No Characters Here

In the war, people are discouraged from becoming characters. This means they are discouraged from trying to be a one man army, and win the battles alone. There are groups of soldiers who fight together for a reason. There is meant to be an entire army looked at as a whole, not at the individuals performing the duties. In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, Howard W. Campbell, Jr. instigates the rise of a character from the group of American prisoners of war. Campbell was an American who changed to a Nazi because of his observation of the behavior of the American prisoners.
His name is Edgar Derby, the high school teacher. Campbell did this by asking the prisoners to fight with him in a new group called the Free American Corps. This group was a new German military unit that would be fighting on the front lines, but if the prisoners participated they would be guaranteed repatriation through Switzerland. Campbell's proposition went unanswered by the overly exhausted American prisoners at first, then Derby stepped up. Derby then retaliated to the insulting invite to fight for the Nazis. "Derby raised his head, called Campbell a snake. He corrected that. He said that snakes couldn't help being snakes, and that Campbell, who could help being what he was, was something much lower than a snake or a rat - or even a blood filled tick"(Vonnegut 209). When Derby stands up alone for his country, he becomes a character. The reason there has not been a character in the story until now is because the people being discussed in the story have all been too weak to perform any duties or miracles towards the war since they have been captured. Derby speaks of his country with a great amount of pride and claims "there wasn't a man who wouldn't gladly die for this ideas"( Vonnegut 209). Vonnegut is simply pointing out that in war, the soldiers are not meant to be seen as individuals but as a group, so that they look stronger.

Perhaps Billy and Jesus Weren't Twins

Vonnegut describes a peculiar story from one of Kilgore Trout’s novel. The story is of a man who travels back in time to see Jesus. His goal is to find out if Jesus really died on the cross. The man, carrying his stethoscope, checks for a heartbeat on Jesus before they take him down from the cross. The man discovers that Jesus has no heartbeat and “was as dead as door nail.”
Throughout his novel, Vonnegut draws many similarities between Jesus and Billy Pilgrim. He describes Billy Pilgrim as a scruffy bearded wanderer that seems very strange to everyone. A picture similar to one we might imagine Jesus looking like. The strongest similarity to me is the circumstances of their death. Both Billy Pilgrim and Jesus know of their death yet both refuse to do anything about it. They accept their fate. Also both seem to come back to life. While Billy does not literally rise from the dead like Jesus, he does seem to come back to life with his Trafalmadorian concept of time. This story seems to reinforce the belief that Billy is like Jesus. However, at the end of the story Trout’s story makes some interesting observations of Jesus after he is taking down from the cross. The examiner notes that Jesus is only “five feet and three and a half inches long.” While it is a simple phrase, I believe it challenges the reader to think; maybe Jesus and Billy are not as similar as it appeared. Vonnegut makes obvious note of Billy’s tall and lanky body structure, a complete opposite of the structure of Jesus. Perhaps with this very blatant opposite descriptions, Vonnegut is hinting to the reader that Jesus and Pilgrim are not as alike as they seem. For example, while both know about their death and accept it, I believe they do it for different reasons. Billy believes it is his fate and there is nothing he can do about his death. It is something that will happen and there is nothing he can do to change it or anything else in life. However, Jesus accepts his death with a very strong cause. His death is a sacrifice. He has a choice, and he is choosing to die to change things. While the similarities seem to exist at face value when you examine their motives they seem to be completely different. Jesus has a cause that he believes in strongly enough to die for. He dies to change things. Billy doesn’t really believe in anything at all. He dies because he thinks it’s inevitable just like everything else in life.

