Form, Fragmentation, and Resistance: A Close Reading of the Political and Historical Consciousness of Slaughterhouse-Five with Postmodern Strategies

Jingyi Li

doi:10.64583/r6nzm728

Authors

Jingyi Li University of Amsterdam, Netherlands Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.64583/r6nzm728

Keywords:

Kurt Vonnegut, Postmodern Literature, Historical Awareness, Political Apathy, Slaughterhouse-Five, Historiographic Metafiction, Linda Hutcheon, Fredric Jameson

Abstract

Contemporary criticism, enlightened and led by Fredric Jameson’s theoretical framework, frequently portrays postmodern literature as a product devoid of historical consciousness and politically apathetic, emphasizing its fragmented forms and diminished historicity. This paper challenges this view through a close reading of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (2000), arguing that its postmodern literary strategies -- non-linear narrative, black humour, and metafiction -- constitute not an evasion but a critical engagement with historical trauma and political violence. Drawing upon Linda Hutcheon’s concept of “historical metafiction”, it demonstrates how Vonnegut’s formal experimentation fosters profound critiques of war, memory, and narrative authority. The novel thus exemplifies how postmodern aesthetics can embody a resistant historical and political consciousness.

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Author Biography

Jingyi Li, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

Author Bio: Jingyi Li is currently pursuing an MA in Literature, Culture and Society at the University of Amsterdam. My research interests include postmodern literature, East-European narrative, and cultural studies; and also write cinema criticism and poetry.

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