The Preface to Slaughterhouse-Five

In the first chapter of “Slaughterhouse-Five” Kurt Vonnegut introduces himself. He creates a kind of prologue to the story that would maybe be more appropriate if it were titled “Preface” than “Chapter 1.” Vonnegut mentions that it is very hard for him to remember specific examples of his experiences as a war prisoner in Dresden. He spent many years in a state of mental block or “writers block” if you will, where he started writing but he didn’t like it, and he didn’t really feel that he was making progress in drafting the first pages of the book. The way that he describes his desperate attempts to start his book but fails, reminds me of several times that I was in that situation. Writing requires patience, I’ve heard this many times coming from many different people, but I had never heard of it happening to an author of a successful book.

While reading the fist chapter of this book I realized that I identify myself with Vonnegut on many different levels. The first, and most obvious one, is that of bluntness. The way that Vonnegut describes that time does not pass, both in the hotel room in Boston and in the lumberjack’s song makes the reader get the idea that time will play a vital role in the book’s plot. This is intertwined with the fact that this book, to my understanding, is autobiographical at its base, therefore Vonnegut is accepting his novitiate status when he presents his struggles in starting the book. In the same way I many times struggle to organize my ideas and start writing, at which point, I start to feel that time in itself is not linear, it is circular.

Did Vonnegut write this chapter after finishing the rest of the novel? If so, why did he decide to include it? The second reason why I identify myself with Vonnegut is his writing style, specifically his narrative and description techniques. The way that he describes how he made his outline on a piece of wallpaper is intricate and double sided. It seems simple at first, but after performing a close reading I noticed that it could also be interpreted as a symbol for his writing style. His conception of the firebombing of Dresden is complex and loft sided, he makes his outline to not only organize the plot of he book, but also determine the way that he will narrate and present the story. I think that he creates a sort of mirror effect where reality will be lost within the novel. The structure of the narrative will amalgamate his reality (expressed in Chapter 1) with the reality of whoever represents his character as a prisoner of war.