O'Brien and Vonnegut

Vonnegut and O’Brien have very similar narrative structures. The most similar way is the randomness of their writing. Neither of them think linearly nor write that way making it somewhat hard for the reader to keep up with what is going on. Their writings are cluttered and unorganized and go off on tangents that don’t always relate to the situation or story that they are currently telling. In their writings you can tell that they are hugely effected with what happened during the war and changed their way of thinking and in turn telling a story. The lack of organization makes the stories almost more authentic even though some parts of the story might not be accurate or even true at all because our memory is not reliable. The disorganization of the writing speaks to what each of these writers have been through witnessing horrendous events in the war. Their approach to writing about death is similar because as a soldier the only way to cope is to get a dark humor about it and not let situations wear you down. Although their reasons for having almost a nonchalant attitude about death are different; for Vonnegut his character Billy thinks this way because of the beliefs of the Tralfamadores and for O’Brien seeing death over and over again; both authors view death the same and don’t get worked up or as upset as normal civilians would. They both try to see a good or beautiful side to it; for example O’Brien talks about the sun enveloping Lemon as he is stepping onto a mine that leads to his death and for Billy he sees death in 4 dimensions like the Tralfamadores who don’t see time linearly and don’t see death as an end of a life just an event in a lifetime.