《第五號屠宰場》是一本戰後小說，描寫比利在第二次世界大戰期間所經歷的痛苦記憶。比利故事的敘述手法毫無邏輯地以破碎和不連續的片段呈現，拒絕線性時間序列。根據故事內容，第二次世界大戰中倖存下來的主角比利在某個關鍵時刻開始隨機訪問以前的生活事件並重新體驗這些事件。本文探討因比利不受線性時間束縛而產生的破碎敘事結構，並說明這種建立於嶄新時空概念的破碎式敘事如何為比利提供重新詮釋其戰時經歷和痛苦事件的新方法。
對比利來說，地獄般的戰時經歷顛覆了先前的價值觀，因為人們無法用因果邏輯來理解戰爭的荒謬。戰爭自古以來都被美化，勇敢的戰士們透過戰時表現獲得名譽及榮耀。戰爭的殘暴被隱藏在宏偉的愛國主義口號之下。小說副標題《兒童十字軍》刻意嘲諷現代美國的戰爭宣傳和年輕人輕信宣傳的無知。在經歷第二次世界大戰後，比利體會到戰爭的殘酷。敘事的不連貫是精神崩潰的症狀，同時暗示著比利決定拋棄傳統線性時序的世界觀，並接受純粹的生命偶然性。為了反對傳統的目的論敘事，比利提倡一種新的生活哲學，他將其歸功於特拉法瑪鐸星人，這種新的理念讓人們能夠欣賞和接納每個獨立時刻。比利的故事，作為這種新時空概念的實例，完美展現了「眾聲喧嘩」及小敘事的特質。根據米哈伊爾·巴赫汀之《對話的想像：四篇論文》，他強調語言「眾聲喧嘩」的特質，語言永遠不是單一的，每個話語都包含語義及各種語言交涉、爭論或相互補充的混合體。因此，文本的含義有不同的詮釋並且永遠不會被僵化在精確的定義。
本論文分析《第五號屠宰場》中的非線性敘事技巧，我認為由這些非線性因果關係共存片段形成的破碎敘述是一個出發點，並且扮演著解構的動力。這種敘事特徵不僅是比利及其敘述者的創傷後壓力症候群之症狀；相反地，它提供了他們應對不安回憶的機會。在亂序分裂的敘事中，比利的故事推翻線性時序的框架及傳統目的論倫理學。《第五號屠宰場》頌揚「眾聲喧嘩」和小敘事的特質，從而增加文本不同詮釋方式。此小說反對宏大敘事，並讓讀者對於任何（可能是意識形態的）詮釋進行持續地批判性反思。因此，《第五號屠宰場》成為一個永不結束的動態故事。

Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death, a postwar novel in the 1960s, depicts the story of Billy Pilgrim about his distressing memories of what he has seen and endured through World War II. The narrative of Billy’s story is represented in fragmented, discontinuous fractions without any possible logic or order, rejecting the linear time sequence. According to the story told, Billy, the protagonist who survived World War II, at certain critical point begins to pay random visits to his previous life events and physically re-experiences the incidents. This thesis examines the splintered narrative structure derived from Billy’s unstuck in time and explains how this mosaic narrative that built on a new space-time concept offers Billy a new way to reinterpret his traumatic wartime experiences and the painful occurrences.
The wartime experiences, which are hellish to Billy, subvert his previous values since one cannot understand the absurdities of war in a coherent logic of cause and effect. War has long been glorified. Courageous warriors gain fame and honor by their performance in wars. The atrocity of war is concealed under the magnificent slogan of patriotism. The subtitle, The Children’s Crusade, deliberately mocks modern U.S. war propaganda and the ignorance of the juveniles to believe in the cause offered by the propaganda. After pulling through WWII, Billy realizes the cruelty of war. The discontinuity of the narrative is a symptom of a mental breakdown. It also implies that Billy decides to discard the conventional (or what he comes to call the Earthling’s) worldview of linear, chronological time sequence and embraces the pure contingency of life. In protest against the conventional teleological narrative, Billy advocates a new philosophy of life that he attributes to the Tralfamadorians. This new philosophy allows one to appreciate and embrace individual moment separately. Billy’s story, as an illustration of this new conception of time and life, becomes a perfect representation of small narratives that highlight the “heteroglossia” feature of language. In The Dialogic Imagination, Mikhail Bakhtin emphasizes the “heteroglossia” property of language. Language is never unitary and each discourse contains semantic hybrid which all languages interact, dispute or mutually supplement one another. Thus, the meaning of the text is open to interpretation and would never be fixed in precise definition.
This study analyzes the non-linear narrative technique in Slaughterhouse-Five. I argue that the haphazard narrative, formed out of coexisting fragments rather than linear causality, is a point of departure and enacts a deconstructive activity. Such narrative characteristic is not merely the symptom of Billy’s and his narrator’s post-traumatic stress disorder; rather it offers both Billy and his narrator comrade a chance to cope with their disturbing involuntary memories. In the fractions of disordered, splintered narratives, Billy’s story overthrows the framework of linear chronological temporal relation and along with it the conventional teleological ethics. Instead, Slaughterhouse-Five celebrates “heteroglossia” and small narratives and that proliferates its own interpretations. Against grand narrative, Slaughterhouse-Five invites readers to actively engage in a continual critical reflection upon any (possibly ideological) interpretation. Consequently, Slaughterhouse-Five becomes a dynamic story that never ends.

Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................................1

Chapter Two: The Descent Journey: A New Concept of Time …................ 19

Chapter Three: Disclosing the Actuality of War ........................................... 36

Chapter Four: The Application of Small Narrative in Slaughterhouse-Five.. 52

Chapter Five: Conclusion ............................................................................. 69

Works Cited ...................................................................................................73

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