Friday, July 27, 2012
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.
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I think this is a very good point. Vonnegut is trying to explain to the reader that even those lucky enough to survive the war or a massacre such as Dresden do not come away unscathed. Perhaps because of these events or the war in general Billy is delusional, reliving his past war experiences and thinking he has been abducted by aliens. Even though he survived the war, Billy still suffered a sort of "death" by its end.
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