Research Question
How and for what effect do The Book Thief and Slaughterhouse-Five utilize postmodernist elements to convey a perspective of war?
(word count: 3983; written for IB Diploma English EE)
Introduction
Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief and Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five are two novels that tell a story of World War II. At first glance, excluding the time period they’re set in, the novels appear quite different from each other. The Book Thief, published in 2005, is a young adult novel about Leisel, a German girl who learns to read, steals books, and hides a Jewish man in her basement. Slaughter-House Five, published in 1969, uses a more nihilistic tone to tell the tale of Billy Pilgrim, an American World War II veteran who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden, is abducted by Tralfamadorian aliens, and travels through time. Despite their differences, both novels use similar postmodernist techniques, including fantastical elements, metafiction, and fragmentation.
Postmodernism is an artistic and philosophical movement that emerged in the late 20th century, and is characterized by its skepticism, playfulness, and breaking of boundaries (“Postmodern Literature”). The movement reflects the collective shift in perspective that occurred in the 20th century: people experienced a fragmented world where the threat of nuclear war and new ideologies like Marxism disrupted unity (Mambrol). Rejecting the idealism perpetuated by Modernism, postmodernists seek to embrace disorder and challenge the concept that universal truths exist (Postmodernism). Postmodernist literature rebels against characteristics of traditional novels like linearity or clarity. Both The Book Thief and Slaughter-House Five employ postmodernist techniques, leading to the question: how and for what effect do The Book Thief and Slaughterhouse-Five utilize postmodernist elements to convey a perspective of war?
This question is worthy of exploration because the two novels are framed and structured uniquely through their usage of postmodernist elements. The parallels between the techniques in both novels is intriguing, and raises questions about the effectiveness of postmodernist techniques versus the typical, chronologically structured historical fiction. Their similarities allow for a critical comparison of their differing approaches towards depicting World War II. Through the lens of Death, Zusak explores the duality of humanity and the power of stories. Through science fiction, Vonnegut conveys a fatalist and anti-war perspective. The Book Thief and Slaughter-House Five have varying writing styles and tone, but both utilize postmodernist elements to portray the indescribable horrors of war, ultimately conveying an anti-war message and emphasizing the importance of stories in coping with reality.
Self-Reflexivity and Irony
Both novels, to some extent, use self-reflexive narration and irony to portray war through a distant perspective. While The Book Thief is primarily historical fiction, a singular fantastical element is derived from the personification of Death and his role as narrator. Death’s self-reflective narration develops an unorthodox perspective that emphasizes the inhumanity of war. The term self-reflective is used because while Death often reflects upon his methods of storytelling, The Book Thief is not completely self-reflexive as Death is still a character written by Zusak. The use of Death to tell a war story is an ironic role reversal, since war stories are typically stories about death. On the very first page, Death says: “HERE IS A SMALL FACT. You are going to die. I am in all truthfulness attempting to be cheerful about this whole topic.” (Zusak 7). Death bluntly states a morbid fact that most avoid thinking about. The word “fact” connotes certainty that emphasizes humans’ lack of control over their inevitable fate. By addressing the reader as “you”, Death builds a connection with the reader through the illusion that he is directly speaking to them. The irony in juxtaposing death with being “cheerful” personifies Death by developing his distinct personality and narrative voice. After Death’s identity is revealed, there is a darker mood shift as he describes his view of humans: “The survivors. They’re the ones I can’t stand to look at […] I deliberately seek out the colors to keep my mind off them” (Zusak 8). His mention that colors serve as a distraction self-reflexively explains the repeated use of color imagery in the novel, reminding readers that the framed narrative they are reading is influenced by Death’s own interpretation of humanity. The distance created by the inhuman nature of Death allows for readers to view the inhumanity of war through a unique lens. Death’s need for distraction from the tragedies of humankind characterizes him as empathetic; this portrayal contrasts with the stereotypical image of death as merciless or scary, consequently shifting the focus of the story away from the deaths and to the inhumanity of humans themselves during war.