He Was Making it Up as He Went Along

In class, we have talked about the idea of whether the events in the novel Slaughterhouse Five actually happened. I feel that the passage where Kilgore Trout and Maggie White discuss the reality of the content in Trout’s books gives us some insight into what Vonnegut wants us to think about some of the content in his own novel. There is no doubt that the fire-bombing of Dresden is true, but some of the other events, like Billy Pilgrim’s travel to Tralfamadore, are not as historically supported. I find it interesting how Vonnegut incorporates a science fiction writer, Kilgore Trout, into his novel where the main character goes on science fiction like adventures. I think readers are supposed to get the feeling that some of the outlandish things that happen to Billy are not true. In fact, Vonnegut actually does tell readers that Trout’s books are not true. He says, “Trout was making this up as he went along” (218). So since we know that Trout is making his stories up, maybe it is not too ludicrous to think that, since the idea was pointed out in class that Vonnegut may put a bit of himself into each of his characters, Vonnegut himself may indeed be making up parts of his story as he goes along. Maggie White, who actually believes that the things Trout writes about really happened, almost serves as an example of any reader who really would believe all the things that happen to Billy. Vonnegut uses the conversation between Maggie White and Kilgore Trout to show readers that it is ok to question whether Billy’s experiences are true or whether they were just made up as he went along.

Oh the Irony...

Howard W. Campbell Jr., the famous traitor of Vonnegut’s novel, comes to recruit the American prisoners of war at the time of very low morale. However, the morale was not low enough for Edgar Derby not to be riled by Campbell and his betrayal. He quickly moved from calling Campbell a snake to speaking of the American ideals of freedom, justice, opportunities, and fair play for all. Right as Derby was winding down his speech about fair play the air-raid sirens ironically began sounding. Although no bombs were dropped that day it foreshadowed the massacre which was to come the next day when the Americans would drop tons of gasoline on the city of Dresden and kill 135,000 people including innocent civilians and U.S. soldiers held captive. Although an aspect of war, many people would argue that this act was not technically “fair play” on the part of America. Later on in the same chapter, Vonnegut even compares the Americans to robots with no conscience as they drop the bombs and then leave with no thought of the people on the ground. Another ironic aspect of Derby’s speech came when he stated that “there wasn’t a man there who wouldn’t gladly die” for the ideals that he mentioned. However, the reader knows that Billy Pilgrim could care less about patriotism or much of anything else for that matter. Billy seems to be a man with very few ideals and has a hard time standing up for those so he would probably find it extremely hard to lay down his life for the ideals of America. Although pieces of Derby’s speech are ironic, the reader can’t help but to applaud him for standing up for our country against Campbell during a time where it would have been easier to give in.

Not so worthy!

Carmen Solis

So far, there is confusion in the book, Slaughter House Five, about whether the author is against the War or believes in it. What I understand, so far, is that he believes that War is wrong, but sometimes it is necessary. I think that his purpose is to let us, the readers, decide if War is wrong, but he is offering the tools to explain how a War can cause so much damage in someone’s life. He creates the character Howard W. Campbell Jr. to explain the readers what is wrong with a War. In other words, Campbell represents the hatred that a War brings. He is described as been controlling and trying to separate the union or the only strength that the soldiers have. I believe that Vonnegut created this individual as an Anti-War character meaning that we can see all the wrong-doing of a War. Just by seeing how Campbell portrays itself, we can see that he is been a hypocrite because he is wearing clothes that resembles the Nazis period and the American history. He wears a silhouette of one of the Presidents of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, and also he is wearing one of the signs that describe the Nazis people which is the Nazis’ cross. I think that he wears all this clothes to try to convince that he is “ one” of them to be able to persuade the soldiers to fight against Russia. Campbell even offered them American food, steaks, and mashed potatoes. He is just being two-faces. He is trying to be an “American” to be able to persuade the soldiers to turn their backs on their own country, America. Campbell is one of the creations of Vonnegut which exerts the hypocrisy and lies of a not worthy War.

Death is inevitable

The book about the money tree is summarized because it shows that people are greedy and will kill each other over money. It also shows that the tree grew very well because the humans who died make very good fertilizer, thus the tree was able to grow. This suggests that money can only exist in such vast quantities when people kill each other. It also relates to the quote “Eheu, fugaces labuntur anni” (14) because the quote comes from an ode that talks about the futility of hoarding treasure. The ode says this action is useless because everyone is going to die regardless of how much money they have.
The money tree also shows that only crazy people want to get rich because of the tree or in similar ways. Someone has to be very greedy or even out of their minds to try to get to a tree being fertilized with human bodies. Similarly, Billy Pilgrim had become rich and thus “had been rewarded for marrying a girl nobody in his right mind would have married” (151).
Billy had also gotten a lot of money from the deaths of people. He got the diamond for his engagement ring from war. Although the diamond was not growing on a tree, it had been surrounded by death.
Edgar Derby was actually executed for taking the teapot. Plundering, Edgar Derby's crime, is the act of stealing valuable things from a place. Edgar Derby was executed because he took something valuable, just like the people kill each other around the tree. He had gotten the teapot from the tunnels they were digging where there was nothing but dead people who had become “rotted and liquified” after the tunnels were dug.
The money tree is put in the story because it shows how death and riches are usually present together in this book. Rarely in the book do riches come up without being surrounded by murder.

