Post #20: "Poo-tee-weet?"

Chapter 10

                                   "One bird said to Billy Pilgrim, 'Poo-tee-weet?'" (page 215)

                                                              

The bird asks a question to which there is no answer.  As Vonnegut stated at the beginning of the novel, there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre.  This quote suggest that bird talk makes as much sense as any talk of war.  When anyone today talks about a past war, many people think that starting the war was asinine.  They didn't think before they declared war on another country.  There is nothing intelligent to say about massacre because there is nothing intelligent about starting a massacre.

Post #19: A Theme

Chapter 10

A major theme of this novel is the destructiveness of war.  Throughout every chapter, Vonnegut continues to describe the horrific and tragic destruction of World War II.  War destroys cities, people, and families.  The novel puts most emphasis on the catastrophic bombing of Dresden, and also mentions other terrible events of WWII such as Hiroshima.  It also gives that destruction in numbers by giving how many people died in the bombings.  The whole book is about war and its destructive manner, and every word compiles the remembrance of Dresden, the destroyed city. 

                                      

Post #18: History As We Know It

Chapter 9

"The thing was, though, there was almost nothing in the twenty-seven volumes about the Dresden raid, even though it had been such a howling success." (page 191)

The history that we learn is up to the people who record and write about the events that happened.  We learn nothing more, and we learn nothing less.  As for the history of the Dresden bombing, no one wanted to let the world know how truly horrible and tragic it really was.  Vonnegut's writing of the attack on Dresden is his offensive against the lack of information put forth by writers such as Rumfoord.  He wants everyone to know of the true grim nature of the attack and not just the little bits of info from historians.

Post #17: A Symbol

Chapter 9

"Billy and five other American prisoners were riding in a coffin-shaped green wagon, which they had found abandoned, complete with two horses, in a suburb of Dresden." (page 193-194)

                                       

The coffin wagon that Billy and the five other American prisoners were riding in points to the symbolic death of soldiers who survived the war.  It is the death of innocence.  They cannot forget what they saw during the time they served.  They cannot forget the slaughter of thousands or the destruction of Dresden.  They will always remember it, and they will never innocent ever again.

Post #16: Trauma

Chapter 8

"The barbershop quartet sang again.  Billy was emotionally racked again.  The experience was definitely associated with those four men and not what they sang." (page 175-176)

Like many other soldiers who have seen horrific things in war, Billy was traumatized by what he had seen in Dresden.  Only when he had seen the four men of the barbershop quartet did he realized he was traumatized.  He remembered the four guards standing with their mouths agape, looking at the desolate Dresden.  Many soldiers are like that today.  Something in their everyday life will send them back to the war they served in.  Most likely sending them back to a memory they never wanted the think of again.

Post #15: Hyperbole

Chapter 8

"Dresden was like the moon now, nothing but minerals." (page 178)

Vonnegut uses this hyperbole to exaggerate the destruction of Dresden.  The saying "Dresden was like the moon" is used to explain the utter nothingness and lack of life after the bombing.  This overstatement makes a greater effect in imagining the desolation of the destroyed city.

             

Post #14: Machines

Chapter 7

"Lionel Merble was a machine.  Tralfamadorians, of course, say that every creature and plant in the Universe is a machine.  It amuses them that so many Earthlings are offended by the idea of being a machine." (pg. 154)

                                                          

In a way, saying that every creature and plant in the Universe is a machine is true.  Each human does the same thing.  We are born, we do what is necessary to stay alive, and we die.  The difference is we each do it  in our unique way.  We are all different "models."  No two people are alike, but we all have the same goal of living as long as we can by following our individual "programming."

Post #13: Flashbacks

Chapter 7

"Billy, knowing the plane was going to crash pretty soon, closed his eyes, traveled back in time to 1944.  He was  back in the forest in Luxembourg again- with the Three Musketeers." (page 156)

Throughout the novel, Billy has many flashbacks, but to him it is "time-traveling."  For this instance, he is having a flashback of a past event.  While he is in the plane headed to a convention in Montreal, he thinks back to twenty-five years ago when he was still in the war in the Luxembourg forest.  While the novel states he time travels, it seems more like he has flashbacks to the past.

Post #12: Sweet Revenge

Chapter 6

"'Anybody ever asks you what the sweetest thing in life is-' said Lazzaro, 'it's revenge.'" (page 139)

                                    

Like Lazzaro, many people today find revenge to be sweet.  If someone gets hurt by another person, they want that person to feel the same pain they felt.  It's just how our minds work.  We automatically feel the need to get back at the people who hurt us.  There is even a TV show called "Revenge." It's not a very good thing to feel or act on, but we feel it anyway because we are human. 

Post #11: A Motif

Chapter 6

In Slaughterhouse-Five, there are many deaths that occur.  After referring to a death, Vonnegut writes the sentence "So it goes."  This motif is stated after every death, whether it be accidental, intentional, or natural.  Death is an unstoppable force.  The repetition of this motif expresses and points out the inevitability of death. Everyone will die someday.  So it goes.

