Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death is a 1969 novel by best-selling author Kurt Vonnegut. His most popular work and widely regarded as a classic, it combines science fiction elements with an analysis of the human condition from an uncommon perspective, using time travel as a plot device and the bombing of Dresden in World War II, which Vonnegut witnessed, as a starting point.

Possible explanation for time travel

While time travel lends itself to the science fiction aspect of the story, it has been suggested that what Vonnegut had Billy Pilgrim experience is akin to post-traumatic stress disorder (still generally referred to as 'shell shock' at the time of writing). After intense stress during a situation such as combat, the extreme stress can put a major strain on the person and disrupt normal mental function, with symptoms including hallucinations and flashbacks.

Related Topics:
Post-traumatic stress disorder - Hallucination

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Since Billy Pilgrim actually travels beyond the end of his own life, and is able to predict the time of his own death, the device—if so intended—is probably not intended to be taken literally. But random time travel as a metaphor for Billy Pilgrim's fractured state of mind seems a reasonable explanation.

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It is not until Billy's old age that he tells other people that he has come unstuck in time and has visited Tralfamadore; this greatly upsets his daughter, who believes he has become senile. The rest of the world, apparently, disagrees, as by the end of Billy's life he apparently has millions of followers.

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