks into class with a letter from the leader of the country that tells the students to kill the principal and some of the teachers. The students had already pledged to show no mercy and to stomp on the president’s enemies. So naturally, they torture their principal until either she dies or later goes on to commit suicide because she is so humiliated. This is essentially what happened in China during a period called Red August, which took place in August of 1966.
The Red Guards, although they were made up primarily of teenagers, were brutal and did a good job of keeping China in a state of constant fear. China’s Red Guards kept China terrified by making examples of teachers and principals in schools, by destroying culture and by doing everything they were told.
Mao used the Red Guards to strike fear into the heart of China (Chang and Halliday 516-17). The first way he planned on scaring the country was by having the Red Guards take over the schools all throughout the country. Mao would do this by telling the children to kill their headmistress, by not stopping them there, and by allowing them to physically abuse their teachers.
On August 1, 1966, Chairman Mao Tse-Tung sent out a letter to the original set of Red Guards to let them know they had his support. In this letter he encouraged the students to turn against their teachers (BBC 1). Four days later the Red Guard group of an all-girl school in Peking killed their headmistress. Before they killed her, however, they tortured her by beating her and scalding her with boiling water. The girls also told her to lug bricks back and forth, and they would whip her with their brass belts as she passed until she eventually died. Whether they followed orders properly hung in the balance until the leaders of the group reported to their higher ups. The Red Guards were not commanded to stop acts such as this, so the violence just continued (Chang and Halliday 517).
Instances such as this happened in every school all across China (Chang and Halliday 518). In August of 1966 alone, twenty-seven educators were killed by students. Many teachers were beaten to their deaths, and some even killed themselves after they were tortured and humiliated. Students who did not want to take part in the torturing (who were known among the Red Guards as Blacks) were killed as well (Wang 1).
At a middle school in the city of Guangzhou, students who were in the Red Guard made their teacher chug a bottle of ink and then they proceeded to strike him in the stomach. First, he vomited ink, and then he vomited blood. After going through the torture, he committed suicide (Wang 9).

It wasn’t just the middle and high school kids that were physically abusing their teachers. A faction of Red Successors, a group of elementary school kids that resembled the Red Guards (Jiang 282) were also committing acts of violence against their teachers.
In and elementary school in Beijing, the students made their teacher consume nails and balls of fecal matter (Wang 8).
The purpose of the Red Guards during China’s Cultural Revolution was to keep the people of China scared. Mao saw that if you keep your country frightened you will be able to do what you want with little protest. Mao wanted his country scared so he could kill the people that he wanted killed (i.e., Party leaders) with very little opposition (Chang and Halliday 522).
Another way to keep the people scared is by having the Red Guards destroy culture. They would take hammers to all things that were old-fashioned and that weren’t productive toward the revolution (Fairbank and Reischower 2). The Red Guards would also change the names of things (Chang and Halliday 518) and raze monuments (Chang and Halliday 521).
Following the violence in the schools, Mao told the Red Guards to not just create fear in schools, but to also go out into society and wreak havoc. He told the Red Guards to destroy “the four olds” of culture which consisted of, “old ideas, cultures, manners, and customs.” (Galdaroz, Busetto and Satuo 1).
To begin with, the youth of the Red Guard went out into the streets with hammers and they destroyed things like signs for shops and street signs. After destroying the signs they renamed the buildings and streets in order to make them less old fashioned and more driven toward the ideas of Revolution, as Mao had wanted (Chang and Halliday 518).
The violence that the Red Guards used to destroy the signs is what scared the people of China most, not the changing of names. And the method they used to scare people worked really well. People became so afraid that the Red Guards were going to break into their houses and kill them that they would set ablaze the books that they possessed, or sell the books as scrap paper to lessen the risk of having to encounter a member of the Red Guards. Some artists would even burn their own paintings and sculptures. The Red Guards had them so scared that they were actually doing the Red Guard’s job for them (Chang and Halliday 520).
Aside from destroying small things like books and signs, the Red Guards would also destroy whole buildings. Mao wanted to delete China’s history. One step toward accomplishing this feat was by destroying historical monuments. The Red Guards were the ones who had to do the dirty work, and as Chang puts it, “In Peking, of 6,843 monuments still standing in 1958, 4,922 were now obliterated.” (Chang and Halliday 521).
The Red Guards’ die-hard obedience was the final thing that made them able to keep China in a state of terror. Mao told them to “be violent,” and the whole society was so brainwashed that they obeyed. Also, they were protected by law; if they were told to do anything illegal they would do it without second thought.
Whatever Mao told the youth of China to do, they did. This is dreadfully apparent in a story that Chang and Halliday describe:

