Crash Course Literature

PTSD and Alien Abduction - Slaughterhouse-Five Part 2 (2x13)

Air date: May 22, 2014

In which John Green continues to teach you about Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. (WARNING: When Slaughterhouse-Five was published, some of the crude language in the book caused controversy. We quote one mildly controversial line in this video. If you're mature enough to read this book, you're likely mature enough to tolerate this quote, but we're obliged to warn you about it.) Anyway, this week, John is going to talk about Slaughterhouse-Five's status as an anti-war novel, and what exactly anti-war novels are good for. He'll also get into the idea of free will, and to what degree Billy Pilgrim's time-travel and abduction by aliens were hallucinations induced by posttraumatic stress disorder. John will even give you an interpretation of why the Tralfamadorians look like toilet plungers. Hint: it has to do with plunging metaphorical toilets.