Everything is all right...

In Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut uses satirically extreme charactersto get the reader to understand why he is so adamantly anti-war. Professor Rumfoord, confident and highly ranked in the military, serves as an opposite of fragile, nonsensical Billy Pilgrim whose experience in war consists of a few unarmed months as a chaplain. Interestingly enough, though Billy witnesses the brutal massacre of a neutral city during the war, he has a surprisingly passive opinion of the bombing of Dresden. Rumfoord can easily side with the leaders of the military and their strategies in war because he is one of them. Despite the professor not actually making the decision to bomb Dresden, as a fellow military decision maker, he has sympathy for those that did. In fact, he has more compassion towards them than he does for the deceased and the survivors. He has enough sheer nerve and confidence his peers to ask Billy to "pity the men who had to do it" (254). Afterwards admitting that it must be difficult for someone "on the ground" (254) to side with the bombing, the fact that he thought of those like himself, disconnected and elite, before those that were actually in Dresden, shows a heartless nature Vonnegut believes to be present in the people who decide to destroy civilian cities. He excuses the devastation simply as a part of war, describing it as "a howling success" (244). In contrast, Billy can only remember the broken, dirty city of Dresden after the bombings, like the couple picnicking on their incinerated home (251). He is a piece of the ruins, he has not been the same person since the tragedy, yet he chooses to follow the Tralfamadorian way of coping, which is to accept life's circumstances as unchangeable and to focus on happier times. In this, the two very different men are similar. Neither want to discuss the hundreds of thousands of dead people or the affects on those that were left to clean up the desolation. Rumfoord concentrates on the significance Dresden played ending the war, while Billy would rather speak of his nap in the sun than describe the smell of the bodies they buried (274). Both refuse to see the full reality of the bombings of Dresden, leaving them to blindly accept that "everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does" (254).

What a memory.

It’s strange to me to read and experience an actual memory of Billy Pilgrim’s, rather than actually seeing him experience it as it happens. The whole experience and memory is refreshed in his mind due to a barbershop quartet of optometrist’s that Billy listens to at a wedding anniversary party. Billy went up into his room and laid down, and reflected on the quartet and realized that it reminded him of a time in the war.

The memory is of when he was being held captive, and there were bombings in Dresden. He was down in a meat locker that was substituting as a safe-shelter, with other captives and four guards. He describes how terrible of a state Dresden was in, discussing the fire storm that is now Dresden. Billy sat there in the meat locker and watched the guards and their reactions. He noticed a lot of the time they were quiet, with their mouth’s open as if they could be singing. Billy fills the void with “so long forever, old fellows and pals, so long forever, old sweethearts and pals” which would be lyrics sung by a quartet.

It is in my opinion that this first actual memory of Billy Pilgrim is actually a real memory of Kurt Vonnegut. We know that Vonnegut survived the Dresden bombing, and I think now we can distinguish the things he actually experienced with things that would have happened but didn’t necessarily take place in his memories. Vonnegut has been very clever in the writing of this book, in using things such as Three Musketeer bars and barbershop quartets to link the present and the past.

Tralfamadore, where the flying saucers come from. Peace.

