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.