SlaughterhouseFive Brief Biographical and Historical Context A Few
Slaughterhouse-Five Brief Biographical and Historical Context
A Few Biographical and Historical Details VONNEGUT AND DRESDEN
Kurt Vonnegut (1922 -2007) • Writer, satirist, humanist • Philosophical and innovative works combine sci-fi, black comedy, irony • Wrote “Deer in the Works” and “Harrison Bergeron” • Served in U. S. infantry in Europe during WWII • Captured in December 1944 and sent to Dresden, Germany • As POW, worked in syrup factory converted from a slaughterhouse • Eye-witness to the firebombing
The Dresden Firebombing • February 13 -14, 1945 • 1, 300 Allied bombers (U. S. and Royal Air Force) dropped 3, 900 tons of explosives and incendiary devices • Dresden considered a cultural center in Europe • “Dresden is an open city. It is undefended, and contains no war industries or troop concentrations of any kind” (S 5 146)
The Dresden Death Toll In years after war, estimates as high as 250, 000 Vonnegut says 135, 000 Recent estimates 25, 000 -40, 000 Many that were killed were women and children since most of the German men were off fighting elsewhere • As a POW Vonnegut gathered bodies • Vonnegut drew on David Irving’s The Destruction of Dresden (1963) • • – At the time Irving was a reputable scholar – Now Irving is known as a right-wing extremist and Holocaust denier
Dresden Controversy: Was It a War Crime? • Irving’s book played an important role in supporting war crime argument • Recent research (Frederick Taylor’s Dresden [2007]) reveals – Dresden was a normally functioning Nazi city with sites vital to war effort – 25, 000 -40, 000 killed (not 135, 000) • The question remains open
Vonnegut on the Dresden Firebombing • from Vonnegut's self-interview in the Paris Review, 1977 – VONNEGUT: Every day we walked into the city and dug into basements and shelters to get the corpses out. . The Germans got funeral pyres going, burning the bodies. . 130, 000 corpses were hidden underground. It was a terribly elaborate Easter egg hunt. . [O]nly one person on the entire planet benefited from the raid, which must have cost tens of millions of dollars. The raid didn't shorten the war by half a second, didn't weaken a German defense or attack anywhere, didn't free a single person from a death camp. Only one person benefited—not two or five or ten. Just one. – INTERVIEWER: And who was that? – VONNEGUT: Me. I got three dollars for each person killed. Imagine that.
TH TH 18 -19 -CENTURY TITLE PAGES
c. 1715
Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719)
Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1741)
Slaughterhouse-Five Title Page • Thinking about these 18 th/19 th century novels, what do you think Vonnegut’s purpose was in creating his title page?
Goethe (p. 18) • In Chapter One, Vonnegut quotes the German Romantic Poetic Goethe • Here is a rough translation: – From the steeple of the Frauenkirche (name of church in Dresden), I saw the sad rubble sown between the beautiful order of the city. The sexton pointed out the design of the architect who had foreseen the need to build a church and steeple that could withstand bombs. The sexton then looked on the ruins on all sides of the church and said in laconic thinking: the enemy did that.
Dresden Frauenkirche • "Church of Our Lady“ • Burned and collapsed during firebombing • Completely rebuilt using some of the original bricks (the black spots on the picture)
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