A Life Worth Living in Kurt Vonneguts Slaughterhouse-Five :: Slaughterhouse-Five Essays

A Life Worth Living in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five Kurt Vonnegut (1922- ) is an author with a unique perspective on life. He sees in a vivid technicolor things in this world that the rest of humanity may only see in black and white. By the same token he sees life as a rather dark subject, it's the ultimate joke at our expense (Lundquist 1). His life experience has been one of hardship. His mother committed suicide in 1942. Two years later he was captured by Nazis in World War II's epic Battle of the Bulge. In 1943 he survived the massively destructive fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany. He returned with the distinguished Purple Heart. In 1958 his sister and brother-in-law died, leaving him to raise their children, along with his own (Campbell 2). Despite these hardships, however, to Vonnegut life is still worth living. It shows through in his novels. Vonnegut utilizes black humor and irony to show many recurring themes noted in his works which are we, as a race, must learn to keep happy illusions over evil ones and that a soothing lie is sometimes the best truth (Lundquist 1). To say that Vonnegut feels life is worth living despite the horrors of the world is to say that Vonnegut really longs for the life of his childhood. It was a life of family and good, Midwestern upbringing. Wholesome morals like self-respect and pacifism were fed to him along with other staples of the Midwest. America was an idealistic, pacifistic nation at the time. I was taught in the sixth grade to be proud that we had a standing army of just over a hundred thousand men and that generals had nothing to say about what was done in Washington. I was taught to be proud of that and to pity