Since Slaughterhouse-Five is “a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamadore,” the Tralfamadorian worldview is incorporated in great detail in the novel. The Tralfamadorians live forever and are unstuck in time, jumping from memory to memory, much like Billy Pilgrim. Vonnegut states that he is not overjoyed with this idea (269). Eternal life is one of those qualities that many people desire, so why does Kurt Vonnegut not want eternal life?
On the first page, Vonnegut states, “All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn’t his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war” (1). Although Kurt Vonnegut had many good times in his life, there was also an overabundance of memories of war. Throughout the book, there are also many interjections from Vonnegut, such as, “That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book” (160), “That was I. That was me. The only other city I’d ever seen was Indianapolis, Indiana” (189), and “I was there. O’Hare was there” (271). Considering that Vonnegut is present in parts of the novel and Billy Pilgrim seems haunted with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, it is likely that Kurt Vonnegut feels mild symptoms of PTSD as well. Therefore, not many of his war memories would be pleasant. World War Two was a very rough and horrific experience for many of the soldiers and many of them would never want to relive that, especially over and over again like the Tralfamadorians. In theory, the Tralfamadorian worldview looks good on paper, but everyone’s life is going to be filled with sad and angry moments that should not be replayed for the rest of time. The average person’s life that has never had to go through a major tragedy would still be terrible played over and over and out of order all the time. Someone’s life like Kurt Vonnegut or Billy Pilgrim’s would be a very depressing way to be for the rest of all eternity.

Blog #2: Vonnegut

Dear All,


Below are more questions for the final blog on Kurt Vonnegut. I'd like to have no more than two people per question. Therefore, please lay claim to your question by commenting on THIS blog. You should write something like "I, Jennifer Hughes, hereby claim question 14." Per usual, please answer the question with a clear, thoughtful response of 300-600 words. Strive for polished grammar, and be sure to cite the page numbers of the quotations you include.


1. At the beginning of chapter 8 (206-207), we are introduced to the character Howard W. Campbell (he is a made-up character!). Discuss why Vonnegut would create a character like this and dress him as he does.

2. What point about war is Vonnegut making when he says that in war “people are discouraged from being characters”? (208)

3. What is ironic about the moment when Edgar Derby stands up and gives a speech about American ideals? (209)

4. What do you think is the purpose of the quick summary of Kilgore Trout’s book about a money tree? (213)

5. What do you think the purpose of the quick summary of The Gutless Wonder is? (213-214)?

6. Kilgore Trout and Maggie White have a conversation about whether stuff in novels ever “really happened.” How does this conversation suggest to readers how we should understand our experience of the novel Slaughterhouse Five?

7. On page 226, Billy has his first memory, rather than flashback, about his experience in the war. What is it that he remembers, and why does he remember it like this? How does it relate to the barbershop quartet?

8. When Montana Wildhack asks Billy to tell her a story, why does he launch into a war story, do you think? Why do we not get her reaction to the story? (228)

9. Why do you think that Vonnegut describes Valencia’s car after the accident the way he does?

10. Is it important that we see “the Truman thing” from 23-year-old, 103-IQ-leveled Lily’s eyes? (Hint: yes) Why? (238)

11. Having gotten this far in the book, do you have any ideas why Billy has a flashback to the time he was in a waiting room with a gassy old man?

12. Is it in line with Billy’s character that he would insert himself into his hospital mate’s conversation, as he does, on page 245? What is significant about his assertion “I was there” (also on 247)?

13. From what Vonnegut describes as Billy’s happiest moment – a nap in the sun after the war – Billy wakes up to a couple speaking to horses. What do you interpret as the significance of this moment to the rest of the novel (250-251)?

14. Discuss the inclusion of the stanza of “Away in a Manger” in this chapter and as the epigraph of the novel. What does it say about the value of crying?

15. Compare the views of Dresden held between Rumfoord and Billy after Rumfoord begins to listen to Billy (253-254).

16. What does the scientific investigation of Jesus’s death in the Kilgore Trout novel have to do with the rest of the novel (259-260)?

17. Billy gets onto a radio program in which literary crtics are discussing “whether the novel was dead or not” (263). So it goes! Do you think that Vonnegut believes that novels are useful anymore, based on the conversation he includes?

18. Vonnegut doesn’t really linger on the idea that he doesn’t like Billy Pilgrim’s Tralfamadorian worldview. He says on 269, “I am not overjoyed.” Why is he not overjoyed?

