The Bright Side in Chapter 10

     Once finished reading chapter ten, Vonnegut's optimism inspired me.  While talking about the Tralfamadorian belief that one may visit a moment at any time, Vonnegut says "if I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice."  Out of all the hate, war, and death he lived through, out of all the horrible things he saw, Vonnegut still can see the many good moments he has lived through.  Not only does he recognize the good moments, he is grateful!  If one can look past war, death, and hate to see the good in things, we ALL can look past a bad day to be thankful for the good in our lives.

Rhetorical Question in Chapter 10

     The end of Slaughterhouse Five ends with a rhetorical question, a question asked for an effect, and not actually requiring or expecting an answer.  As World War Two came to an end, "Billy and the rest wandered out onto the shady street.  The trees were leafing out.  There was nothing going on out therem no traffic of any kind.  There was only one vehicle, an abandoned wagon drawn by two horses.  The wagon was green and coffin-shaped.  Birds were talking.  One bird said to Billy Pilgrim, 'Poo-tee-weet!?'"
     The bird asked Billy a question which has no answer, a question where there is no reply.  Vonnegut includes this rhetorical question to inform the readers that there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.  A birds talk makes as much sense as anyone's talk about war. 

The Serenity Prayer in Chapter 9

     In chapter nine, the Serenity Prayer makes another appearance in the book in addition to the plaque that hung in Billy's office.  After Billy returned to Tralfamadore, he saw a "silver chain around Montana Wildhack's neck.  Hanging from it, between her breasts, was a locket containing a photograph of her alcoholic mother--a grainy thing, soot and chalk.  It could have bee anybody.  Engraved on the outside of the locket were these words:  God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to know the difference."
     As Billy sees the serenity prayer between Montana's breast, it serves as a reminder to him of what was mentioned in chapter three.  It reminds Billy that he cannot change the past, future, nor present.  Such message sums up the gist of Slaughterhouse Five.  Any attempt to change life is preposterous because no matter what it will happen. Always has happened, and always will happen.



Symbol in Chapter 9

     In chapter nine, Billy traveled back two days before the end of the war.  Billy and five other prisoners "were riding in a coffin-shaped green wagon, which they had found abandoned, complete with two horses, in a suburb of Dresden."  The coffin-shaped wagon symbolizes a spiritual death suffered by the survivors of war.  Vonnegut is telling the readers, through a symbol, that even the survivors of war suffer a death.



The Bombing of Dresden in Chapter 8

     In chapter eight, a barbershop quartet sang a song about old friendship.  The experience of watching them shook Billy and negatively effected him.  Billy later found an association with an experience he had long ago when "he was down in the meat locker on the night that Dresden was destroyed.  There were sounds like giant footsteps above.  Those were sticks of high-explosive bombs.  The giants walked and walked."  He continued on talking about how they were in a safe shelter, but everyone else was dead.  Billy described Dresden as one big flame.  Later the next day, Dresden looked like the moon with nothing but minerals. The guards "drew together instinctively, rolled their eyes.  They experimented with one expression and then another, said nothing, though their mouths were often open.  They looked like a silent film of a barbershop quartet."
     Below, I found a great video on YouTube of the Dresden bombing.  The descriptions Vonnegut uses in the book about the bombing are right on point.  I could not imagine living through this and walking outside the next day.



Implied Metaphor in Chapter 8

     In chapter eight, Howard Campbell, the American who had become a Nazi, spoke to the prisoners in the slaughterhouse.  He asked them to join a unit called The Free American Corps to fight on the Russian Front promising them food and repatriation after the war.  It was then when Edgar Derby stood up and "spoke of the brotherhood between the American and the Russian people, and how those two nations were going to crush the disease of Nazism, which wanted to infect the whole world."
     Refusing to join Campbell's unit, he implies that Nazism is a disease which wants to infect the whole world but will be destroyed by the Americans and Russians.  This comparison adds more emotion and shows the hatred towards Nazism.



Albert Einstein in Chapter 7

    After doing research, I learned Albert Einstein's belief is part of the Tralfamadorians in Slaughterhouse Five.  He argued that objects are described in four coordinates consisting of three dimensions and time.  Einstein believed that in order to know where something is, one must know when it is.  Since objects and people are forever changing, a real description would consist of describing the object or person at every moment.  The Tralfamadorians perceive all of an object or person at all times because they can see in four dimensions. 
     However, in chapter seven, Billy's trips through time allow us to, in a way, perceive Bill at every moment in his life.  After he got injured in the plane crash, "Billy was unconscious for two days after that, and he dreamed millions of things, some of them true.  The true things were time-travel."  In chapter seven, we never really see Billy at one particular moment.  Instead, we see him at the many different moments in his life, just as the Tralfamadorians do and just as Einstein believed a true description was.