Critics are unable to agree on the main theme of Slaughterhouse 5

Critics of Kurt Vonnegut are unable to agree on the main theme of his novel, Slaughterhouse Five. Although the novel is satirical, ironical, and extremely wise, it has almost no plot structure, and it is hard to find a constant theme. From the many people that the main character Billy Pilgrim meets, and the places that he takes us to, readers are able to discern that Vonnegut is trying to send the message that there will always be death, there will always be war, and that humans have no control over their own lives.

Most of the book is the narrative from Billy Pilgrim, a unique character who has the ability to become “unstuck in time”, which means that he can uncontrollably drift from one part of his life to another. The whole book is organized in the same way Billy moves in time. In consists of numerous sections and paragraphs strung together in no chronological order, seemingly at random. The whole narration is written in the past tense, so that the reader cannot identif...