Postmodern authors challenge the notion of an absolute truth.
- Both texts are metafictional texts and both undermine the writer’s authority.
- Both texts challenge accepted notions of structure. Stranger than Fiction is a self-concious metafiction. Harold Crick is aware that he is a character in a novel.
- Slaughterhouse-five is a fragmented historiographic metafiction, a story about a writer creating a story. Is vonegut’s representation of history truthful? Vonegut coerces the reader to question the truth of historiographical representation. History is written by humans, and humans present their image of the past through different cultural lenses. Therefore there will always be more than one truth. The readers’ doubt is initiated in the opening lines of the novel, “All of this happened, more or less".
- Blurring reality with fiction: In "Slaughterhouse five" Vonnegut blurs the line between fiction and the horrible realities of the Dresden fire-bombing. In "Stranger than fiction", the omniscient narrator often breaks the fourth wall, “Little did he know that this simple, seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death.” The irony of such a statement “Little did he know” becomes self-referential, and through the very act of breaking that fourth wall, Harold becomes very aware of the narrators intentions.
Postmodern authors explore issues of identity and morality and pose the question: Is life a comedy or a tragedy?
- Antiheroes (Harold Crick and Billy Pilgrim): Billy Pilgrim challenges our assumptions not only about the right to wage war, because we see Billy as an inept character. The illusion of the heroic soldier icon depicted in films and propaganda is replaces with the reality of Billy Pilgrim. Harold Crick cannot rely on his narrator, he doesn’t know if he exists in a comedy or a tragedy.
- Unreliable narrator: In "Slaughterhouse Five" the majority of the novel is based on on Billy Pilgrim's perspective, rather than that of an omniscient narrator. Billy's unreliability is never made explicit, but is hinted at — he's suffered PTSD, a severe head injury, and some other characters certainly think he's unreliable.
- Black Humour: There is a mock-seriousness in the tone of the novel, "Slaughterhouse Five". A 40 year old hobo assures his comrades that things “aint’ so bad", even up to his death, when they are confined for 9 days and nights in a boxcar. Much of the humour of “Stranger than Fiction” is focused on Harold Crick’s inability to cope with the looming certainty of his own death.
Postmodern texts question the concept of free will, questioning weather it exists or even if it is relevant.
- Over and over again, Vonnegut claims that there is no such thing as free will. Humankind is a slave of predestination and there is no such thing as free will. The tramalfadorians’ fourth dimensional perception of events, able to see the past, present and future and perceive any point in time at will. Their fatalistic philosophy, “so it goes” reinforces the postmodern notion that humanity is powerless to control their fate.
- When Harold Crick decides to “go on strike” so as to avoid the narrative moving toward his inevitable death, the narrative finds him, through a bulldozer crashing through his lounge room wall. He is helpless to the progression of the narrative which propels him toward his death.
- Both texts question the value of modern life. Images of confinement pervade both texts. Billy Pilgrim is like a “Bug trapped in Amber” and demonstrates his lack of free will over his fate. Likewise, Harold Crick lives his entire life based on the timing of his wristwatch. Once both antiheroes realize that they are not in control of their lives, they find a sense of happiness
