The Shifting Aspirations Between Postmodern and Modern Paradigms: Comparing 'Slaughterhouse Five' and "Sorry to Bother You' Anonymous 12th Grade

The isolation of individuals often leads to the loss of motivation to fight against corrupt systems within a world of upheaval, but when individuals unify, they are able to maintain the hope and aspiration necessary to confront these systems. Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five explores the aspirations of his character 'Billy' who attempts to spread awareness of the horrors of WW2 but cannot succeed due to the isolating nature of his trauma, a trauma conveyed through Vonnegut’s fragmented, non-linear hybrid novel. Through this experimentation with form, Vonnegut deconstructs his post-ww2 context, attempting to speak up against the mass loss of humanity seen in the war. Similar to Billy in Slaughterhouse-Five, the African-American protagonist of Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, Cassius, aspires to achieve financial success within a capitalist system by sacrificing and commercialising his African-American identity. Later, Cassius realises that he has contributed to the suffering of the working class, inspiring physical and collective protest against the capitalist corporation “Worry Free”. Riley’s contextual intersectional struggle of racism and class inequality is thus deconstructed through the blurring of absurdist and...