Criticism Response: "slaughterhouse-Five"

Criticism Response: "Slaughterhouse-five"

This article used the perception of a psychiatric approach to Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. This article was about the PTSD, Schizophrenia, and paranoia of both the characters and the author himself. The article elaborates on specific events in Slaughterhouse-Five and how they can be related to the psychiatric approach to reading. In addition, this article elaborated on various ideas through books wrote on Vonnegut. This article also explains the reasoning for such a complicated novel to come from such a complex character, Vonnegut. It details into the PTSD of both Vonnegut and Billy Pilgrim, and explains how it affects Vonnegut's writing, and Billy Pilgrim's time travels. In the article, the author suggests that the book can be used "as a therapeutic process that allows him to uncover and deal with his trauma in World War II" (Vees-Gulani). Also she says that Vonnegut uses complex figures and characters as a mean to "overcome his distress, he makes it possible for us to trace his path to recovery" (Vees-Gulani).

This article contains ideas and concepts that the reader would have a rather easy time agreeing with because of the insightfulness and descriptive explanations that are given, because the article has these ideas and concepts, it is easier to understand. For example, one idea that is easy to agree with is the idea or suggestion of Billy's schizophrenia. The author of the article says that "Billy's psychological state is more precisely categorized with schizophrenia ... the authors own comments on the title page say 'somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales on tralfamadore'(1)" (Vees-Gulani). When the author states this, he refers to Billy being schizophrenic, as well as the author entitling that he will be. Another suggestion that is agreeable with, in which the author makes, is when he says that Billy's time travels have to relate to the idea of PTSD, from Vonnegut. The quote "PTSD occurs when a person is confronted with an event, sight, sound, or smell that circumstantially relate to the traumatic event" (Vees-Gulani), explains the fact of the PTSD that occurs when a reader smells or hears anything related to the intense event that one individual went through, the author says that the "novel repeatedly mentions certain colors, ivory and blue, orange and black, mustard gas and roses, etc, and through Vonneguts writing, it carries significance in Billy's past" (Vees-Gulani). This quote explains how through Billy's and Vonnegut's PTSD, they create time travel as well as other events in the story.

In addition, this article also contains concepts that have very disagreeable thoughts behind them, which are opinion based, and shouldn't be fought in any manner. For instance, it says in the article that Billy

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