Vonnegut and O'Brien

   Kurt Vonnegut's narrative structure displays many similarities to O'Brien's structure. The first similarity that pops out is his frequent change of subject; he often begins to talk about one story then adds in unrelated information to that particular story until he is completely off topic. While Vonnegut writes he keeps mentioning how he is supposed to be writing this book about Dresden, however he mainly talks about individual soldiers in WWII; often giving unnecessary detailed information about those soldier. O'Brien also did this instead of mainly speaking about the actual the fighting or strategic components of war. Although O'Brien would get off topic he did concentrate more than Vonnegut on the general idea of war and possible events; Vonnegut gets far more detailed in describing one character's life, Billy. The presence of Billy in his writing seems suspicious. Billy appears to serve the purpose for the writer to jump from one subject to another, or from one point in time to another since Billy is supposedly "unstuck in time." It makes me wonder if Billy actually existed, or if his character was created for the convenience of the narrator. O'Brien had characters like this, but he admitted these people might not exist. Another similarity is the confusion of who is speaking. It is especially confusing if Billy happens to be a real person because of the detailed information of his life. How does the narrator know so much about Billy's life, if he isn't Billy? Could it be a journalist, or Vonnegut that got this information from Billy? Also, like O'Brien he repeatedly draws the reader's attention to question his storytelling. While O'Brien would often redefine what a true war story is he also said you never finish telling a war story. Vonnegut often finishes a passage by saying "so it goes", which attempts to say that the story has ended and the audience can accept it as truth or reject it as false.