“The dialogue that followed was made public: “Chairman Mao asked her: ‘What
is your name?’ She said, ‘Song Binbin.’ Chairman Mao asked: Is it the “Bin” as
in “Educated and Gentle”?’ She said: ‘Yes.’ Chairman Mao said: ‘Be violent’.”
Song Binbin changed her name to “Be violent” and her school changed its name
to “The Red Violent School.”

This story is a great example of how afraid of the Red guards everybody was. Everybody was so frightened that they were basically brainwashed. They would do whatever Chairman Mao told them to do even if it went against their morals. As Li Qingyou said in an interview with the Boston Globe, “Our mentality was that when Chairman Mao waved his hand, we would move, and whatever he said, we would do.” He also stated that in retrospect, all the schoolchildren were brainwashed by an unreasonable mix of Marxist optimism and Maoist radicalism (Pocha 1).
This blind obedience is what was also so frightening about the Red Guards. If Mao ordered that they destroy every building in a city, they would do it. Also, it didn’t help that on the 24th of August, anything the Red Guards did was no longer a concern of the police because the chief of police was told that if they were to arrest anybody beating people to death they will be making a horrible error (Chang and Halliday 519).
The Red Guards were above the law. Because of this, Mao told the Red Guards that when they were to break into somebody’s home to see if they had an object that fit into the category of the four olds, they were to steal all items of value and give them to the state. Thousands of pounds of “gold, silver, platinum, jewelry and millions of dollars
in hard currency” were lifted so that practically all items of value were no longer in the hands of civilians (Chang and Halliday 520).
Once Chairman Mao felt that the Red Guard had done a very thorough job of terrorizing the country, he thought it was time to go after his actual target, the party leaders who Chairman Mao deemed counterrevolutionary. These were the people he did not like (Chang and Halliday 522).
On the 15th of September, Lin Biao, one of Chairman Mao’s right hand men, announced to the Red Guards that they needed to move the center of attention to the party leaders who were going down a “capitalist road.” The problem with this target shift was that the leaders of the Red Guard were mainly composed of the sons and daughters of the officials that were now the enemies of Mao. In order to take out the leaders he wanted to be rid of, Chairman Mao had to enlist the help of a new group, this one made up of adults that would be called “Rebels.” They were called Rebels because they were to take on their leaders (Chang and Halliday 522-23).
This was the end of the Red Guards. The group was only around for one and a half months, but in that time, they were able to keep the whole country of China in such a state of fear that Chairman Mao was able to do what ever he wanted without question. They did exactly what they were put in place to do by creating a hostile takeover of their schools, destroying China’s culture and history as we know it, and by following every direction their leader gave them.

blakealfredo @ 2007-08-22T00:09:00

2007-08-22T04:12:10Z

Until today, nobody has ever meant it when they told me that they were sorry.

blakealfredo @ 2007-08-19T14:25:00

2007-08-19T18:28:37Z

Sometimes when I'm in the shower, I stick my finger in my butthole and detest reading shitty books like 'A Long and Happy Life' by Reynolds Price.

