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.

Mood in Chapter 7

     As Billy, Edgar Derby, and Werner Gluck arrived in the kitchen, "everybody had gone home but one woman who had been waiting for them impatiently.  She was a war widow.  So it goes.  She had her hat and coat on.  She wanted to go home, too, even though there wasn't anybody there.  Her white gloves were laid out side by side on the zinc counter top."  After questioning the men about their appearance, she told them that "All the real soldiers are dead."
     Through his diction and details, Vonnegut creates an angry atmosphere with tension in the air.  By doing so, he makes the story become more appealing to the reader.  Think about it, there is no one in the kitchen but a woman who wants to go home and is impatiently waiting on three guys.  After she questions them for being too old or young to be in war, she tells them all real soldiers are dead anyways.  The anger she has is very palpable.  That anger could also be from her husband dying in war causing her to say "All real soldiers are dead."

The Beautiful Dresden in Chapter 6

     Once the Americans arrived to Dresden, "the boxcar doors were opened, and the doorways framed the lovliest city city that most of the Americans had ever seen.  The skyline was intricate and voluptuous and enchanted and absurd.  It looked like a Sunday school picture of Heaven to Billy Pillgrim."  Now back in 1945, a city like Dresden would truly look like heaven to an average American who has only seen the 1945 Indianpolis.  Sadly, war took it's effect on the beautiful city.



Before

After

Indirect Characterization in Chapter 6

     After Paul Lazzaro was beat up, he promised to have the officer killed claiming that revenge is the sweetest thing.  He then went on saying "'You should have seen what I did to a dog one time.  Son if bitch bit me.  So I got me some steak, and I got me the spring out of a clock.  I cut that spring up in little pieces.  I put points on the ends of the pieces.  They were sharp as razor blades.  I stuck 'em into the steak--way inside.  And I went past where the dog was tied up.  He wanted to bite me again.  I said to him, 'Come on, doggie--let's be friends.  Let's not be enemies any more.  I'm not mad.'  He believed me.  I threw him the steak.  He swallowed it down in one big gulp.  I waited around for ten minutes.  Blood started coming out of his mouth.  He started crying, and he rolled on the ground, as though knives were on the outside of him instead of the inside of him. Then he tried to bite out his own insides.  I laughed...'"
     By describing Lazzaro's thoughts, words, and actions, Vonnegut is revealing what kind of person he is in a more effective way than just saying he is a revenge-loving ruffian with criminal tendencies.  The readers make the conclusion that Lazzaro is a sick, killing man who is not lying when he says he is going to kill Billy to revenge Roland Weary. 

Antiwar Book?? Chapter 5

     Towards the end of chapter five, I was very confused.  Before reading Slaughterhouse Five, I was informed that it is one of the most popular antiwar books ever written.  Even on the back of the book it talks about how it is one of the world's greatest anti war books written.  I was expecting to read this book and have a totally different view about war and never want to see another war fought!  But towards the end of chapter five, (which I thought chapter five would never end...) Billy asked the Tralfamadorians how to prevent war on Earth because he believes it will lead to the end of the world.  They, however, tell him that they know how the world will end and war is not the cause of that.
     The world will end because a test pilot will press a button that will cause the Universe to disappear.  Billy, just like any other human would say, asked if they could prevent the pilot from pressing it!?  They responded saying that he has always pressed it, always will.  There is nothing they can do to prevent it because it is just the way things will happen, it is fate.  Gropingly, Billy responds saying "'I suppose that the idea of preventing war on Earth is stupid, too.'"  The Tralfamadorians confirm saying "'Of course.'"  One would think that in an antiwar book, the author would try to encourage people to prevent war, not write how war can never be prevented...  Maybe later in the book I will have a better understanding.

Dialect in Chapter 5

     Dialect is defined as a way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain geographical area.  In chapter five as the Americans were waiting to move out, one of the Americans said something that guard who knew English did not like.  The guard took the American out of the ranks and knocked him down.  Astonished, the American "stood up shakily, spitting blood.  He'd had two teeth knocked out.  He had meant no harm by what he'd said, evidently, had no idea that the guard would hear and understand. 'Why me?' he asked the guard.  The guard shoved him back into the ranks.  'Vy you?  Vy anybody?' he said."
     The German guard speaks English, answering the American's question, incorporating a little bit of the German language in there.  While I was reading it, I laughed because it seemed Vonnegut was making fun of the guards attempt to speak English.