While Death possesses awareness of his role as narrator, Slaughter-House Five leans even further into self-reflexivity and metafiction, blurring reality and fiction to convey Vonnegut’s anti-war message. The first chapter is completely self-reflexive as Vonnegut details his own history as a soldier, and explains his struggles in writing this novel about his war experience. Vonnegut begins by saying, “All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true” (Vonnegut 1). Vonnegut undermines the credibility of his own narration by imbuing a sense of unreliability in the plot. The novel is about Billy Pilgrim, a World War II veteran who claims to have been abducted by aliens and has become “unstuck in time” (Vonnegut 23). This metafictional comment from the narrator, however, foreshadows that the science fiction elements are not “true,” thus causing the reader to question the purpose of the non “war parts” occurring within the novel. Vonnegut continues to explain his process: “I thought it would be easy for me to write about the destruction of Dresden, since all I would have to do would be to report what I had seen […] but not many words about Dresden came from my mind then” (Vonnegut 2). Vonnegut directly hints that his purpose for utilizing postmodernist elements is because simply recounting the events through narrative is not enough to convey the indescribable horrors of war. As literary critic Robert Scholes says, “Man’s inhumanity can be understood only tangentially, through the science fiction devices of flying saucers, alternate universes [… and] time travel” (Scholes). Vonnegut further reveals the intent for his unique novel structure: “It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre […] and what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like ‘Poo-tee-weet?’” (Vonnegut 19). By labelling war as a massacre and stating that nothing intelligent can be said about it besides a meaningless bird call, Vonnegut emphasizes the pointlessness of war and develops his anti-war message. The novel is indeed “jumbled” as the reader follows Billy jumping forwards and backwards through seemingly random moments in his life, and Vonnegut hints at his reason for doing so through his self-reflexivity.
Self-reflexivity in both novels helps readers understand the purpose of the literary techniques used, adding another layer of meaning. Zusak’s repetition of sky imagery highlights Death’s suffering and dislike of war. Since Death relies on color as a distraction from his gruesome tasks, he often observes the sky: “A single hour can consist of thousands of different colors […] I make it a point to notice them […] my one saving grace is distraction […] it helps me cope, considering the length of time I’ve been performing this job” (Zusak 8). The distinction that being Death is a job he is obligated to do implies a lack of free will that parallels the lack of control people have over their fate, particularly during war. His self-reflective narration allows the reader to understand the significance of sky imagery used in the storytelling: Death constantly takes note of the sky in times of tragedy, implicitly demonstrating how impacted he is by the horrific scenes he witnesses. When Death describes Stalingrad in a side anecdote, he says: “the sky was bleached bedsheet-white each morning. All day long, as I carried the souls across it, that sheet was splashed with blood […] in the evening, it would be wrung out and bleached again” (Zusak 72). Stalingrad was a brutal military campaign that is infamous for being one of the largest and bloodiest battles in history (“Battle”). Death does not mention any graphic details of the battle, but merely offers a description of the sky. This is in part due to The Book Thief’s status as a YA novel, because abstract descriptions aid in filtering the content for younger audiences to consume. However, the reader is also aware that Death’s memory of the sky correlates with his need for distraction from tragedy, thus indicating the event’s impact on Death and conveying the destructiveness of war.
The omniscience enabled by Death’s role as narrator, combined with sky imagery, further emphasizes how Death is impacted by the tragedies of war. Death is uniquely omniscient due to the implicative fact that he is present at the death of everything in the world. Because of this, Zusak is able to reveal additional details that the main characters are unaware of, demonstrating the impact of war beyond the scope of the main storyline. When Arthur Berg, the kind leader of a thieving group that Leisel is a member of, moves away, Death offers his omniscient insight: “They never saw Arthur Berg again. As for me, I can tell you that I most definitely saw him. The Cologne sky was yellow and rotting, flaking at the edges. He sat propped against a wall with a child in his arms […] When she stopped breathing, he stayed with her” (Zusak 113). Death offers a description of the sky before anything else, exemplifying his suffering and need for distraction. The diction of “child” deepens the tragedy of the event, because the innocence associated with children invokes a sense of protectiveness and increased emotional reaction. Arthur and his sister’s fate is unknown to the main characters, and arguably is irrelevant to the main storyline, but Zusak chooses to share this additional information through Death’s unique disposition. Rather than giving a number of casualties or describing the bombing of Cologne, Death focuses on one character that readers are familiar with, creating a bigger emotional impact to effectively portray the tragic nature of war.