It just isn't a good book o.o

blakealfredo @ 2007-08-04T01:23:00

2007-08-04T05:29:58Z

I didn't die, by the way. Just I used to have dreams where I would die and they were so warm and I loved them. Mad world much? Like one where I got shot in the back...a lot. I want to say 9 times, but I'm not 50 Cent. Where each bullet went in was just warm and I could feel each one in my back. I even stopped breathing. I woke up shortly thereafter. Another time, I got bitten my a snake and I could feel each fang go into my hand. The same warm feeling I had already experienced. Just pointing out that Tears for Fears is right and that the dreams in which you die probably will be the best you've ever had. Caitlan told me to clarify.

blakealfredo @ 2007-08-04T01:12:00

2007-08-04T05:13:53Z

I ate a baby!

blakealfredo @ 2006-12-05T18:20:00

2006-12-05T22:20:52Z

I wonder if death feels as good as I dream it does.

blakealfredo @ 2006-11-29T18:34:00

2006-11-29T22:34:36Z

So I learned on the discovery channel 2 nights back that autistic kids love to do things in repitition. For example, autisties love swings and seesaws and cribs and the like. So Autistic kids must love porn. Right?

blakealfredo @ 2006-11-28T00:02:00

2006-11-28T04:02:34Z

Imminent Death Syndrome
By Rober† Wentley
The clock reads 2:30. Benjamin pokes his head above the wall of his cubicle. He looks across the room of identical cubicles filled with his busy coworkers. He pays no mind to them. Benjamin wants to get out this hell and get home to his wife. Today is Benjamin’s anniversary.
Today is his 10th anniversary to be precise, which is all the more reason to duck out of work early. He tidies his desk up rather haphazardly and tells his computer to shut down. Benjamin decides he doesn’t want to wait for his computer to end its tasks, so he holds down the power button to speed things along. None of the work Benjamin did today has been saved, but that really won’t matter tomorrow.
Benjamin walks faster than Benjamin would on any average day toward the elevator. Ding. Going down. But Benjamin decides that he is in too good a mood to be cramped up in the elevator and decides to take the stairs.
There is nobody in the stairwell but Benjamin. He jumps down the steps 2 at a time, and sometimes he slides down the railing. He reaches the bottom and before opening the door to the lobby, he runs his fingers through his hair to conceal his juvenile behavior in the stairwell. Benjamin reassures himself that everybody who works in that building has slid down those rails at least once. He isn’t really embarrassed about what he had just done but thinking he isn’t the only one, is always comforting to him.
The clock reads 2:33 while Benjamin leaves his drab office building. Benjamin doesn’t see the need to own a car in the big city. Usually, Benjamin walks home but today he is in a hurry. Benjamin hails a cab.
To the 5th street florist and step on it. The cabbie doesn’t step on it. In fact, he goes a lot slower than one should go on such a busy street. Benjamin is now flustered, and he exits the cab while it is stopped at an intersection. Benjamin doesn’t pay the cabbie, but that won’t matter tomorrow.
The clock reads 2:36 when Benjamin is out of the cab. The florist is a block down from where Benjamin is and Benjamin goes that block on his feet. It is a little flower shop. It is green and there is a basket with brown prickly grass in it. The window has many bouquets of beautifully arranged flowers and small teal neon sign that flashes “Open” to no set rhythm.
Benjamin’s wife’s name is Dahlia. He spends a little while browsing the flowers, but he knows exactly what he is going to get her; 2 dozen red dahlias. Benjamin over tips the florist by about 200%, but that won’t matter tomorrow.
Benjamin leaves the florist with his flowers in hand, humming the song that was played at his wedding. Last year on his anniversary he danced with his wife in the living room to that song, and he hasn’t been happier since that moment.
Benjamin’s apartment building is in sight from the florist. His wife took the day off, so he knows that she is there right now waiting for him. Benjamin decides that he’s a bit too disgusting from the workout he had in the stairwell, and he decides to stop at the convenience store that he gets the newspaper from every morning to freshen up.
Benjamin opens up the door to the convenience store.
BANG.
This is odd. That is not supposed to be a bang. That should be a happy little ding. Benjamin is staring face to face with a man with a burlap sack the size of a honeydew melon. The man is holding a .9mm. Benjamin looks down at his Red flowers and sees a much deeper hue of red. The man pushes Benjamin out of the way, out cold on the sidewalk in the front of the store. Benjamin smells his flowers and thinks of his wife. “Should have taken the elevator” he says. The clock reads 2:40.

