Blog Post 19: Its a Circle, not a Square

It has been said that Slaughterhouse-Five is written in a circular pattern. I do not entirely agree with this statement. A Circular pattern usually refers to a story where the ending is in the same place as the start of the novel was. One area that makes me believe slaughterhouse five is writing in circular pattern is shown when Billy is "unstuck" in time. While reading the book I thought it would be centered around the bombing at Dresden, but so far Billy Pilgrim and his life after the war is what has been mainly talked about. Personally, I do not find any structure in the novel. Kurt Vonnegut seems to not care what order of events happen in. In fact it took him 23 years to write this novel. The first chapter in this book was written after the after the rest of the novel is finished. I don't see how he could have any structure when writing from the end to the start. From what we have read, we keep jumping to different parts of the circle randomly. There are many plots in the book that live on their own and have nothing to do with the bombing at Dresden. Sometimes the plot is very hard to follow due to the fact that he keeps time traveling. Every time he time travels a completely changes the plot the only part about the time traveling that makes me Think that the book has a circular pattern is that every time he time travels he comes back to his original starting spot where he was left off.