Major themes. Vonnegut most thoroughly explores the ideas of fate, free will, and the illogical nature of humans

Vonnegut most thoroughly explores the ideas of fate, free will, and the illogical nature of humans. The main character is "unstuck in time," meaning that he experiences the events of his life in a seemingly random order, with no idea which part of life he will "visit" next. As a result, his life does not end with death; rather, he experiences his own death jumbled amongst so many of his other experiences. This is followed with confirmation by one of the Tralfamadorians, who says, "I've visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe... Only on Earth is there any talk of free will". This device is central to Vonnegut's belief that the vast majority of humanity is completely inconsequential; that is, they do what they do because they must.

To the Tralfamadorians, everything always exists at the same time, and for them everyone is therefore always alive. They too have wars and tragic events (they destroy the universe testing spaceship fuels), but when asked by Billy what they do about wars, the Tralfamadorians reply that they simply ignore them. Vonnegut uses the Tralfamadorians to conflict with the theme he actually presents; life, as a human, is only enjoyable with the unknown. Tralfamadorians do not actually make any choices about what they do, but have power only over what they think (this theme is also explored in Timequake). Vonnegut (as the narrator) seems to believe this theory in the way he states in chapter one, "that writing an anti-war book is like writing an anti-glacier book." This concept is difficult for Billy to accept at first.

However, Vonnegut's writings elsewhere (for example, see The Sirens of Titan), suggest that the Tralfamadorians in Slaughterhouse-Five are intended to satirize the idea of Fatalism. In the main body of the book, the Tralfamadorians represent the belief that war is inevitable. Their hapless destruction of the universe suggests that Vonnegut does not sympathize with their philosophy. To humans, Vonnegut seems to say, ignoring a war is not an acceptable choice when we actually do have free will.

This illogicality of human nature is brought up with the climax of the book. Ironically the climax occurs not with the bombing of Dresden, but with the execution of a man who committed a petty theft. In all of this horror, death, and destruction, so much time is taken on the punishment of one man. Yet, the time is still taken, and Vonnegut seems to take the outside opinion of the bird asking, "Poo-tee-weet?"

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