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2.1 The Reason of Adoption of Non-Linear Narratives.6
2.2 Transformation of Perspectives……8
2.3 Chaotic Time-Space Views…….11
3 Collages in Slaughterhouse-Five.14
3.1 Collages of Official Sources.14
3.2 Collages of Folk Cultures.15
3.3 Collages of Other Works16
4 Parodies in Slaughterhouse-Five19
4.1 The Pilgrim’s Progress: Billy’s Time Travel19
4.2 Adam and Eve in Eden: Billy and Montana in Tralfamadore20
4.3 Jesus’ Prediction of Death: Billy’s Prophesy Related to Death21
5 Conclusion23
Bibliography25
1 Introduction
Metafiction is playing a very important role in the postmodern literature. Additionally, Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece Slaughterhouse-Five is a typical metafiction with many distinctive narrative techniques. So it is a typical example which could elaborate how the postmodern novels break away from the traditional forms to convey some special ideas or themes. Therefore, those narrative methods adopted in Slaughterhouse-Five will be detailedly dissected to show how the narrative methods make a difference in a novel’s theme. To get better acquainted with Vonnegut’s unique postmodern narrative techniques, knowing enough knowledge of life experience of the author and historical and cultural background of his time is necessary. Some basic information of Vonnegut, his novels, postmodern metafication and relevant researches will be introduced in this part.
1.1 Kurt Vonnegut and Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut (1922—2007) was one of the most far-reaching influential American writers in the 20th centuries. Vonnegut was admitted as a great master of postmodern writer. He was skilled in writing miserable stories in comic form and sneering at the crazy society in the face of despair and disaster. He was also known for his distinctive writing methods. His narrative techniques possessed various forms, such as parody, collage and so on. For instance, his novels always consisted of abundant fragmentized pieces which included quotations of wonderful poems, humorous doggerels, as well as indecent quartettes. Additionally, majority of his works were a mixture of autobiography and fiction. Vonnegut used to experience a period of heartrending army life as an American prisoner during World War II. He was imprisoned in Dresden, witnessing its perishment, which had a profound influence on his later works as a survival from Dresden Bombing. The most typical novel was Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). Apart from Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle (1963), Breakfast of Champions (1973), Jailbird (1979), Timequake (1997) all vividly showed unique imagination and special artful charm. Besides novels, Vonnegut also produced screenplays, essays and short stories. However, as for the thesis, narrative methods in the novel are attached more importance to.
Slaughterhouse-Five is also called The Children’s Crusade: a Duty-Dance with Death. Vonnegut depicted a leading figure, Billy Pilgrim, who also experienced the firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner, as well as a survivor of the awful slaughter in the novel. Therefore, this novel was deemed to Vonnegut’s autobiography by some scholars. An absurd journey, or more accurately, an almost frantic time travel of the Protagonist Billy Pilgrim was described in the novel. Vonnegut skillfully created a novel about the time travel of Billy who shared the identical traumatic experience in WWII with that of Vonnegut. Some deviant narrative methods flourished in the novel. Firstly, the author adopted deftly non-linear narrative strategy to narrate Billy’s leaping life experience including the war-time prison in Dresden, the after-war home in America, and the Utopian Planet Tralfamadore through frequently shifted perspective and chaotic time-space view to expose war’s absurdity and cruelty. What’s more, the author also cited quantities of fragmental passages or sentences from different sources to reveal the nature of war in an indirect way. Except for these two distinctive narrative features, Vonnegut also created a new text on the basis of imitating some original religious stories, such as The Pilgrim Progress (1678) of John Bunyan in Slaughterhouse-Five. Then he also applied the new text to an inappropriate or a totally contrary context to improve the effect of irony.