ABSTRACT

Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) has remained the most widely discussed of his novels in the five decades since its publication. However, the volume of critical work produced on it far outweighs the unique lines of thought investigated. The critiques have mostly been limited to – diagnoses of Billy Pilgrim’s mental disorder, locating the sources of the diagnosed ailments, examinations of Vonnegut’s intended philosophy, comparisons of the novel to other anti-war works, and investigations of the elements of humor and science fiction in the novel. This article attempts a close reading of the novel along the lines of the hero quest, or monomyth, as chronicled in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) by Joseph Campbell. The article disentangles the novel to release the inherent quest narrative from its non-linear structure and reinterprets it in terms of Campbell’s quest stages to reveal an uncanny resemblance to the mythical hero’s journey. The nature of the journey and the hero’s traits, and the departures observed in Vonnegut’s monomyth from Campbell’s determine the relevance and implications of Billy’s quest and warrant the need to coin his quest anew, namely the anti-monomyth.

摘要

库尔特·冯内古特（Kurt Vonnegut）的《五个屠宰场》（Slaughterhouse-Five）（1969）自出版以来的五年中，一直是他小说中讨论最多的话题。但是，在其上进行的批判性工作量远远超过了所研究的独特思路。批评主要限于以下方面：诊断比利·皮格里姆（Billy Pilgrim）的精神错乱，找到诊断出的疾病的来源，检查冯内古特的意图哲学，将小说与其他反战作品进行比较以及对幽默和科幻小说的元素进行调查在小说中。本文尝试按照《英雄与千面英雄》中记载的英雄追求或独占神话来仔细阅读小说。（1949年），约瑟夫·坎贝尔。这篇文章解开了小说，从其非线性结构中释放了内在的追求叙事，并根据坎贝尔的追求阶段对其进行了重新诠释，以揭示出与神话英雄旅程的不可思议的相似之处。旅程的性质和英雄的特质，以及在冯内古特（Vonnegut）的神话中所观察到的与坎贝尔（Campbell）的背离，决定了比利（Billy）追求的意义和意义，并保证有必要重新提出他的追求，即反正统论。