Comparison and Contrast

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Comparison and Contrast
“Slaughterhouse Five” is both a novel and a film adapted from the novel by the same name. The novel is written by Kurt Vonnegut and also has a different title “The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death”. The film however adopts the first name only. Both the film and the novel are based on the same character, Billy Pilgrim who has become “unstuck in time”. He moves from war to Ilium, New York in a very short moment and back. From both pieces, Billy can only be compared to a spectator in his life. Besides the obvious compression of the plot, there are a number of other differences that affect how the two stories are presented to the reader and the viewers of the film alike. Major differences occur in the way some events are truncated to fit in the limits of the duration of the film. These changes therefore rendered the film writer to emphasize more on one aspect of the original story in the novel. Contrasts from the novel brought about in the film make the story less fitted for cinema than written literature. These similarities and differences include:
First, the character portrayed for the main actor Billy Pilgrim is the same for both pieces. Both the film and the book represent a man “unstuck in time”. He is in absolute no control of where and when he moves and does it sporadically from one place to another and from one age to another in a very short duration. The film has not tampered much with the plot. This concept of moving from one place to another without much control for his choice makes Billy more of a spectator in his own life. The concept is best understood through the book than it is on the film. This is because of the big chuck of important information that helps us understand that Billy has a condition and not hallucinations for his condition. So, one major difference between the movie and the book is the omission of the first and the last chapter of the book in order to focus more on the fictional story of Billy. For instance, the first scene features Billy typing a letter on his type writer which comes away into the second chapter of the book. As one reads the book, they are aware of the shifting time phenomenon that Billy suffers rather than confuse it to hallucinations as one may while watching the film.
Comparing the two pieces in terms of conveying the message, the films seems to be more inclined to the concept of the fictitious life that Billy lives more than the book. The book particularly emphasizes on the effects of the World War II on Billy especially the bombing of the Dresden and the time spent with the prisoners of war.in the film there is not much emphasis the wars than there is on the experiences of Billy in regard to his difficulties with time. However the film does bring out the concept of unstuck time phenomena, even though it does so in only a short summary that is seen in the letter that Billy is typing. Additionally, in the novel, there is the phrase “Poo-tee-weet?” which symbolizes the absence of anything intelligent to say about the horrify...