Vonnegut and O'Brien

Vonnegut’s narrative structure in “Slaughterhouse Five” is similar to O’Brien’ structure in “How to Tell a True War Story.” Both of who were veterans of the war suffer from some damage from the war, whether it is psychological, physical, emotional, etc. I could definitely tell that their style of writing is influenced by their trauma from the war. There writings have similar choppiness. In O’Brien’s story he jumps from different stories and Vonnegut does the same by telling different stories of people, such as Bernard and Mary O’Hare, Billy Pilgrim, and Roland Weary. In Vonnegut’s narrative he begins with a story and then goes to another one. When I was reading I had to kind of do a double take because I was a bit confused about whom he was talking about at some points. This type of writing keeps the audience skeptical and wondering if any of the story is factual. In the beginning you can tell that there is a fictional aspect to the book because of the part where he talks about some sort of alien called a Tralfamadore. Both Vonnegut and O’Brien stories include metafiction. When Vonnegut says, “So it goes” it makes it hard for the reader to believe the stories that he tells. After reading the first two chapters I am left wondering if any of it is really part of a true war story or part of his deluded memory of the war.