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This essay is written to examine the extent to which Vonnegut’s Novel Slaughter House 5 and Kubrick’s film Dr Strange Love are similar in both substance and style. The texts mentioned above are very similar. In the next few paragraphs both piece of work will be examined in detail as well as giving reasons for their similarities and differences.
In general the two individual works have a substantial link with each other, for the reason that both of the text has a theme focuses on issues of the following: self-righteousness, nationalism, and miscommunication.
To begin with the aspect of self-righteousness will be discussed. In the novel Slaughter House 5, Vonnegut conveys the point of self-righteousness in a number of occasions, in text, for example in the scene where the Americans fought immorally. Here the American soldiers were fighting evil with evil the event took place was the boiling schoolgirls alive in Dresden. “I myself have been seen the bodies of school girls who were boiled alive in a water tower by my own country men, who were proud of fighting pure evil at that time?”
Kurt Vonnegut skillfully uses irony to express the immoral act of the American army. The emotive language used not only shows rights from wrongs, but also suggests the nature of modern day warfare. The other occasion as mentioned above is where the High school teacher Edgar Derby was shot for looting a tea pot. The execution done in this instance was unnecessary, as such crime is not at all serious. Edgar Derby was simply a victim of modern warfare. This reveals self-righteousness as an force of evil where men fight in the name of justice while committing injustice.
In addition, Kubrick’s Dr.Strangelove was in accordance with Slaughter House 5, Kubrick used irony to demonstrate the means of self-righteous such theme was demonstrated in the scene where President Muffley made a international call to inform the president of U.S.S.R President Kissov. “We will keep our fingers crossed… we’ve right behind you…we’re with you all the way…” . The irony portrayed in this scene is that president Muffley was trying to comfort president of U.S.S.R while serving other purposes.

As mentioned earlier on, nationalism was also of the main themes stated. Now lets direct our views particularly on the idea of nationalism. Nationalism was emphasized in both work greatly. Amongst the novel, Slaughter House 5, Vonnegut draws the idea of nationalism through the war that was taken place at that period of time. Vonnegut’s use of satire draws the audiences attention to nationalism in 20th century society. The technique of irony was also used by Vonnegut where he grabbed audiences attention. One example of the irony is “situational irony”, this could be referred to the immoral Americans such as Paul Lazzaro and Roland Wierely fighting what was known as a moral war. The use of irony in turn encouraged people to ignore the evil in humanity and the good in them. It also fosters instinct of supremacy especially moral supremacy.
In comparison Kubrick’s Dr.Strangelove makes a similar point about the relationship with nationalism. However he does so using different techniques. The situation which the film draws notice to is the paradox for national security. “Gee, I wish I had one of them Doomsday machines.” This is applicable to the cold war nuclear build up, thus conclude as the more one country tries to improve its security the more diminished the security will be. As result the opposing country would try to play “catch up”, leading to increase in arms, in addition the use of paradox played a role of demonstrating the ridiculousness of the arms race.

Finally, moving on to the idea of miscommunication. In Vonnegut’s novel Slaughter House 5, the theme of miscommunication is portrayed through nature of time. In Billy’s dream reconstruction of elements of reality takes place, this challenges the audience to consider the influence of the subconscious mind on reality that is present. When the Tralfamadorians tells Billy, humans are “trapped in the amber of this moment” it suggests that time is stuck in space, and that things that seem important in a period of time actually go back to irrelevance across a greater time period, this therefore leads to miscommunication as when Billy communicates with his peers about Trafamadore, the conversion would not only cause misunderstanding/miscommunication but also provide unreal information that people would not believe simply because superficial events such as the unmoving time in the planet called Trafamadore does not contribute to the modern day living.
Even though Kubrick’s film Dr Strangelove makes a alike point about the theme of miscommunication he does so in a different approach. Idea of miscommunication was presented as an aspect of human relationships. During the film, group leader Mandrake declaration to Mg: “ Bat” Guano’s intent to telephone S.A.C and the US president to inform them about the recall code is underscored by slapsticks, “What was it? A station to station call?” The humor is produced when neither the phone works, thus preventing the communication of potential earth saving information. On other occasions the conversations between presidents was made entirely hypersterical. The dialogue was colored by a misunderstanding common to ordinary households implying that an inability to communicate with clarity is a characteristic of human condition.

From the above comparison between both content and style, we could concluded that both texts are very similar as they both allowed themselves to be in accordance with each others themes while using alike or different techniques. Above all these to text had paint a magnificent picture and help the audience to be more familiar with the text type of satire in the 60s.