A Lighter Way to Enjoy Chocolate

Throughout the text of Slaughterhouse-five, Three Musketeers Candy Bars and the heroic story of the Three Musketeers are mentioned multiple times. As I analyzed the usage of the words, they could be directly related to different aspects of Dumas’s world-renowned novel. Slaughterhouse-five has many similarities and differences than The Three Musketeers, and once these comparisons are noticed, the true meaning of Vonnegut’s anti-war novel comes to life. The first usage of “Three Musketeers” is on page 12 describing the reporter, who is eating a Three Musketeers Candy Bar. This occurs during Vonnegut’s introduction, in which he decides how to write his book and what exactly should it be about. The writing style of this book is very similar to Dumas’s novel, which has been described as modern and conversational prose, therefore, making it an easy read. In addition, Dumas did not provide the history and setting before the story; the story has history in the background as the story progresses, and is an entertaining read. This is also the case in Slaughterhouse-five. The second, third, fourth, and fifth usage of the word occurs on pages 53-54. Since Vonnegut used this word four times in two pages, he is obviously trying to get a message across to the readers. Although the three men refer to themselves as the “Three Musketeers,” their story could not be any more different from the original The Three Musketeers. First, the memorable quote from The Three Musketeers, “All for one; one for all” does not take effect with the “Three Musketeers” in Slaughterhouse-five. Also, they are selfish and dishonest when it came to their fellow musketeers. The last reference to “Three Musketeer Candy Bars” is on page 136. Billy Pilgrim’s fiancée is eating one as he lies in his hospital bed. In Dumas’s novel, although it is a Romance, at the end of the novel, he rejects Romantic values. Slaughterhouse-five is similar in the aspect that Vonnegut’s novel is a war novel, but in the end, because of the rejection of the typical war stories and the values of war that America seems to uphold, the book is an anti-war novel that achieves its goal.

#1 College

Kurt Vonnegut writes in his book, Slaughterhouse-Five, that when he went to college after the first World War he learned about people. In particular he was taught that everyone on the Earth was alike. This was the theory of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. Also, in addition to not one single person being unique, Vonnegut learned that not one person was "ridiculous or bad or disgusting" (Vonnegut 10). Vonnegut quotes his father, who told him "You know-you never wrote a story with a villain in it", and Vonnegut replied by saying that was one of the things he learned in college after the war (Vonnegut 10). This observation or theory presented by the Department of Anthropology is wrong in many ways. Each individual person alive on this Earth is unique and unlike any other person. This statement does present a very interesting view on the human race, though. In college I have learned to look at people without judging on first sight. I do this because everyone I meet has a good side, whether I see it at first or not. This passage is saying precisely that; that every person is good. The way a person is viewed is what determines their moral standing, not whether or not they truly are bad. This passage is meant to point out that the college experience opens many peoples' eyes to be less judgmental, and also it forces people to be around new people. When meeting new people it creates a feeling to impress the other person, which ironically shows the faults instead of the strengths sometimes. By not writing any stories with villains, Vonnegut emphasizes that there is not a bad person, which is what he learned in college. This is one lesson I hope I take from college, that everyone has a good side I just must learn to see that instead of the negative.

Billy should have gotten some funnier bumper stickers

Blake Ogden

When Vonnegut describes the bumper stickers on Billy Pilgrim’s car he gives a very interesting insight to the nature of Billy. The book writes “There was a third. “Impeach Earl Warren” it said. The stickers about the police and Earl Warren were gifts from Billy’s father in law, a member of the John Birch Society.” Earl Warren was a chief justice that worked on many ground-breaking cases such as school integration, civil rights cases, separation of church and state, and arrest procedures. While he was very popular with liberals, he was very disrespected by conservatives which explains why his father in law, a member of the John Birch Society, a largely conservative organization, would give him a bumper sticker such as this. While he does have this bumper sticker, I do not believe that Billy actually feels this way. A few pages later in the story it states “Among the things Billy could not change were the past, the present, and the future.” If Billy believes this quote it makes little sense as to why he would be in protest of something. The book also goes on to tell the story of Billy going to a Lions Club meeting where a marine in favor of more bombing in Vietnam is speaking. However, “Billy was not moved to protest the bombing of North Vietnam, did not shudder about the hideous things he himself had seen bombing do. He was simply having lunch with the Lions Club…” These quotes give a very interesting look on Billy and his bumper stickers. I believe that Billy is neither for the impeachment of Warren nor against it. He simply has the sticker because his father in law gave it to him. Several quotes show his impartiality, “Billy Pilgrim tried hard to care” or “He did the simplest thing. He drove on.” It shows that Billy simply has an existence but isn’t really living. The two bumper stickers he has do present an interesting contrast. One says “Support your police department” while the other says “Impeach Earl Warren.” One is in support of the government while the other is in protest of it. But, Billy doesn’t really care that he contrasts himself. His father in law gave them to him and he acted as he should and put them on his car. He believes that there is nothing we can do to change things so why bother. He begins to have a Tralfamadorian outlook on life. Time is already set and nothing we do can change it. He believes that everything is stuck the way it is so why even care.