Vonnegut utilizes irony and repetition to create a nihilistic tone that highlights humans’ lack of control and the inevitability of death. Similar to how Death repeats sky imagery when describing tragedies, Vonnegut repeats the phrase “so it goes” every time a death occurs, to the point where it almost becomes excessive: “A group of optometrists […] chartered an airplane to fly them from Ilium to an international convention of optometrists […] Everybody was killed but Billy. So it goes. […] His wife accidentally died of carbon-monoxide poisoning. So it goes” (Vonnegut 25). These unpredictable and devastating events, coupled with the short and blunt phrase, create an apathetic and nihilistic tone that indicates Billy’s attempt to distance himself from the tragedies in order to cope with surviving. There is irony in the fact that Billy survives a war while people around him die so randomly, which develops fatalistic ideas that effort and free will are meaningless. Billy’s minimalistic reaction to tragedy contrasts from The Book Thief, where Death’s emotional suffering receives more explicit elaboration. However, both novels use abstraction, excluding graphic and historical details to emphasize how there is no proper method to fully describe the immense destructiveness of war.
Vonnegut displays a meta awareness of his own technique, repeating the same short phrase when there is death in any form: “The champagne was dead. So it goes” (Vonnegut 73). This parodic irony reflects the playfulness and absurdity that postmodernists embrace. Though occasionally comedic, the phrase is also paired with much darker events: “The British had no way of knowing it, but the candles and the soap were made from the fat of rendered Jews and Gypsies and fairies and communists, and other enemies of the State. So it goes” (Vonnegut 96). Both these situations are met with the same reaction, despite one being much more shocking than the other. This simple dismissal of something so atrocious serves to show the absurdity and dehumanizing effects of war. The postmodernist technique of satire is needed to convey the ridiculous levels of inhumanity. Vonnegut rarely mentions explicit details of the war, so this reminder of the inhumane acts occurring simultaneous to Billy’s story emphasizes the need for the flippant mindset of “so it goes” to cope with reality. According to critic Wayne D. McGinnis, “‘so it goes’ is a sign of the human will to survive” (McGinnis). Inversely, “so it goes” highlights the horrific nature of war by showcasing its impact on survivors.**
Metafiction and the Importance of Stories
Metafiction is a technique in both novels that allows for a commentary on the power of storytelling, particularly in coping with the tragedies of life and war. In Slaughter-House Five, metafiction is exemplified through Vonnegut’s appearance as both narrator and character within his own novel, a technique that distances him from the story and demonstrates the lasting trauma caused by war. The majority of the novel can be read as a third person story about Billy Pilgrim, but Vonnegut occasionally reconnects to the first chapter’s autobiographical style, reminding readers of the fictionality of the story by pointing out his own presence: “[Dresden] looked like a Sunday school picture of Heaven to Billy Pilgrim. Somebody behind him in the boxcar said, ‘Oz.’ That was I. That was me” (Vonnegut 148). By comparing Dresden’s beauty to Heaven, Vonnegut highlights the tragedy of the city’s destruction through dramatic irony, since readers know Dresden will be utterly destroyed by firebombing; the notion that “Heaven” is destroyed by the war accentuates Vonnegut’s anti-war theme. Vonnegut as a character does not reappear until the very end, which is also when he switches from using “they” to first person plural for the first time: “I was there […] They told us what to do […] We were to march with these implements to such a place in the ruins” (Vonnegut 212). This shift clarifies that this story is not just Billy’s, but Vonnegut’s as well. As aforementioned, the first chapter of the novel describes Vonnegut struggling to write his Dresden story, even though all he thought he needed to do was “report what he had seen” (Vonnegut 2). He realizes that “there is nothing intelligent to be said about a massacre,” and employs fantastical elements and postmodernist techniques to add meaning into his experiences (Vonnegut 19). Vonnegut mentions in the first chapter that it took him “twenty-three years” to write this story, demonstrating the difficulty of conveying the indescribable horrors he experienced in war (Vonnegut 2). Vonnegut is only able to convey his Dresden story by “cushioning it with multiple perspectives, constructing what is finally a story within a memory within a novel” (Harris). While wanting distance, Vonnegut’s desire for his experiences to be acknowledged is demonstrated through his repetition that he “was there” (Vonnegut 212). This develops the theme that storytelling is a powerful tool for coping with reality.
