Religious or Sacrilegious?

While this book is advertised as being an anti-war book, its content goes much deeper. Themes that are brushed in Slaughterhouse-Five include religion and fate. These actually play extremely significant roles in the novel. Vonnegut often labeled himself as a non-believer or an atheist, which is reflected in his writings. His beliefs on religion and fate go hand and hand in this novel.

Vonnegut uses mention of the Biblical story of Lot’s wife in the first chapter of the novel and compares Billy Pilgrim to her. Vonnegut creates the character Billy Pilgrim to resemble her in the sense that they both know their fate. Vonnegut describes that Lot’s wife, though she was warned not to look back, knew that she had no control over her fate. According to Vonnegut, Lot’s wife was not able to make herself not turn away because it was already her fate. Similarly, because Billy is “unstuck and time” and the Tralfamadorians have given him a new perspective of time, he has the advantage of knowing that nothing can control one’s fate, whether it is themselves or a higher being.

However, it is difficult to grasp Vonnegut’s true concept of fate. He first describes the Tralfamadorians’ concept of time, which explains every moment in time has always existed and always will exist. He explains that the past, present, and future have always existed and that they could never be changed. This is the philosophy that Billy Pilgrim adopts, but as the story goes on, other concepts are added to this theory. If the past, present, and future can not be changed and have always existed, then it would not matter in which sequence they occur. This is, at first, evident in the life of Billy with him being “unstuck in time.” However, Vonnegut introduces new ideas, such as the sequence in which Billy’s events occurred truly did make a difference. The ideas previously depicted start to change as the story goes on.