MY SLAUGHTERHOUSE

Postmodernism is my personal favorite of all the styles of writing. Unlike colonialism and romanticism, postmodernism breaks the fourth wall between the author/actor and the reader/audience, presents humor in an untraditional manner, and messes with the chronological order of events in the story.

My class recently finished reading the story, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr and it was unlike anything I have ever read before. The story was told with no order or organization. The main character, Billy Pilgrim, time travels and he jumps from year to year and decade to decade so it makes it difficult to follow. But as you read on everything suddenly clicks and the words make more and more sense!

Slaughterhouse Five also displays humor in untraditional manners by adding humor to situations that us as readers would see as very serious. For example, when Vonnegut writes about how Billy Pilgrim gets into a fight within another man and as they are fighting German soldiers come in. I was expecting the characters to be terrified but not Billy Pilgrim! That moment was humorous to him.

Lastly Slaughterhouse Five displays the breaking of the fourth wall. The wall between the reader and author. Usually authors write about someone and use words like he or she to refer to the main character. In this story we get the sense that the main character, Billy Pilgrim, is actually Kurt Vonnegut himself! I got the sense that Vonnegut was telling his story through Billy Pilgrim and talking directly to the audience is what I consider breaking the fourth wall.

Postmodernism can be many things and make you feel many different ways! Happy, sad, and most the time confused. That's what I love about it so much! Every person has a different interpretation of a postmodern piece of works and that allows us to explore our own minds which in fact makes us individuals.