Tough=Reality

Carmen Solis

Throughout the novel, Slaughter Five, Vonnegut emphasizes on the War and shows that a vast number of lives are lost; however, he tries to use comedy to put a mask on the horrible times they went throughout the War. Let’s be honest, there is not a single pleasant aspect of the War that makes one want to remember it, but he tries to see the good side of it. After he came back from the War, he describes how “everybody become very tough.” From my standpoint of view, he is trying to say that toughness is how he and his former friend’s souls became stronger by their experience in the War. How the War made everything change, and by want it or not they had to grow-up physically, emotionally, and spiritually quickly. For instance, Billy and Vonnegut were really young when they became “soldiers” to fight for their country; they were twenty-one years old. And also, he stresses out that not only does the soldiers grow and become tough, but also the families and the nation grows with them, side by side. They became tough by heart by realizing the truth and how a life means a lot. Their losses and seeing how many people suffer made everyone tough.

On page thirteen, he is also talking about the veterans of the War. He describes them as been the “nicest and funniest ones.” He says that they are the nicest people because he knows how a War or a lost of a friend makes one realized how short a life is and how valuable a life is. It must be hard to see deaths and blood all over the place, but I think that those moments change someone’s mind. Makes them been more aware and try to be nice to everyone. The veterans are the funniest one, that is what Vonnegut says. I think that they use comedy and tell jokes because they want, at least, to forget about it and think that there were “good” moments on the War, even though they cannot remember one. They disguise their feelings and thoughts by putting a smile or a happy face. Vonnegut was on the War and he, somehow, sees a resemblance to them.

Time is fleeting

Eheu, fugaces labuntur anni translates to “Alas, the fleeting years glide away.” Quintus Horatius Flaccus, also known as Horace, was the leading poet under rule of Augustus. Among his many works, he composed Odes (also known as Carmina), a collection of four books of Latin lyric poems. Book Two consisted of twenty poems, the most notable being Eheu fugaces, an ode to Postumus. It is unknown who Postumus was. The ode talks about the uselessness of hoarding treasure and begins: Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, labuntur anni!
Kurt Vonnegut probably includes this first line of Eheu fugace with the first line of the song to show that time does pass on ahead. The song repeats over and over “to infinity” (Vonnegut 4) thus stating that time glides away. He probably also includes the first line of limerick to show that those who took him prisoner took all his wealth and health, but now they can't do anything. He cannot regain the time that passed by when he was being held prisoner because time glides away.
Additionally, Kurt Vonnegut probably decided to include Eheu, fugaces labuntur anni in his book because it related to his memories and how he wanted to write about them and make a lot of money (3). He wanted to hoard his treasure so that he might get rich, but he found it was not as easy of a task as he had thought it would be. He found that he could not recall enough information to write a book, thus showing that it was futile to hoard his treasures. Similarly, Horace's ode to Postumus is about the futility of hoarding treasures. The ode talks about the uselessness of hoarding treasures because death is inevitable. It does not matter how many riches one has.

We laugh in self defense...

