Are life and death really that different? Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse 5 doesn't think so. This question is important, because life and death can be seen in different ways, yet people stress about them a lot during their lifetime without realizing how similar they are.This question determines how people live life. If people believe life and death are closely related, they will life to the fullest knowing that life can end at any moment. If people believe that death is a distant part of their life, they will live life laid back and not to the fullest. They can go skydiving but if people knew they weren’t going to die for a very long time, they might live life sitting back and not doing much because they have their whole lives to do dangerous thing. Society thinks that life and death go hand in hand but are so far apart. In reality, life and death are closely intertwined. http://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1681051.html This article explains how life and death are related and the entire world has noticed small connections. We said that life goes hand in hand with death. This article shows that without life there is no death and vice-versa. “It was a random, bristly beard and some of the bristles were white, even though Billy was only twenty-one years old. He was also going bald.” (33) He was no more than 21 at that moment. The way I interpreted that phrase was that his aging appearance meant he was close to death. He was still very alive but so close to death. “Billy was evidently going crazy. Billy was taken home.”(135) He was still young and getting stranger. I interpreted this phrase by thinking that he is going crazy and he is losing his marbles (as my group said). This could mean that he is close to passing away and the War had to be the reason he was close to that because of the actions that have occurred and the harsh environment of the war.Therefore violence causes life and death to be traumatizing and connects them because one moment you can be living happy with a few worries then the next moment you can be on the ground not breathing. For example, when someone texting and driving isn’t looking and hits someone else. Boom, that person’s life ended within seconds or even a bank robbery. "Nothing happened that night. It was the next night that about one hundred and thirty thousand people in Dresden would die." (165) This shows death is right around the corner of life. One second you’re alive and the next you’re dead. The people of Dresden thought they were safe but they still died. That proves the point that no matter how far away you think death is and how sure you are about life, death could still pop up and end life. This scares people because they want to live reckless but are scared because it might result in death.
Vonnegut used imagery to show the relationship between life and death. “His bare feet were blue and ivory.” (28) This phrase popped up three times. Once when he was being abducted by the aliens. The second when he was on the train close to death and the third when he was talking about the dead hobo on the train. So, the same feature is shown on someone who is alive, dying, and dead. Life and death brought together by using imagery. Life and the journey up to death aren’t completely different if they have the same qualities along the journey and the beginning and end of the journey. Vonnegut uses the hero’s journey to further my point. He uses the war as the trial and conflicts of Billy’s journey, The trials and conflicts mature Bill yet bring him so close to death.To mature, you have to be inexperienced in some aspects. The most maturing occurs when people are young or in their 20’s. Yet the war brought him so close to death as he was experiencing this. Showing, that death isn’t a distant part in the future and that it is always lurking, People might not realize that but they have to so they can live life to the fullest. Another example, “They see them as great millipedes-'with babies' legs at one end and old people's legs at the other,' says Billy Pilgrim." (87) If people know they are going to die they have an end. The end of the millipede with old people legs is the end. As in the millipede, we see an end but still try to live life (the legs in between). This connects life and death to be a journey that results in life ending and death beginning.
Vonnegut uses satirical devices to make people think about how life and death can be more related than they really seem. It helps people realize the point he’s trying to make. The hero’s journey present helps to show people the thought development on the subject on life and death as it becomes more understood and becomes more developed. “He has seen his birth and death many times, he says , and pays random visits to all the events in between. He says.” (23) Most people that we know of in this world are only able to live life going from one point to the other. life to death. Vonnegut uses this to create incongruity and a reversal of the regular flow of events, which will cause the readers to think about how each part in everyone’s life are more similar than we all previously thought. He shows that they are similar by allowing Billy to be able to visit all of the events in his life. Vonnegut also uses the elements of a hero’s journey with this quote to show that billy is able to travel to different points in time, connecting life and death even more, since Billy is able to travel to both, showing that they can’t be as different from one another than people may have previously thought.
In the end, life and death are more closely related than people think. People think that death is so far away yet it is proven that it can end at any moment. Violence leads to life and death being closely related. War is a perfect example because it takes lives away at an instant. This book used various devices as explained to show the relationship. To summarize, violence is the main reason life and death are closely related. This book used war for a reason to emphasize our point.