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The Meaning Of Life In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five

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“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around you.” Vonnegut In this quote, Vonnegut describes the meaning of life is to develop relationships with everyone around you. In the novel, Slaughterhouse Five, the reader is taken on an adventure with Billy Pilgrim through being a prisoner of war, traveling through time, and being kidnapped to a foreign planet in order to become a zoo exhibit. Through Billy’s life, he is constantly being flashed through different periods in his life, all while lacking any emotion at all.After reading the book, one can easily assume Slaughterhouse Five is a book about how life should be lived, as it is shown through Billy’s characteristics and the repetitive use of time travel. …show more content…
Due to this extreme lack of given personality traits, the result is a very bland person, one who simply lives life doing as he’s told and without question. In fact, the only emotion he shows in the entire novel is shortly after he had left Dresden and he sees the horses that are pulling him for the first time. the author describes him “bursting into tears” (197). What little information we do get about Billy is his physical description, as he is described as a funny looking child who became a funny looking youth” (23). So to conclude Billy Pilgrim from a physical stance, he is a rather ugly, emotionless introvert with little to no personality. Despite all of this negativity he faces on a daily basis, he continues to live. He lives his rather pathetic life because it is the only one he has. And that is how life should be lived. with that, Billy Pilgrim's characterization reflects the book’s stance on how life should be

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