Where countless catastrophic events occur simultaneously and eternally alter the mental capacity of its spectators, war is senseless murder. War participants who are “lucky” enough to survive become emotionally distraught civilians. Regardless of the age of the people who go to war, unless you gain the mental capacity to witness numerous deaths and remain unaffected, you are not equipped to go to war. Kurt Vonnegut portrays the horrors of war in Slaughterhouse Five, through the use of satire, symbolism, and imagery. The main event of the novel was the senseless bombing of the beautiful, culturally enriched city of Dresden, Germany. On February 13, 1945, in the midst of World War II, this city was attacked and recorded among the worst air attacks in history with a casualty of approximately 135,000 people (Cox). The novel's main character, Billy Pilgrim, witnesses the bombing of Dresden and other horrors of war that leave him unable to function normally. His account of the war and his life afterward creates an unremarkable plot that is difficult to follow, filled with time travel sequences. After World War II, however, from the collection of events to the end of the story, Billy has a seemingly normal life with a wife and children and a career in orthopedic surgery (Moss). Slaughterhouse Five is based on the author, Kurt Vonnegut, and his real-life experience as a prisoner of war during World War II and witnessing the bombing of Dresden. On the first page of the novel he says, “All of this happened, more or less,” to give validity to some of the stories discussed in the novel (Vonnegut 1). Best Anti-War Piece After writing Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut became an established American author by creating one of...... middle of paper ......ly Pilgrim: A Psychiatric Approach to Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five . CRITICISM: Studies on contemporary narrative. 2003. Literature Resource Center. Network. January 24, 2012. Harris, Charles B. “Time, Uncertainty, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.” Literary Resource Center. Gale, 2006. Web. January 29, 2012. "KnowledgeNote™ Study Guide - Slaughterhouse-Five." ProQuest Learning: Literature. ProQuest, 2002. Web. February 22, 2012. Moss, Joyce, and George Wilson. Literature and its Times: Profiles of 300 major literary works and the historical events that influenced them. From the Second World War to the wealthy fifties (1940-1950) ed. vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 343-348. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Network. January 24, 2012. .Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse Five. 1969. New York: Random House, 1991. Print.