Nearly twenty-three years after the bombing of Dresden, Kurt Vonnegut translates the magnitude of the warfare associated with World War II in the anti-war novel Slaughterhouse-five, a novel which pulls political satire in with science fiction, landing it on multiple banned-book lists for holding “a mirror up to our society,” (Veix), revealing a reality that can only be described as “repulsive”. Vonnegut employs flat, bland characters to act as a vessel for his overall view of the human condition and our inevitable impulse to revert to warfare, using outlandish means of storytelling, with a twist of science fiction, to demonstrate the damage done to his own psyche after the bombing of Dresden, thus magnifying the flaws in humanity so many seem to forget, or simply choose to ignore. 

Vonnegut lived and breathed the bombing of Dresden through Billy Pilgrim, slipping in at the beginning of the novel as himself to tell the reader just that. He weaves bits of insanity through the story, showing the toll war takes on the human brain, each schizophrenic moment at a time. Slaughterhouse-Five is setup to examine the Dresden massacre and its effect on the human psyche from one of the lone survivors himself, Vonnegut. Authenticity is derived from the combination of literary genius and first-hand experience from the bombing. Its effect on the author was so enormous that it took the Vonnegut about twenty-three years to finally retell the story through a filter of his own imagination in order to reflect the toll the event had on his mentality. Dresden claimed more victims than those subject to the bombing at Hiroshima as mentioned in an essay by Peter Freese. An easy target, completely undefended, the city infected Vonnegut with trauma that would plague him for a lifetime. Exposure to a massacre that enormous is almost unfathomable to those who have not lived it, who have remained untainted by war, making it easy to turn a blind eye. Freese explains the difficulty in translating the magnitude of the event because “the sheer number of casualties transcends the limits of personal empathy... defeated by the very limits of the human imagination” (Freese, 18). It is almost impossible to expect the brain to grasp the magnitude of a tragedy such as Dresden given the fact that the devastation was so great, our minds refuse to comprehend it, which is why the style in which the novel is presented is so crucial. Vonnegut had to appeal to the human psyche in order to properly translate just how consequential these bits of history are. The chaos associated with WWII was readily accepted in society at the time. It became a fight which the people were expected to cheer on from their homes “against the background of the moral confusion occasioned by World War II’s brutal, excessive destruction done in the name of goodness, justice, and Mom’s apple pie,” (Morse). Everyone was deceived into thinking that the war was so important, that it was their duty as Americans to rally around the flag and support the war effort, however, rarely did anyone protest the war. Never did they question the very seed of war or the need to turn to such violent manners in the first place. It is excused as a necessary evil, a disturbing concept when put in the perspective of Vonnegut. 

It starts with a drunken phone call to one of his old war buddies, Bernard O’Hare. He visits him to employ a bit of teamwork in remembering the events of Dresden. Mrs. O’Hare had no qualms about sharing her opinion on war and her resentment towards their reunion. The fact is that they were “just babies then,” to which Vonnegut admitted that “we had been foolish virgins in the war, right at the end of childhood” (18). People often forget this fact. Men were drafted as young as 18. Putting that in perspective with the 18 year olds now, and imagining them in a war is completely baffling, so is the fact that it is done in the name of heroism, a concept seemingly unfathomable in a millennial society. There is no glory in war, not in this novel, only the disturbing reality of what it was to be a part of the violence, something the rest of society cannot relate to and therefore cannot fix. 

Each anecdote Vonnegut presents is thrown into the novel in an oddly haphazard and yet harmonious way, using the main character as a rag doll to keep some means of consistency. Vonnegut illuminates seemingly obvious and already accepted truths lain with violence by Society as a whole often acts as a bystander, allowing enormous acts of aggression to ensue under blind trust and acceptance, assuming that the reason behind the act is justified and therefore does not need their attention. Throughout his entire war experience, Billy Pilgrim is dragged along and thrown into the most pitiful situations without care. Billy’s indifference leaves more room to observe the other characters around him, each one tearing at the image of war as a source of glory and honor. Roland Weary, a chubby eighteen year old with something to prove, is a good example of some of the worst lies that come with war. He claims to save Pilgrim’s life every occasion he gets, adopting the role of a hero and a leader of the ‘three musketeers’ the other two of the trio having little to no investment in Weary. Aimlessly marching through mud and heatstroke, Weary spends his time fabricating stories to tell back home, comforted by the idea that he will go home a hero, perhaps with a medal after all of his valiant acts on the front, this would be his “true war story” (Vonnegut, 53). This is the same war story many adopt during and after the war to cope with trauma. Coming out a hero is a much easier way of thinking about the atrocities witnessed, versus remembering the constant state of pitiful suffering from disease, unfortunate coincidence, or just insanity.  There were never any real valiant moments,that is not the point of the novel. The point was authenticity. Throughout the novel, Vonnegut cannot escape the utter absurdity he sees in the act of warfare, revealing it through satirical prose, 

“the incredible artificial weather that earthlings sometimes create for other earthlings when they don't want those other earthlings to inhabit earth anymore. Shells were bursting in the treetops with terrific bangs, he said, showering down like knives and needles and razorblades. Little lumps of lead in copper jackets were crisscrossing the woods under the shell bursts, zipping along much faster than sound” (Vonnegut, 135).

When outlined in the most naked and explicit manner possible, the act of warfare seems utterly absurd and forces the topic to be questioned. The fact that warfare has become an ingrained part of society, in order to get rid of other human beings, seems irrational when looked at through the eyes of Vonnegut and translates to the reader 

One of Vonnegut’s favorite topics to feed on is the human condition and the tendency to fall into habits of war and violence. He writes to cast reminders, nitpicking at some the accepted facts of war and contorting them in order to show how ridiculous of concepts they are. An entire scene was devoted to the fabrication of a bombing, but backwards. Describing debris being sucked up by planes and collected in what appear to be bombs, cleaning the previously destroyed cities. The bombs are taken to a manufacturer where they are taken apart and robbed of their ability to cause harm. Rather than filling the world with things that burn and kill, they empty it. This left an idea which is rather refreshing, our leaders working to clean the earth of danger, rather than being the source of aggression, protecting civilization rather than destroying it. In a review of the novel, Shaun O'Connell puts Slaughterhouse-Five up against works of George Orwell and both of their tendencies to tackle political writing and turn it “into art” as Orwell puts it. By definition, art is supposed to provoke those who are experiencing it, whether it be through emotion or thought, and Slaughterhouse-Five has managed to create the harmony which is not typically associated with political satire, of both art and politics. Harmony is what makes the writing so effective in translating messages to the reader. Vonnegut's views and enlightened thought process is pushed into the minds of the readers as they become engaged in the story, making his translation of war’s effect on the human psyche and society that much more effective, begging for a race for change. 

    Vonnegut delivered a revolutionary novel which brought to light some of the world’s most accepted atrocities, and the reality of their impact. By employing the use of science-fiction along with a plethora of uniquely odd characters, the author was able to translate one of the most eye opening antiwar novels with brilliant satire backed by first-hand experience in the bombing of Dresden, leaving readers with a true war story. Dismissing promises of glory and heroism, Vonnegut presents the true gravity of atrocities of war in a way that history books will never truly reveal. 
