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Lea Pavlinek

Jasna Poljak Rehlicki, PhD

American War Literature

28 November 2023

The Portrayal of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Slaughterhouse Five

Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five offers a unique view on the effects of war on the

human psyche. The protagonist of the novel, Billy Pilgrim, an ordinary optometrist turned

soldier, becomes 'unstuck in time,' experiencing his life in a disjointed, non-linear manner. His

disorienting journey through past, present, and future events isn't merely a stylistic choice but a

portrayal of the psychological trauma he grapples with—a manifestation of Post-Traumatic

Stress Disorder (PTSD) brought on by the atrocities of war. This essay delves into Billy

Pilgrim's temporal displacement, exploring how Vonnegut employs this unique narrative device

as a compelling representation of PTSD, showcasing the fractured nature of a mind scarred by

warfare. Through Billy's fragmented experiences and encounters with the Tralfamadorians,

Vonnegut illustrates the labyrinth of trauma and its impact on one's perception of reality and

time.

Billy Pilgrim experiences time in a non-linear fashion thanks to his time spent with the

Tralfamadorians, giving this novel an interesting way of offering the reader the events of the

protagonist’s life in a non-chronological order and creating a narrative that portrays a broken

mind’s perception of trauma. The novel opens with the line “All this happened, more or less. The

war parts, anyway, are pretty much true” (Vonnegut 1) stating that Vonnegut truly did see a

soldier get shot over a teapot and he really did survive the firebombing in the slaughterhouse.

Vonnegut’s experiences can be found as the foundation for the character of Billy Pilgrim.

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Vonnegut created Billy Pilgrim as a conduit for telling the story of his own experiences as a

soldier, and the effects of trauma he experienced due to it. The unique ability to perceive his life

in a non-linear way portrays Billy Pilgrim’s, and in the same hand Kurt Vonnegut’s, experience

of forever being stuck in a traumatic event. No matter what, Billy Pilgrim always finds himself

back in Dresden, and is never able to change the outcome. “Among the things Billy Pilgrim

could not change were the past, the present, and the future” (Vonnegut 45). Billy Pilgrim has no

control over his life and the events, much like a bug stuck in amber, to which he is compared to

by the Tralfamadorians. “Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment.

There is no why”(Vonnegut 56). Moreover, the line "There is no why" encapsulates the fatalistic

resignation that is part of Billy's understanding of his circumstances. The lack of a discernible

reason or purpose behind his suffering only further pushes the anti-war message of the novel,

showing that the death and suffering caused by war serves no true purpose. Billy Pilgrim's

entrapment within his traumatic experiences echoes the perpetual cycle of PTSD, a condition that

binds its sufferers to the shackles of their past traumas. Vonnegut utilizes Billy's temporal

displacement not as a mere literary device but as a mirror reflecting the psychological toll of war.

The novel, focusing on the aftermath of the Dresden firebombing—an event mirroring

Vonnegut's own wartime experiences—illustrates the incapacitating nature of trauma, and how

such experiences can alter one’s perception of time, and how one can end up in a cycle of

reliving the same traumatic events time and time again.

In essence, Billy Pilgrim's temporal displacement, his perpetual return to the horrors of

Dresden, and his inability to alter events epitomize the agonizing reality of PTSD. Vonnegut

employs this unconventional narrative technique as not only a clever storytelling tool to further

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push the absurdity of the narrative of Slaughterhouse Five, but as a way of showing the relentless

cycle of reliving traumatic memories as well.