ATTITUDES TOWARDS SUFFERINGS SEEN BY VONNEGUT AND HIS CHARACTERS IN SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE

Abstract

The article examines the issue of duality and dwells upon the binary of good war/bad war and winner/loser. A new perspective on the issue of “every German is responsible for the sin of the Nazis”, first introduced by Kurt Vonnegut, has been given thorough consideration in the paper. Vonnegut defied standards in Slaughterhouse-five. With his writing, he proves that war is never as black and white as it seems. The enemy is not one-sided, the good guys do not always do good things and the victory is not all that satisfying. To say that no matter what happens on the political side of the story, we are still humans and still need to take care of each other was quite revolutionary considering Vonnegut's attempt to flip the narrative and say the same thing about German civilians. It defied all the traditional black-and-white ideas of good and evil. Not too many people were brave enough to challenge the stigma behind the tragedy of Dresden massacre. Vonnegut challenged that idea and told the story from his perspective - about good and bad people from both sides and about thousands of civilians whose bodies he was taking from the shelters after bombings.