Parallels between Kilgore Trout’s novels and the Tralfamadorians exemplify both Billy and Vonnegut’s attempt to reinvent the world through science fiction, employing metafiction to highlight the trauma of war and the importance of stories. Billy commits himself to a mental ward, where his roommate introduces him to his new favorite science fiction author, Kilgore Trout. All the characteristics of Tralfamadorians, Billy’s alleged alien abductors, can be seen in Trout’s novels, such as one book “about a visitor from outer space, shaped very much like a Tralfamadorian by the way” (Vonnegut 108). Vonnegut intentionally points out the uncanny similarities between Billy’s abductors and the fictional characters in Billy’s reading material, suggesting that the science fiction elements of Slaughter-House Five are merely figments of Billy’s imagination. Billy’s decision to go to the hospital provides evidence of psychological instability, and his affinity for science fiction is soon explained: “They had both found life meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in war […] so they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe. Science fiction was a big help” (Vonnegut 101). The reveal that Billy views science fiction as a tool to “re-invent” his universe further indicates that Billy’s Tralfamadorian experiences are merely hallucinations induced by his need to cope with reality after traumatic war experiences. The metafiction is apparent upon analyzing the similarities between Billy and Vonnegut himself: they both served in World War II and witnessed the firebombing of Dresden. In the first chapter, Vonnegut discusses the struggle of writing his Dresden experience, and the genre of Slaughter-House Five can be classified as science fiction, ultimately implying that the novel itself is Vonnegut the author’s attempt at coping with the horrors he witnessed in war. Vonnegut uses science fiction to “re-invent” his own story in order to give his experiences meaning; the use of metafiction emphasizes the trauma of war through the layers of narrative, and conveys the necessity of storytelling in coping with the tragedies in life.
Parallels between narrator and protagonist are also present in The Book Thief, displayed through Leisel and Death’s shared need for stories. Leisel struggles with words throughout the novel as she learns to read, but “when she came to write her story, she would wonder exactly when the books and the words started to mean not just something, but everything” (Zusak 23). The power of words is an overt theme developed throughout the novel, and Zusak cements it by stating that words are “everything” to Leisel. After Leisel’s street is bombed, she drops and loses her book. However, Death finds her story, and it is that very story that Death has been narrating: “How could she ever know that someone would pick her story up and carry it with him everywhere?” (Zusak 352). This creates a sense of metafiction because the reader is picking up Leisel’s story through Death as well. Billy Pilgrim finds meaning through Kilgore Trout’s novels, and Vonnegut adds meaning to his own experiences through Billy Pilgrim’s story. Similarly, Death is greatly impacted by Leisel’s story, and seeks to share the impact with the reader. In the beginning of The Book Thief, Death directly says, “I have kept [Leisel’s] story to retell. It is one of the small legion I carry […] each one an attempt — an immense leap of an attempt — to prove that you, and your human existence, are worth it” (Zusak 14). Zusak emphasizes the value of human life even despite all the atrocities committed during war. The optimistic and didactic tone contrasts from Slaughter-House Five’s nihilistic one, but it conveys the same idea that storytelling is an important method of adding meaning to lived experiences.
