Dispersal of time and trauma in postmodern novel: Slaughterhouse-Five

Yıl 2023, Sayı: 33, 1239 - 1252, 26.04.2023

Samet Kalecik

https://doi.org/10.29000/rumelide.1285894

Öz

Wars cause trauma and disruption of temporal sequencing, leading to fragmentation of memory in survivors. This fragmentation leads to negative changes in the victims' posttraumatic relationships and character traits. Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) is a novel about war trauma in which WWII is satirized with the use of a nonlinear narrative and post-war traumatic self. The novel presents to the reader how an innocent man survives in a drastic war atmosphere by chance and how his life changes after the war in both a playful and critical manner. Although Slaughterhouse-Five broadly delineates the theme of the destructiveness of war, specifically Vonnegut draws attention to the distorted memory of a traumatized young man with an ironic stance. Thereby, presenting the reader an opportunity to delve into a mind in which the compulsory conditions about temporality and liminality are abolished, Vonnegut turns his narrative into a play that reflects both joy and suffering owing to the collapse of sequence in time. Making extensive use of the means of metafiction, the author reveals his war experiences and the hidden sides of WWII. Therefore, this study aims to analyze Vonnegut’s ironic approach to war trauma, distorted perception of time, and their reflection on fiction in a postmodern sense.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Trauma, distorted memory, nonlinear time, Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut.

Kaynakça

• APA (1980). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd Edition) (DSM-III). American Psychiatric Association.
• Balaev, M. (2008). Trends in literary trauma theory. Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, 41(2), 149-166. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44029500
• Balaev, M. (2018). Trauma studies. In D.H. Richter (Ed.) A companion to literary theory: Blackwell companions to literature and culture (pp. 360-371). Wiley Blackwell.
• Caruth, C. (1996). Unclaimed experience: Trauma, narrative, and history. The John Hopkins University Press.
• Farrell, S. E. (2008). Critical companion to Kurt Vonnegut: A literary reference to his life and work. Facts on File.
• Fay, S. (2011). The Paris review perspective. In L. Mustazza (Ed.) Critical insights Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (pp. 14-17). Salem Press.
• Gallagher, R. (2012). “All this happened, more or less”: Making sense of the war experience through humor in “Slaughterhouse-Five” and “The Sirens of Titan.” Studies in American Humor, 26, 73–84. www.jstor.org/stable/23823833 Gibbs, A. (2014). Contemporary American trauma narratives. Edinburgh University Press.
• Harris, C. (1976). Time, uncertainty, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: A reading of " Slaughterhouse-Five". The Centennial Review, 20 (3), 228-243. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23738361 Hutcheon, L. (2004). A poetics of postmodernism: history, theory, fiction. Taylor & Francis.
• Jameson, F. (1992). Postmodernism or the cultural logic of late capitalism (1. Print). Verso.
• Kalecik, S. (2021). Henry Green’in kısa hikayelerinde II. Dünya savaşı’nın yansımaları. In M.B. Büyüktopçu, & S. Kalecik (Eds.) Çeşitli yönleriyle II. Dünya savaşı. (pp. 27-55). Fenomen Yayıncılık.
• Klinkovitz, J. (2000). Kurt Vonnegut. In T. Woods (Ed.) Who's who of twentieth century novelist. Routledge.
• Kunze, P. C. (2012). For the boys: masculinity, gray comedy and the Vietnam war in “Slaughterhouse Five”. Studies in American Humor,26,41-57. http//.www.jstor.org/stable/23823831
• Lindemann, E. (1944). Symptomatology and management of acute grief. American Journal of Pychiatry,101:141-149.
• Marvin, T. F. (2002). Kurt Vonnegut: A critical companion. Greenwood Press.
• Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Trauma. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved January 2022. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trauma
• Simmons, D. (2008). The anti-hero in the American novel; From Joseph Heller to Kurt Vonnegut. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Stolorow, R. D. (2007). Trauma and human existence: autobiographical, psychoanalytic, and philosophical reflections. Routledge.
• Sumner, G. D. (2013). Unstuck in time: a journey through Kurt Vonnegut's life and novels. Hunter Publishers.
• Veix, D. B. (1975). Teaching a censored novel: Slaughterhouse Five. The English Journal, 64 (7), 25–33. www.jstor.org/stable/815302
• Vonnegut, K. (2011). Kurt Vonnegut: Novels& stories 1963-1973. S. Offit (Ed.) Library of America.
• Whitehead, A. (2004). Trauma fiction. Edinburgh University Press.
• Wicks, A. (2014). All this happened, more or less: The science fiction of trauma in Slaughterhouse-Five, Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, 55 (3), 329-340. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00111619.2013.783786