Abstract
The paper offers a postmodernist reading of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five to verify the long-debated premise that postmodernism really departs from and even challenges the modernist philosophy. The state of epistemological skepticism that throws its shadows on our cognitive apparatus challenges the rationalist ideals; and the state of ontological uncertainty – both intratextually and extratextually – questions the claims of modernism as far as homogeneity, sound meaning and credible representation of the world are concerned. The focal point of this paper is examining Vonnegut’s concretization of the postmodernist theory in writing “an anti-war book” based on his personal experience as a prisoner of war in the second world war. Vonnegut has attempted to blend this serious theme in Slaughterhouse-Five with science fiction and humor. Through the choice of his protagonist – Billy Pilgrim – and the manipulation of various postmodernist techniques, Vonnegut exposes the atrocities of wars by uncovering the heroic facade by which nations mask their real intentions in launching wars, and manifests the moral vacuum that characterizes postwar western societies. Key words: Postmodernism, American novel, anti-war literature, Vonnegut.
Highlights
The present paper seeks a thorough interpretation of KurtVonnegut’s novel Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) in the light of postmodernism
The major concern of the paper is to read Slaughterhouse-Five within the framework of postmodernist thought where the position of man in the world is questioned, his cognitive apparatus is subject to many challenges, and his ontological orientation is suffering a deadlock
Slaughterhouse-Five is not a fictional narrative created by its author; it is rather a representation of a real experience that Vonnegut had lived
Summary
The paper offers a postmodernist reading of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five to verify the longdebated premise that postmodernism really departs from and even challenges the modernist philosophy. Vonnegut’s concretization of the postmodernist theory in writing “an anti-war book” based on his personal experience as a prisoner of war in the second world war. Vonnegut has attempted to blend this serious theme in Slaughterhouse-Five with science fiction and humor. Through the choice of his protagonist – Billy Pilgrim – and the manipulation of various postmodernist techniques, Vonnegut exposes the atrocities of wars by uncovering the heroic façade by which nations mask their real intentions in launching wars, and manifests the moral vacuum that characterizes postwar western societies
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