Nonlinear Time and Fatalism
Postmodernists question reality, and humans’ perception of reality is greatly influenced by the concept of time. Thus, postmodernist writers often manipulate time, and this technique is used by both Zusak and Vonnegut. Zusak uses Death’s omniscience to foreshadow and even spoil future events in the story’s timeline, employing fragmentation to showcase the inevitability of death in order to focus on the human experience. The biggest spoiler Death reveals is the death of Rudy, Leisel’s best friend: “Poor Rudy […] he didn’t deserve to die the way he did […] Of course, I’m being rude. I’m spoiling the ending […] because I don’t have much interest in building mystery […] I know what happens and so do you. It’s the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound me” (Zusak 168). The sudden reveal of an important character’s death in the middle of the novel creates a sense of fatalism: as readers continue reading about Rudy after this reveal, they are afflicted with the awareness that his death is coming and cannot be prevented. Zusak disrupts the chronological sequence of events that would occur in reality, consequently making the story feel as if it is unchangeable; there is no clear turning point that could suggest a way to prevent Rudy’s death, as it has already been predetermined. Death, however, points out that the reader should “know what happens” regardless, which is undeniably true: life always ends in death. This inevitability is mentioned in Slaughter-House Five as well: “There would always be wars […] and even if wars didn’t keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death” (Vonnegut 4). Both authors convey a lack of control over fate that is associated with war. The use of fragmentation, however, lessens the shock of a character’s death and allows the focus of the story to be shifted onto the experiences of humans. Both novels desensitize readers to death in order to prioritize the significance of the survivors’ lives, and how war impacts life.
Death the narrator is the fantastical element of The Book Thief, and Tralfamadorians are the science fiction element of Slaughter-House Five. Though the phrase “so it goes” is used right from the start of the novel without explanation, the reader eventually learns that the phrase is accredited to the Tralfamadorians, fatalist aliens who see “all time as [humans] might see a stretch of Rocky Mountains […] all time is all time. It does not change […] it simply is […] Only on Earth is there any talk of free will” (Vonnegut 85). The Tralfamadorians explicitly deny the existence of free will. If Tralfamadorians are part of Billy’s schizophrenic hallucinations, then their fatalist mindset can be interpreted as Billy’s attempt to cope with the horrific things that have occurred; only upon accepting that those things had to happen and could never have been changed, can he go on, implicitly illustrating the horrors of war. Through the longest length of dialogue Billy ever speaks in the novel, he informs the Tralfamadorians of the terrifying inhumanity of war, how humans could end the universe, and asks them how to prevent such disaster. The Tralfamadorians view this as a stupid question, explaining that they already know how the universe ends: “‘We blow it up […] a Tralfamadorian test pilot presses a starter button, and the whole universe disappears.’ So it goes” (Vonnegut 117). When Billy asks why this event cannot be prevented if they are aware of it, the Tralfamadorians say, “He has always pressed it, and we always will let him […] there isn’t anything we can do […] Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones” (Vonnegut 117). The universe and everything within, including the suffering and destruction caused by humans and war, ends so easily through the arbitrary press of a button. This absurdity exemplifies the lack of control that humans have over their fate, and how everything, including war, is ultimately pointless.
The inevitability of tragedy is further emphasized through the fragmentation of Slaughter-House Five. The novel begins with Vonnegut essentially laying out the entire plot, and he says, “Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre […] except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like ‘Poo-tee-weet’” (Vonnegut 19). The novel ends just as Vonnegut said it would: “The Second World War in Europe was over […] one bird said to Billy Pilgrim, ‘Poo-tee-weet?’” (Vonnegut 215). By connecting to the diction in the beginning, Vonnegut creates a circular narrative that parallels the inescapable cycle of life and death. The novel ends after the “massacre” of Dresden, which despite not being the chronological end of Billy’s story, marks an emotional one: Billy’s life is forever altered by his war experiences. The Tralfamadorians claim that every moment in time is predetermined, and the structure of the novel reflects the fatalist perspective; just like in The Book Thief, fragmentation and spoilers create the effect that these moments are unchangeable, emphasizing humans’ lack of control over their inevitable fate.
Conclusion
The Book Thief and Slaughter-House Five defy the traditional standards of historical fiction through their usage of postmodernist elements. Both novels are incredibly distinct, and yet also share many similarities in techniques and themes. Death struggles with the duality of humanity, using stories like Leisel’s to give some meaning to all the destruction he witnesses in World War II. Billy Pilgrim and Vonnegut both struggle after their horrific experiences in war, turning to science fiction and the deterministic perspective of Tralfamadorians to cope with reality. Through fantastical elements, metafiction, and fragmentation, both novels convey a sense of fatalism that portrays war as pointless, tragic, and inhumane. Both Zusak and Vonnegut display awareness of the inevitability of tragedy, and yet they still make an attempt to combat it through the messages in their writing, exemplifying the importance of stories.
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