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.