My final emblem for my learning screen consists of a map from www.atlasoftheuniverse.com that depicts the visible universe within 14 billion light years of the Sun. Although this is just part of the universe, this small map accounts for 30 billion trillion stars. I decided on this map because my emblem for multiplicity is the eventual destruction of the universe by the Tralfamadorians. After kidnapping Billy, they inform him that the universe ends in the future after a Tralfamadorian test pilot presses the starter button while testing new flying saucer fuels.

This emblem interests me because of its relation to one. In the end, increasingly complex systems can only make so many larger systems until they reach the universal level. One encompasses all and holds endless variety (30 billion trillion stars) within itself. Likewise, Slaughterhouse-Five takes an impressive mashup of characters, events, places, and objects, and the novel turns it into one unified work.

While searching for an appropriate analogy to represent the qualities of multiplicity and the number one in Slaughterhouse-Five, I was surprised to find myself turning to a logo that oversaturated my senses during the election season. Only after taking this class and reading MacNab did I really pay attention to Barack Obama’s campaign logo. Country unity, an obvious ‘O’-bama reference, American pride, the white stripes bending off toward the future and progress - there is a lot of complexity in such a small logo.

But just like the universe in Slaughterhouse-Five, all this complexity can be boiled down to one. One leader, one country, etc. Without Obama, this complex electoral process would have never existed, although he needed the support of his staff and voters to win. One needs symbolic ground to grow on and come into existence, after all. Likewise, all the multiple perspectives in this novel eventually boil down to just one perspective (the reader’s) as all time proceeds toward one point. This logo also mirrors Vonnegut’s direct and clear language. Easily recognizable and very distinct, it also offers a sense of limitless hope with the circular sun rising in the middle of the larger circle.

To help visualize the quality of multiplicity in Slaughterhouse-Five, I will use another unorthodox choice from MacNab’s work. The symbolic qualities of one include wholeness, completion, and unity, and the number is linked to circular shapes. The circle is the ultimate paradox, featuring a juxtaposition of everything and nothing. As the beginning number, one needs emptiness, a symbolic ground on which to exist. While the term multiplicity naturally suggests any amount more than one, I would point out MacNab’s metaphorical equation on page 40: (9) I’s x (9) I’s = 12345678987654321. All comes from and returns to one, and the circle can always expand into endless possibilities. Without a fundamental building block, there would be no “system of systems” or anything of that complex nature.

In Slaughterhouse-Five, we can see that one works nicely in describing multiplicity. Billy’s life comes full circle back to WWII when he is assasinated, and Vonnegut makes sure the reader knows the bird-related ending before they really start the story. In some ways, reading this book is like running on an exercise wheel. Even when the novel’s multiple perspectives are considered, it all comes back to the one true perspective of the reader, and Billy learns that all of time boils down to one moment of annihilation. Technically, Vonnegut’s style remains spare and tight throughout the novel, allowing him to unite density of expression with a sense of infinite possibilities (infinite possibilities contained in and allowed by one). In the above picture, we can see both the sense of unity and that of infinite possibility present in the number one by looking at Ben Franklin’s Magic Circle. Each radius (including the center entry) sums to 360, as does each annulus (again, only if one includes the center too).

Multiplicity is generally manifested in a novel’s structure and its handling of different possibilities. In Slaughterhouse-Five, this idea is generated in some interesting ways. For one, the disjointed plot raises some questions about perspective – at times, it feels like the novel is being told through a completely different lens each time Billy moves through time. The reader is often left out when it comes to important details and must constantly “remember the future” to trace Billy’s progress. In a way, the reader sometimes feels like a Tralfamadorian because the aliens view time as a series of static, unchanging moments that can be viewed independently at any time. Of course, Vonnegut also occasionally interjects himself as a narrator in the story and offers a fresh perspective in the novel just when you forget he’s there.