blakealfredo @ 2006-11-12T02:44:00

2006-11-12T06:44:56Z

My keyboard is still malfunctioning. Hence why I never update anymore.

I quit Final Fantasy XI because I realized that I liked the people more than I liked the game play, which in retrospect was a bad idea. I started playing Phantasy Star Universe, and all it is is repetitive hacking and slashing... and it takes for ever to level up unlike the old game. I also got Tiger Woods '07 hoping to rule that game as much as I did '05. They made the putting system so hard that you can't even sink a 4 ft putt. Also they made the regular shots so unforgiving, its just too frustrating to be fun.

Also Caitlan doesn't know anything. If I ask her something, she just says, "I don't know." If I ask her anything at all, even something as simple as what do you like to do? And to make things worse, I bet in response to this she will make up an excuse for why she does this instead of fixing it. But because I said something about it, she probably won't. And because I said that she will!! And so on and so forth. Psychology is so much fun. (I would prefer she do something about it.)

blakealfredo @ 2006-10-22T17:33:00

2006-10-22T21:41:40Z

remember when i told you i was happy? well i lied. I just read my assigned reading from siddhartha and now im depressed as all get out. oh and great some of the keys on my keyboard arent working. this is not a good thing seeing as how its a laptop and replacing the keyboard will be next to impossible. It's important keys like Y and delete. I hooked up the theyboard i use for FFXI to it so i can type this. what a bitch and a half.
to top it all off, if i were to read just a little bit faster i would have gotten to talk to caitlan.

Caitlan says is away at 5:29:28 PM.
BlakeAlfredo (5:31:12 PM): but but

i missed her by 2 minutes. ;.; i need to see her tonight. i and now my t button doesnt work

here let me type out my alphabet.abcdefghijklmnopqrsuvwxz,./';=-\0987654321`

ok his is going o cause some problems when i have o pe m goddamn paper.

blakealfredo @ 2006-10-22T15:20:00

2006-10-22T19:29:06Z

Today i spilled kool aid on my keyboard then i cleaned it.

I need to do 30 note cards about the Red Guards in the Chinese Cultural revolution.

Did I mention i'm going to quit FFXI and start a new game? Phantasy Star Universe FTW. It's going to be great.

This is the first thing that has made me happy in a long while (not including caitlan, the happiness she gives me is only there when i'm with her or talking to her on the phone.) After I lost all my friends, i had to rely more and more on my online friends. Then two of my best friends Keeba and Ironguy were fixin to quit. Then i realize they were the last of my good friends on this game. Then i talked to them last night and they said they were quitting to play PSU. Then they talked about it for a while. Seemed interesting. Seemed like it needed to be a part of the next chapter of my life. Then i didnt feel so bad about spending (read, wasting) 47 days of my life with this game. 47 days over the course of 10 months. i havent talked to caitlan today but i'm still happy. this is a good thing. i cant wait to see her tonight.

blakealfredo @ 2006-10-20T02:37:00

2006-10-20T02:39:11Z

I didn't know that "I can't concentrate when I'm depressed" meant leave me to go read when I can't read because I can't concentrate. Does anybody else know anything about this phenomena?

blakealfredo @ 2006-10-17T02:04:00

2006-10-17T02:05:22Z

I really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really like Caitlan :D

blakealfredo @ 2006-10-14T02:57:00

2006-10-14T06:59:36Z

tell me i'm not sorry? its things like this! little things where you constantly tell me how i feel to make me look like a bad person when its always the opposite of what you accuse me of! stop it!

blakealfredo @ 2006-10-14T02:47:00

2006-10-14T06:51:48Z

Its Friday night- Saturday morning and I forgot to call Caitlan. I mentioned I got a cell phone and that I can't call her on it because my sister would flip if she found out I got a phone... and then I forgot to call her... now she's upset with me and accusing me of not careing about her... I really do, I didn't mean to forget.

