Mid Sweden University

The aim of this essay was to investigate the narrative, humour and content of Slaughterhouse-Five in order to address the ambiguity of the novel. As has been shown, Slaughterhouse-Five is unclear about how many narrators it has, and the reliability of the main narrator proves dubious when source criticism is applied to the narrator as a source. Billy, who appears to be the narrator’s primary source, is possibly damaged by physical or mental trauma to the extent that he has become deluded, and rebuilt the world to fit the mold of an insane predeterminism. Even if one accepts the information given by the narrator and Billy at face value, the story in itself can be seen as being in opposition to predeterminism and war, due to the novel’s apparent use of humour and its focus on the Second World War and the bombing of Dresden’s civilian population. Nevertheless, the novel contains elements that nurture the interpretation that the novel is not in opposition to the idea that wars and its horrors are unavoidable. In conclusion, Slaughterhouse-Five is a contradictory novel, with its aspects fighting each other, hindering a clear definite reading of the work’s message as a whole.