Fate in Chapter 4

     As Billy was kidnapped by the Tralfamadorians, they greeted him and asked if he had any questions.  Confused on why he was abducted,  "Billy licked his lips, thought a while, inquired at last: "Why me?".  The Tralfamadorians responded saying, "That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim.  Why you?  Why us for that matter?  Why anything?  Because the moment simply is.  Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?  Well here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of the moment.  There is no why."
    The Tralfamadorians explain to Billy that just as a bug is trapped in amber, he is trapped in his fate!  He is locked into his fate and any resistance or attempt to escape it is pointless.  On another note, when I read about the Tralfamadorians in Slaughterhouse Five, the picture that comes to my mind is the two aliens that are in the Simpson's!  In a way they are comparable, coming to the Simpson household, picking on Homer and mocking the humans ways just as the Tralfamadorians come to Billy and mock him about his question of why me and reject the idea of free will.

Metaphor in Chapter 4

     While Billy was in the boxcar after arriving to their destination, the guards peeked in Billy's car owlishly and cooed.  Billy pointed out that they have never dealt with Americans but understood the general sort of freight.  He continued on saying that they were essentially a liquid which could be induced to flow slowly toward cooing and light.  As the guards cooed like doves, "the liquid began to flow.  Gobs of it built up in the doorway, plopped to the ground.  Billy was the next-to-last human being to reach the door.  The hobo was last.  The hobo could not flow, could not plop.  He wasn't liquid anymore.  He was stone.  So it goes."
     The guards gained the attention of the Americans in the boxcar, compared to liquid metaphorically as it flowed to the doorway.  The hobo, however, did not flow with the rest of the others.  The hobo was dead, compared to stone, finalized with a "So it goes" to confirm his death.  Vonnegut enhances his writing and makes it more interesting to read when comparing the Americans to liquid and the dead hobo to stone.  Without the metaphor, the paragraph would have been boring and not as appealing to the senses.

PTSD in Chapter 3

     The flashbacks, the inability to fall asleep at night, weeping, etc. all seem to occur multiple times in chapter three.  For example, Billy attempted to sleep with a vibrator which the doctor supplied in order to help him fall asleep, "But sleep would not come.  Tears came instead.  they seeped.  Billy turned on Magic Fingers, and he was jiggled as he wept."  After research, it is safe to say that Billy suffers a severe anxiety disorder known as post traumatic stress disorder.
     Post traumatic stress disorder, also known as PTSD, can result in flashbacks or nightmares, difficulty staying or falling asleep, anger, etc.  According to aftertheinjury.org, PTSD can produce intense negative feelings of helplessness, fear, or horror.  The disorder can be caused by a wide range of experiences or events, including employment in occupations exposed to war.  The effect on humass from war is life altering.  We are walking in the footsteps of the epitome of a person who has been affected by war.

    

Imagery in Chapter 3

     At the beginning of chapter three, Billy and Weary were striped of their belongings by German soldiers.  The two others who were with Billy and Weary ditched them.  As the Germans were taking their belongings, "Three inoffensive bangs came from far away.  They came from German riffles.  The two scouts who had ditched Billy and Weary had just been shot.  They had been lying in ambush for Germans.  They had been discovered and shot from behind.  Now they were dying in the snow, feeling nothing, turning the snow to the color of raspberry sherbet."
     Vonnegut paints the perfect image in my head with his literacy techniques.  His love for color and associating colors with scenes, ideas, etc. is shown as he describes the blood of the dead to be a "raspberry sherbet" color.  Personally, when I see blood, raspberry sherbet does not cross my mind, but it is a fairly accurate comparison! Sherbet anyone???

"So it goes." in Chapter 2

     I first came across this phrase early in chapter one.  Skimming right over it, I did not stop to understand the meaning of it nor did i try to interpret what Vonnegut meant.  During chapter two, the phrase occured many times.  After each death, Vonnegut accompanied it with the phrase "So it goes."  Whether it was Billy's father dying in a hunting accident or Billy's mother dying from carbon monoxide, the phrase was used. 
     At the beginning of chapter two, we learn the reasoning for why the phrase is always accompanied with a death.  In Billy's letter, he wrote, "The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die.  When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments.  Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is 'So it goes.'".
     While I read the phrase, I see it as if someone is saying "ehh so it goes" as they shrug their shoulders and move on.  The repetition of this phrase, however, acts as a tally for how many deaths have occured. It  goes back to the fact mentioned in chapter one that writting an antiwar book would be as effective as writting an antiglacier book.  Death and war are inevitable.