Post #10: Glamorization of War

Chapter 5

                                   "They made war look stylish and reasonable, and fun." (page 94)

In many movies today, war is glamorized.  People would rather see a happy, and usually unrealistic, side of war rather than the horrific truth.  Many would rather be blind to it and kept in the dark than see the harsh reality of where our soldiers go to, how destructive war is, how many people die, and the different cruel ways to harm innocent people.  

                                       

Post #9: A Metaphor for Time

Chapter 5

"But among them was this poor Earthling, and his head was encased in a steel sphere which he could never take off.  There was only one eyehole through which he could look, and welded to that eyehole were six feet of pipe." (page 115)

In this very long chapter, Billy is displayed in a simulated Earthling habitat in a zoo on Tralfamadore.  The above metaphor is how the Tralfamadorian guide explained how Billy sees time.  While the Tralfamadorians can see all things in all times, Billy can only see one thing at one time.  This metaphor helped to better understand how the Tralfamadorians perceive time by imagining looking at a mountain range and seeing all these different things, while Billy, and all humans for that matter, can only see one thing.

                                     

Post #8: Free Will

Chapter 4

                 "Only on Earth is there any talk of free will." (page 86)

Free will is an integral part of human's beliefs of life.  We all believe we control each of our actions, and that those actions determine our fate.  We all have the freedom to choose how we behave, what we do, and who we hang out with.  We believe each set of actions leads to a different outcome, and we all strive to pick the best and perfect ones that will lead to our desired future.

                                                            

Post #7: Simile of Bugs in Amber

Chapter 4

"That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim.  Why you?  Why us for that matter?  Why anything?  Because this moment simply is.  Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber?" (page 76-77)

This simile between moments in life and bugs trapped in amber really explains the Tralfamadorians beliefs.  There is no why, each moment simply is.  Just like bugs in amber, we are trapped in the moment.  Each moment is set in stone, and humans simply move from moment to moment, trapped in each one.

                                           

Post #6: Frequently Asked Question

Chapter 3

                    "He asked himself this: 'Where have all the years gone?'" (page 57)

Fountain of Youth

Many people ask themselves this question.  Time flies fast, and we can't do anything to stop it.  People in history have searched for the Fountain of Youth in hopes of getting back those lost years.  It feels like just yesterday I was starting high school as a young freshman, but here I am, three weeks away from starting my junior year.  Time does fly by quickly, and I believe we all, at some point in our life, will utter the question                                                                                        "Where have all the years gone?"

                                                                                                        

Post #5: An Analogy

Chapter 3

"Billy drove through a scene of even greater desolation.  It looked like Dresden after it was fire-bombed-- like the surface of the moon." (page 59)

                                           

Throughout this chapter, Billy time travels many times.  One time he is driving to a Lions Club meeting  in his Cadillac.  The area he was driving through was emptied and ready for urban renewal.  Billy used the analogy of Dresden and the moon to compare and describe the similarities of the two to the gutted and desolate area.

Post #4: Human Companionship

Chapter 2

"It was entirely Billy's fault that his fighting organization no longer existed, Weary felt, and Billy was going to pay." (page 51)

Everyone desires human companionship.  Nobody likes to be left alone.  Most people feel safer with a wing man.  Weary's feelings of rage and anger toward Billy at the end of this chapter were completely relatable.  I, personally, always feel safer with people around me.  The saying "safety in numbers" comes to mind.  If someone did something to take away my feeling of safety and security and have those around me abandon me, I would be very angry, too.

                                                          

                                                       

Post #3: A Characterization of Billy Pilgrim

  

Chapter 2

In this chapter, we meet Billy Pilgrim, a man who travels between different times in his life.  He meets the Tralfamadorians who can see in four dimensions, while a human can only see in three.  He learned from these aliens that a person only appears to die, because that person is still alive in the past.

"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.'" (page 27)

In this quote, we learn that Billy has developed a strange outlook on death that he learned from these creatures.  Instead of crying and mourning death like most people do, Billy gives a sort of mental shrug, and says "So it goes."  In his mind, they only die in this one moment out of thousands of moments in one's life.                                                                     

                             

Post #2: Anti-Glacier Book

Chapter 1

"You know what I say to people when I hear they're writing anti-war books?"   "No. What do you say, Harrison Starr?"   "I say 'Why don't you write an anti-glacier book instead?'" (page 3)

This dialogue stuck out to me because it puts emphasis on the permanent existence of war.  Just as glaciers will always be around, war will always be in our society.  No matter what people say, or however many movies and books come out and depict the horrific violence of war, it will always be here.  Just as the quote says, writing an anti-war book would be just as effective as writing an anti-glacier book.  Even though many people disapprove of war and write about it, war will never go away.  It will always remain a permanent fixture, just like glaciers.

                                          

Post #1: Allusion to Lot's Wife

Chapter 1

"And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human." (page 21-22)

Vonnegut uses the allusion of Lot's wife to identify himself.  Instead of leaving the past and moving to the future, he dwells on it.  Just like Lot's wife looked back toward the destroyed city, Vonnegut looks back on a destroyed time filled with much violence and death.

Lot's wife also alludes to most people today.  As Vonnegut stated, it was human of Lot's wife to look back.  Looking back towards the past and all past mistakes and sins is easier for many people than looking toward an unknown and scary future.

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