Caitlan says: No, if it isn't important enought for you to remember, then I'll just stop caring

That made me feel like shit. I'm a bad boyfriend. Caitlan needs to break up with me now.

blakealfredo @ 2006-10-09T15:14:00

2006-10-09T19:18:03Z

ig·no·rance (ĭg'nər-əns)
n.
The condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uninformed.

Caitlan got mad at me because I called her ignorant. She said she was retarded where as she was uninformed. I told her she was ignorant, she flipped, she took it as an insult. I was just stating that she had been uninformed. I hope she reads this and realizes that I wasn't insulting her.

blakealfredo @ 2006-09-30T02:52:00

2006-09-30T06:57:34Z

Im contemplating quitting FFXI. 2 months ago i realized the only way im going to have fun with the game is by leveling Dragoon, Like a dragon knight. Well i had fun for a month with it. a lot of fun. more fun than i had with any other job and i get to level 46 and well i havent gotten a party in two weeks. i said i would quit this week if i didnt get a party, but i was just saying that hoping it would get me a party faster. now im holding out until next week, if i dont get a party, im quitting for good. Why am i gonna pay 14 bucks a month to play something that i cant even play? well i mean i can play it... but i cant do what i wanna do... I've logged 44 days in this game. 44 days and 22 hours thats 1078 hours if you're keeping score. all thats going to waste. im so depressed. i'll have nothing, absolutly nothing to do anymore considering i lost all my friends.

blakealfredo @ 2006-09-29T16:01:00

2006-09-29T20:03:39Z

I need you. I can't function without you. I love you.

blakealfredo @ 2006-09-28T21:45:00

2006-09-29T01:47:00Z

Worst day of my life. check it.

blakealfredo @ 2006-09-28T19:50:00

2006-09-29T00:02:09Z

I'm giving up all my friends. Everyone of them. Caitlan doesn't count.
Here's the deal. Every single one of my friends (everyone excluding Sully) started doing drugs. I hate it. I don't want to do drugs, I don't want my friends doing drugs. If I want to hang out with them, I'm gonna have to A) smoke pot, or B) put up with people smoking pot,
Thing is, I'm not weak, and I'm not going to do the former. It's out of the question. Drugs will make you do something you end up regreting and I don't want to regret a thing. I won't put up with them smoking. Guilt by assosiation.
I'm not going to snitch. Grant wanted to know if I wanted to hang out with them on saturday. I said, "I don't do drugs" he says that's not what he meant, they weren't going to do that. Later he asks Charae if she wants to hang out with them on Saturday. She said yeah. I said what are you guys gonna do. We're surrounded by other folk, she says, none of your business.
Grant doesn't deny it. My friends are lying to me. Sorry, my ex friends are lying to me.

unknownsolider56: does martin do coke??
BlakeAlfredo: no
BlakeAlfredo: crack
unknownsolider56: like really
unknownsolider56: or just jokingly
unknownsolider56: cause i might wanna get some

That was just said to me just now. I'm not kidding, every single one of my friends is on drugs. It sucks. I'm just gonna delete everybody on my myspace friends list soon. oh man my life sucks.

go ahead and comment on this... like anybody would.

blakealfredo @ 2006-09-17T02:40:00

2006-09-17T06:41:23Z

Yeah so it sucks to be me. Nobody has any idea what it's like to be me.