Also, this novel is very much concerned with the connections between humans, events, and objects, as I have discussed before. For example, Billy is eventually killed because of a supposed slight during WWII – 50 years later. Almost every character in the novel bears at least some passing connection with the other characters, and war, middle-class suburbia, and corporations are just some of the “system of systems” that create even larger systems. Eventually, the reader is exposed to the largest system itself: Billy learns that the Tralfamadorians blow up universe while testing rocketship fuel in the future.

Finally, I see Slaughterhouse-Five as as something that strives toward “density of invention and expression with a sense of infinite possibilities.” It would be rather repetitive to discuss Vonnegut’s seeemingly contradictory economy of style and ability to evoke subtle emotional responses, but it’s still there. Each word feels like it’s there for an important reason, and each postmodern reference to popular culture adds a new element to this story.

To emblematically represent visibility in Slaughterhouse-Five, I turn to one of Vonnegut’s most revered characters. Science fiction writer Kilgore Trout appears in several of Vonnegut’s novels, including Slaughterhouse-Five, and critics have often wondered aloud if Trout was a sort of alter ego for Vonnegut. However, several years after the death of science fiction writer and More Than Human author Theodore (Kilgore) Sturgeon (Trout) in 1985, Vonnegut publicly admitted that Trout was based on him. To represent Trout, I used another picture from Vonnegut, but this one was for sale on www.vonnegut.com as opposed to being in my book. Maintaining my low-key style, I removed most of the color and background from the picture to bring a focus on Trout and his five pairs of eyes. I think it’s also interesting to note that Trout appears to grow spirically outward from his neck/mouth region, which I also associate with the number five.

In Slaughterhouse-Five, Trout plays a role similar to Vonnegut’s role in writing this novel. By that, I mean he writes absurd science fiction stories with sarcastic stories and cutting morals. Like Vonnegut, Trout attempts to regenerate, rejuvenate, and teach humans through his work, and his imaginative processes resemble Vonnegut’s by the way  they utilize existing works and popular figures. It’s easy to see why some critics view Trout as an alter ego for Vonnegut, given these circumstances, but I would be hesitant to say Trout is anything more than a good emblem for visibility.

This photo comes from the homepage of Golden Spiral Acupuncture, a business in New York City. After viewing this image and perusing Golden Spiral’s website, I decided that their approach to healing is very similar to Vonnegut’s approach toward visiblity and the imagination. Perhaps something about the name gave it away.

According to its website, Golden Spiral strives “to promote harmony and balance – between body and mind, mind and spirit, and between the internal energy of the individual and the ever-increasing demands of the external world.” As a business, it helps its customers regenerate their bodies through acupuncture and other somewhat unorthodox methods. I see many parallels between this business and the way Vonnegut’s imagination teaches old dogs new tricks via postmodern reference and allusion. Both clients also use striking visual images in or to promote their products (website and book) and evoke emotional responses from customers. Finally, Vonnegut’s typically absurd visual images and stories may be unorthodox, but he is striving to heal the imbalances in the world with his anti-war novel. Like an acupuncturist, he also hopes to regenerate life.

For this quality, MacNab’s discussion of the number five proved to be very useful in developing a design. According to her, five is the number of health, love, and the energy of movement acting upon matter – or magic. Five is also linked to regeneration, which is based around the fact that the whole exists in parts, and MacNab also associates five with heroism and power. To represent the quintessence of visibility, I would use the regenerative form of a spiral, which is present in many natural forms. 

Granted, not all of these elements and associations are present in Slaughterhouse-Five. Though it may be strange to associate visibility with the fifth element, which “can’t be seen or felt but is pervasive in everything created and everything we do,” I see imagination as the driving force behind visibility. And in this novel, Vonnegut’s imagination is certainly regenerative as he recycles bits of past knowledge, art, and information, giving them new life. Like life, the imagination can sustain and regenerate itself. Certainly, he uses his imagination to create many scenes of death, despair and horror, but the act of imagining remains regenerative. Also, the healing and loving properties inherent in five are also present in Vonnegut’s overall theme of reluctant hopefulness. Humans are the parts that make up a whole, he seems to argue, and it is worth rejecting cynicism and hoping that they stop killing each other.