The Atlantic Monthly called Kurt Vonnegut, “Our finest black humorist.” They also said, “… We laugh in self defense.” Upon first review of why they would say such a thing, it seems to be quite a broad statement. In reality, the answer is quite simple. We laugh because we find ourselves and possibly more importantly we find truth written into the pages of Slaughterhouse-Five. Vonnegut wrote a classic when he wrote Slaughterhouse-Five because he wrote a story that is timeless; it is true across time and people, age and race. Many of the characters are made to be disliked. There is no better example than Roland Weary. He is fat and mean. Even Billy Pilgrim’s daughter is described as a “bitchy flibbertigibbet (page 36)”. I believe that these characters are not made to be liked, but made so that we can all find a part of us in them, and we are not meant to find a part of us that we like. Vonnegut points out the flaws in us all so that the only thing left to do is laugh at ourselves. Maybe we see ourselves in Roland Weary, a loner who only wants true friends. Or maybe we see ourselves in Billy Pilgrim, a man who is never really satisfied with his life. Regardless of whom you find yourself in, it is hard to deny the truth found in this book. Vonnegut is a fatalist and writes that illusion is only free will. This is best seen when Billy Pilgrim’s dad tossed him into the pool sink or swim, “He lost consciousness, but the music went on. He dimly sensed that somebody was rescuing him. Billy resented that (Page 55).” Billy wanted to give up in that moment, that was his will, but someone stopped him from giving up by rescuing him. Vonnegut also uses the Tralfamadorians, aliens who can see in the fourth dimension, to explain to us that there is really no such thing as free will. The Tralfamadorians see all of life happening simultaneously rather than on a timeline that has a beginning and end. To see life in that respect is to understand that nothing can be done to change your life. Your life time has already spanned to your death by the time you are born. Robert Scholes says it best when he writes about Slaughterhouse-Five for the New York Times Book Review, “Be kind. Don't hurt. Death is coming for all of us anyway, and it is better to be Lot's wife looking back through salty eyes than the Deity that destroyed those cities of the plain in order to save them.”

#14 Shocking contrast between two perspectives

The end of chapter 3, when Vonnegut shows both the view from the inside of the boxcar and the boxcar as the German soldiers see it, effects me by allowing me to see how truly pitiful the prisoners’ situations are. I have read several war novels during my education and each of those novels only lets the reader see from the perspective of the prisoner, so I had never seen what the scene might have looked like from the other side. This could be one of Vonnegut’s intentions when he gives both viewpoints. I feel that the way the German soldiers see the boxcar, as a, “single organism which ate and drank and excreted through its ventilators” (90), really gives the readers something to visualize. The Germans see the boxcar as a single thing, not a boxcar with men, just like them, squashed together inside. I feel that Vonnegut wants us to see the true brutality of the war, which would go along with the fact that he intended Slaughterhouse- Five to be an anti- war book. Readers get to see that the conditions inside the boxcar are completely inhumane. What readers have to realize is that humans, every-day people, are responsible for the horrific living conditions of Billy Pilgrim and his comrades inside that boxcar. I think that Vonnegut wants to show readers just how disgusting wars can be. In an earlier passage, Billy can see, through the ventilator he is smashed against, across the train yard that the German soldiers have their very own boxcar. But in this boxcar, “There was a cannonball stove with a steaming coffeepot on top. There was a table with a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread and a sausage on it. There were four bowls of soup” (87). This is what the German soldiers had to eat: hot soup, coffee, bread, sausage, and wine. While the German soldiers got to enjoy that, they pass into the boxcar, “water and loaves of blackbread and sausage and cheese” (90). Readers get to see what nice conditions the German soldiers have and then they get to contrast it with the vile conditions that belong to the prisoners. I believe that Vonnegut gives readers the two different viewpoints so he can really drive home the fact that war is brutal and that it is shocking how one human can inflict so much harm on another human.

It's not all fiction.

As Vonnegut explains in the first chapter, he writes his novel largely based on his personal experience. Considering his introduction, why does Vonnegut suddenly stop the flow of the story on several occasions to simply say that he was present at the scene? More importantly, why does he specifically choose those instances to interject? Vonnegut's occasional interruptions, notably on page 86, remind the reader that though his characters are fictional, the circumstances are not. Further, he emphasizes that it was not just someone somewhere that saw these happenings. It was Vonnegut, he was there, and his personal connection with the story allows him to indicate times that made a lasting imprint upon his mind. I find it interesting that Vonnegut picks "Wild Bob" to describe in such detail. He saw many people die, so why did an old colonel make a great impression on him? Clues to the answer can by inferred from the tone of the section. Vonnegut describes the man sounding like"greasy paper bags" (84) every time he breathed and him "dying and dying, drowning where he stood" (85). The vivid imagery has no hint of humor or light-heartedness. The silence of the listeners shows that his death is a sort of inside joke, except no one finds it funny. Everyone knows the imminence of "Wild Bob's" fate, yet he still holds on to his glory ideals of war even as he was waiting for death. The visual of his illness as Vonnegut describes it induces the helpless pity the author felt and surely continues to feel for the man that was certain to die but oblivious to his surroundings. As the feeble man concludes his victory speech with the phrase "God be with you, boys!" (86), the irony of such a hopeful expression in the face of utter bleakness could only be left to echo and echo (86) in the minds of his audience. I also find it incredibly important that Vonnegut mentions O'Hare was there with him. The tragic "Wild Bob" situation provides incite as to why "neither one of [them] could remember anything good" (17) about the war. The experiences they had together only bring about memories they would rather suppress than trudge back up and laugh about. Vonnegut and O'Hare remember instances like the day they witnessed diseased "Wild Bob" sadly hallucinate, and they cannot laugh at that. Vonnegut wants the reader to understand that death during war is devastating both on and off the battlefield and that he, the author, has personally learned it as truth.

