How far do you agree that both novels are about the psychological effects of war? A 200 word essay on Slaughterhouse-five and Regeneration

Neither the structure of Slaughterhouse-five by Kurt Vonnegut nor Regeneration by Pat Barker are linear in structure. Slaughterhouse-Five is cyclical in structure while Regeneration is peppered with flashbacks. The significance of this is that both novel's structures mirror the complexities of the effects that war has on the characters. Neither the main character of Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim, or the main character of Regeneration, Siegfried Sassoon, suffer any serious physical injuries in their time at war, in fact, the only injury that Billy Pilgrim sustains in the war is from a pair of "low cut civilian shoes he had brought for his father's funeral" which gives him a "sore hip". The psychological effects of the war on both Billy and Siegfried are formidable. Billy is hidden in an underground meat storing facility while an entire city full of civilians is firebombed to the ground by his own people while Sigfried can still recall the "charred and blackened" corpses on the battlefield of the First World War and he wrote poetry about watching his friends dieing. In this respect, both novels are certainly about the psychological effects of war on the individuals that experience it as we will find out in the full essay...

A Short Marxist analysis of Slaughterhouse 5

In Kurt Vonnegut's famous anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse 5, three simple words are repeated throughout the book that almost perectly sum up the storyline: "So it goes". This is always said by the narrator after death is mentioned. A Marxist would say that this phrase adequately sums up the lack of power any character has over their own fate and c'est la vie. This links nicely to the Tralfamadorians, a race of aliens (whether they are real or imagined by Billy Pilgrim is never important) who can see the fourth dimention, time, and therefore know how the universe began and how it will end. They also know that they are powerless to change anything as all of time has already happened, will always happen and is always happening. When they see a dead fellow tralfamador, they don't feel sad, as they know that it is still alive in another time. So it goes.

The second title of Slaughterhouse-Five is "The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance With Death" and throughout the novel, the narrator is constantly correcting himself when soldiers and men are mentioned, instead calling them children. An example of this is used when describing a dying, mad colonel  “This was a man who had lost an entire regiment, about forty-five hundred men—a lot of them children, actually”(being a colonel who was incompitant enough to lead 4500 children to their deaths, it seems unlikely that he was promoted for being a good tactition and so it seems likely that he would have bought his way to the upper echelons of the army. A dig at the upper classes?) This is significant in that children do not have power in society and so Vonnegut attempts to show us that soldiers weren't all gallant young me who wanted to fight for peace and their country, they were lambs sent to slaughter. The Slaughterhouse-five in the title might not just be Billy's prison in Dresden, but also a description of the war. A slaughterhouse.

Finally, the name of the main character is Billy Pilgrim. Not William or Will or Bill, but Billy. How many adults do you know who call themselves "Billy"? It is a childish name for a child and as we know, children lack the power to change their fate. So it goes...