Magic Fingers

When covering visibility, Calvino discusses the source of and power of images and imagination (particularly its visual aspect) in literature. In other words, visibility deals with appealing to the senses through the use of analogies and other striking visual images. Calvino sees two imaginative processes: one that starts from a written word and moves to a visual image, as in reading, and a process that starts from an image and turns to text (his preferred method). Furthermore, he believes imagination can be viewed as an instrument of knowledge, as a communication with a world soul, and as a repertory of all potential possibilities of experience, and he favors the last two ideas.

In Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut constantly appeals to all of his readers senses. POWs flow like a foul-smelling, liquid ooze out of their prison trains during WWII, Billy resembles a “filthy flamingo” during his time at war, and the corpses of the Dresden dead smell like “roses and mustard gas.” Vonnegut also follows Calvino’s preferred method of imaginative creating by starting with a visual image (the sights, smells, and sounds from his time as a POW in Dresden) and creating a text with this image. Also, the fact that Vonnegut refers to his book as an anti-war book in the opening of this novel really pegs it as at least an attempt to communicate with the world soul.

Finally, Calvino also applies the question of imagination to modern literature and its overexposure to prefabricated images. In his mind, fantastic literature can either wipe the slate clean and start over, or it can recycle past images in new contexts to change their meanings, like postmodernism. Vonnegut fits nicely in the latter category. Through his own drawings as well as snide references to pop-culture objects such as the Magic Fingers (a bed that massages), Vonnegut reimagines already existing icons and twists their connotations to his own ends. At the very least, it is fascinating to watch him alternate between the image-text process and the text-image process as the novel progresses.

The emblem I selected for the quality of exactitude in this novel is Vonnegut’s hand-drawn image of a silver locket hanging between the breasts of Montana Wildhack, a porn star that Billy supposedly lives with and loves when he is kidnapped by the Tralfamadorians, although Vonnegut drops the occasional hint that Billy’s experiences with her and the aliens could just be mental. Regardless, the locket in question features a picture of her alcoholic mother and the serenity prayer, which Billy could never proscribe to: ”God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference.” Again, I feel like incorporating Vonnegut’s own images into my work is a worthwhile way of maintaining his values in my brand identity. Surely these images were important to the author, or they would not have been included. To capture this image, I simply scanned a copy from my book before retouching and resizing it a bit.

Anyhow, though this emblem is clearly and simply drawn and features a well-known, simple verse, it still manages to evoke deeper thoughts of sex, motherhood, and even free will. Physically, the locket is resting like a vesica piscis between two circles, and its physical location hints at the “happy medium” inherent in its written message. However, the serenity message itself must be examined as a middling alternative to the total serenity and acceptance that Billy believes in and the extreme exertion of free will that lies on the other end of the spectrum. Again, just as his technique exists in an area between clear expression and subtle thought, his tone exists in the same sort of contradictory manner.

This logo for the Church of Scotland is a useful analogy for visualizing Vonnegut’s ability to reconcile two opposites in Slaughterhouse-Five. Long used as a symbol of religious importance, the vesica piscis has several major connotations in that field. Seen as the form of a fish, it is the joiner of heaven and earth, according to MacNab. In other interpretations, it is taken as a representation of Christ being born out of the womb or just a general depiction of men and women coming together in intimacy.

Interestingly, this depiction of the vesica piscis surrounded by black text and iron crosses seems somewhat militant and dark, which drew my attention to it as a possible analogy for Slaughterhouse-Five. I am just guessing, but my interpretation of this logo is that it represents the conflict between worldy desires and heavenly pursuits. When these forces are reconciled, what results is the purifying fire of divinity and Heaven. Similarly, a purifying sense of meaning awaits those readers who can reconcile Vonnegut’s words with the associated subtle thoughts, and a unique atmosphere is created when he combines the moods of desperate hope and despairing, snide cynicism.