Slaughterhouse five

1. PRESENTATION
Group Introduction:
1. Pakeeza Shahzadi (19011502-063)
2. Muqadas Fatima (19011502-053)
3. Rabia Irfan (19011502-054)
4. Shaista Munawar (19011502-067)

2. HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Course Code: ENG-115
Section: BS-II(B)
Session: 2019-2023
Date: 06-08-2020
Topic: Characteristics of postmodern
literature
Presented to:
Nazneen Zahra

3. LITERATURE FOR DISCUSSION
For the discussion we chose a postmodern novel.
The name of the novel is “ Slaughterhouse-five”.
It was first published in 1969. The writer of this
novel is Kurt Vonnegut.
It is also known by the name “ The children's
crusade: A duty-dance with death”.

4. SUMMARY OF NOVEL
This novel was written by using the postmodern
approach.
It was a science fiction-infused anti-war novel.
It is refer as a one of most enduring antiwar novels
of all the times.
Its main idea was derived from the real life
incidents of world war II.

5. PLOT
Slaughterhouse-five is about a man named Billy
Pilgrim, an optometrist who was drafted in world
war II, and captured by Germans, sent to a POW
camp, and later sent to Dresden. During his time in
the war, Billy was moving through the time, to
various events in his life.

6. POSTMODERNISM
Postmodern literature is a form of literature which
is marked, both stylistically and ideologically, by a
reliance on such literary conventions as
fragmentation, paradox, unreliable narrators, often
unrealistic and downright impossible plots, games,
parody, paranoia, dark humor and authorial self-
reference.

7. CHARACTERISTICS OF POSTMODERN
LITERATURE
These are the characteristics of postmodern
Literature.
1. Irony, Black humour
2. Pastiche
3. Metafiction
4. Fabulation
5. Poioumena
6. Paranoia
7. Fragmentation
8. Techno culture

8. POSTMODERNISM IN THE GIVEN WORK
We are going to discuss the aspects of
postmodernism in “Slaughterhouse-five”.
We are going to discuss the portrayal of characters
in the novel and their significance.
We are going to check the themes of
postmodernism in the novel and the effect of these
themes on the overall development of the story.

9. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
1. Irony/ Dark humour
Throughout, the whole novel, Vonnegut criticize
the humanity by using irony and dark humour.
He used humour and science fiction to introduce
the topic of his novel like death, war, religion and
end of the universe.
One of most important use of dark humour is to
keep the mind of readers open towards the grim
topics like death and war.

10. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
The way author played with minds of readers with
using irony and humour is brilliant.
Readers, after reading the text initially, take as face
value instead of applying it to their own set
of believes, morals and perceptions of world.

11. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
2. Intersexuality
It is a term used in literature to refer the decentred
concepts.
It is the shaping of text by using other text.
In this novel, author represents so many cameo
appearances.
Let’s see all the allusions used in this novel.

12. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
Kilgore Trout, he is an important character in
other works of Vonnegut. He appears in several
works of Vonnegut like Breakfast of champions,
God bless you, Mr. Rosewater and others.
Elliot Rosewater, also make appearance in God
bless you and Mr. Rosewater.
Howard W. Campbell Jr. , from Mother night.

13. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
Another cross-over character is Bertram Copeland
Rumfoord from The sirens of Titan.
The character of Elliot Rosewater mention the
Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel “The Brothers
Karamazov”.
And there is also a reference about “The marriage
of heaven and hell” while talking about William
Blake, Billy’s hospital mate’s favourite poet.

14. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
3. Metafiction
It is given to fictional writings which self
consciously and systematically draws attention to
its status as an artifact in order to pose questions
about the relationship between fictional and
reality.
• Vonnegut in Dresden
• Illustrations in the book
• The first chapter of the book

15. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
The story of Billy Pilgrim start after chapter 2 with
the line:
“Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time”.
The transition from writer’s perspective to third
person narration.
One point of worth noting:
The use of “Listen” as an opening interjection
mimics the epic poem Beowulf.

16. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
4. Disruptive Narrative
It is jumping back and forth from memory to
memory.
The story purports to be disjoint narrative, from
Billy Pilgrim’s point of view, of being unstuck in
time.
Vonnegut's writings usually contains such
disorders.

17. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
Narrator reports the discontinuous life of Billy in
the novel.
There are like two narratives of the story or two
narrators.
One is Billy’s wartime life, which is almost linear.
Second is pre-war and post-war life.
Slaughterhouse-five was told in short declarative
sentences which gave the sense of reading report
of facts.

18. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
5. Paranoia
Paranoia in literary terms refers as a belief that
there is some ordering system behind the chaos
of the world.
Ways of representing paranoia in premodernist
literature:
• The distrust of fixity
• Of being circumscribed to anyone particular place
or identity
• The conviction that society is conspiring against the
individual

19. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
• Multiplication of self-made plots to counter the
scheming of others
In the case of slaughterhouse five, the feel of
paranoia is clear throughout the whole novel.
The Tralfamadorians express the whole paranoia
of this text.
Billy Pilgrim thought that he had time travelled
and kidnapped by an alien race tralfamadorians.

20. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
Another form of paranoia is shown in the war-time
narration.
When Billy was captured by Germans, he believed
that he was a subject for experimentations.
Paranoia is straddles between delusion and
brilliant insight.
So, we can safely say that maybe Pilgrim was
simultaneously safe and was just insecure.
OR
He really travelled through time and suffer
everything he claimed to be suffer.

21. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
6. War
Many of the post-modern literature had depiction
of war and after effects of war as this is the
movement in literature after WW-II.
The whole concept of slaughterhouse-five revolves
around the concept of war and its destructions.
Vonnegut shows the reality of war.

22. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
There is no glamour in this depiction of but a pure
sense of chaos and destruction and death.
The most notable aspect is that, there is no enemy
nor a hero.
Vonnegut criticize both, the Germans, by showing
the condition of POWs and the allies by depicting
the bombing on the innocent citizens of Dresden.
He used heavy situational irony.

23. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
7. Death
The concept of death is very unique and somehow
became interesting in this work.
The infamous line of Vonnegut “so it goes” captured
the readers way too much and gave the whole new
perception of death.
But the most important and probably most
captivating thing about this was a completely alien
theory of death.

24. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
According to Vonnegut, as the tralfamadorians
already knows about the universe and its ending,
death do not surprise them and they simply put it
“so it goes”.
But Billy is different from them and even surprised
with their inhuman nature.
As they explained their theory of death to him that
death must have to happened, he understand
gradually.

25. POSTMODERN CHARACTERISTICS
Theory of Death:
According to tralfamadorians, the death is a
moment which simply is.
Things are always destined to be happen so there is
no free will and fate.
There is everything planned beforehand.

26. CONCLUSION
• Postmodernism is a big umbrella term that
clumped many new style of fiction writing together
• It blends many genres, low brow and high brow
writings.
• Mostly influenced by the genocide of WWII, the
Chinese culture revolution, cold war tension,
counterculture basically aware of global affairs and
socioeconomic/political issues.

27. THANK YOU.