Slaughterhouse - Five: Satire About War and Life Slaughterhouse - Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, is a novel about the senselessness of war, told through protagonist, Billy Pilgrim. Slaughterhouse - Five is a satire, which is a work that makes fun of something serious. In this case it is war. The plot of this novel is very scattered, and skips around a great deal. It goes from Billy’s experience of World war II as a soldier and POW, to Tralfamadore, the alien planet to which Billy was abducted, to the present day, where Billy is a successful optometrist, as well as a husband and fat