Monday, April 23, 2012

Slaughterhouse-Five: Frame Story

"Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time." Chapter 2 pg 23

This is the beginning of the frame story created by Vonnegut. The original book starts describing a character who was asked to write a war novel. The frame story is his tale of a man named Billy Pilgrim who was in WWII and saw the fire-bombing of Dresden. This adds an interesting aspect to the story because the information provided is not a first hand account. The reader has no way of knowing which parts are factual and what is made up. The parts about being abducted by aliens seems a little far fetched, and it is impossible to know if (within the confines of a fictional story) the character is telling the reader the truth. The frame story adds an element of skepticism, leaving the reader questioning the characters. This is good because it appears Vonnegut does not want us to connect with any of them.

1 comment:

  1. This frame story I found really confusing at first. Especially since readers do not know who the narrator is at first, but then later we understand the writing of the novel is simply another part of Billy's timeline that is all out of order.

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