Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death, is a 1969 semi-autobiographic science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut, following the life of Billy Pilgrim from his early years through his time as an American soldier and chaplain's assistant during the Second World War to the post-war years, as Billy frequently travels back and forth through time in a temporal crisis resulting from post-war psychological trauma. The text centers on Billy's capture by the German Army and his survival of the Allied firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war, an experience Vonnegut endured as an American serviceman, and the novel has been called an example of unmatched moral clarity and one of the most enduring anti-war novels of all time. It has been translated into at least eleven other languages including German, Italian, French, Polish, Portuguese, Bulgarian and Chinese. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
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What does the title Slaughterhouse-Five refer to?
It is the empty slaughterhouse in Dresden where Billy Pilgrim and his fellow prisoners were held and survived the 1945 firebombing.
The title names a real building. In the novel, the Germans held Billy Pilgrim and his fellow prisoners in Dresden in an empty slaughterhouse called Schlachthof-fünf, which means slaughterhouse five. During the Allied bombing of Dresden the guards sheltered their captives in its partially underground setting, which protected the prisoners from complete annihilation, so they were among the few survivors of the firestorm of February 13 to 15, 1945. Kurt Vonnegut drew on his own experience here, since he was held with fellow prisoners of war in a deep cellar of the same slaughterhouse and survived the bombing.
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Source Slaughterhouse-Five (Wikipedia)
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Source Slaughterhouse-Five (Wikipedia)
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1. Slaughterhouse-Five (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia FoundationLead section
Slaughterhouse-Five...is a 1969 semi-autobiographic science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut.
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Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is a 1969 semi-autobiographic science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut.
Lead paragraph
Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death is a 1969 semi-autobiographic science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut. It follows the life experiences of Billy Pilgrim, from his early years, to his time as an American soldier and chaplain's assistant during World War II, to the post-war years. Throughout the novel, Billy frequently travels back and forth through time.
Authored By: Kurt Vonnegut, Lead section, authorship
Slaughterhouse-Five...is a 1969 semi-autobiographic science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut.
In Genre: Science Fiction, Lead section, genre
is a 1969 semi-autobiographic science fiction-infused anti-war novel by Kurt Vonnegut
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