A talking pillar of salt?!

In the closing paragraph of chapter one, Vonnegut metaphorically compares himself to a pillar of salt. This phrase alludes to the biblical story of Lot and his family as they fled the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Because of the rebellion during this time, God sends two angels to destroy the city of Sodom where Lot resided yet he and his family were spared. The angels told them to retreat to the mountains and not to look back and when Lot’s wife disobeyed for one last glance upon her home she was immediately turned into a pillar of salt. Likewise, Vonnegut was spared in the destruction of Dresden in World War II. Somehow he survived the sudden bombing of the city where thousands upon thousands of others were killed. In this way, the author feels as if he can relate with Lot’s wife. War is horrific and scarring to many soldiers who have spent lifetimes trying to forget the sights that they have witnessed. However, Vonnegut feels a duty to look back on the destruction of the city of Dresden and to document it for others in a book because he was a lucky survivor. Not only does he compare himself to Lot’s wife but he also draws parallels between Sodom and Dresden. Sodom and its many citizens were destroyed by sulfuric rain from heaven while Dresden’s thousands were annihilated by a rain down of bombs form the sky. Lot’s wife looked back on a city blackened by sin while Vonnegut recalls a city blackened by war. In the biblical story, Lot and his daughters continue on yet Lot’s wife forever remains a pillar of salt on the plain. In the same way, the author feels as if he is stuck in time; focused on an event that forever changed his life and impaired his ability to actually continue normally on.

Number 8...Why are you in here, Mr. Slovik?

Private Eddie Slovik’s name will be recorded in history as the only American soldier to be executed for desertion post civil war era. Why, though, did Vonnegut choose to reference Slovik in Slaughterhouse Five? We’ve discussed in class that Vonnegut puts some of his own ideals and beliefs from the war into the characters, and one possible suggestion to answer why this passage is included is due to this. This scene with Billy occurs in 1965, after World War II and after the execution. Vonnegut may have been worried during the war of what would happen if someone deserted. Why didn’t Billy desert though, after all we’ve learned about him. He is weak of mind, weak of faith, and doesn’t seem to care too much for the war. It’s clear from the text that he wasn’t well liked, especially through the way that Roland Weary treated him. “He couldn’t hurt his enemies or help his friends.” I think Vonnegut is using Billy to show that deserting during war is not the right thing to do, even though he is anti-war. He is still a patriot, and still cares about his country, so obviously he wouldn’t agree with deserting from war, therefore his character doesn’t.

On a more realistic note, without all of the analysis, Vonnegut could be using this to not only show the history and negative sides of war that escape the public eye, but also to assist in his anti-war theme. This specific passage shows that though war is terrible for our enemies, it also can be terrible for its own. Nobody wins in war, a point that I think Vonnegut and many other anti-war activists stress. Vonnegut also could be saying that the government itself needs to change. According to Huie, of whom the excerpt comes from, “He has directly challenged the authority of the government, and future discipline depends upon a resolute reply to this challenge.” In Vonnegut’s eyes, this quote may mean that the authority of the government should change, because Slovik is the only of the 21,000 deserters in the war that was executed. I’m sure if every one of these soldiers had been executed, Vonnegut would have a problem; but I think because it was only one that it particularly is important to Vonnegut.

Vonnegut Blog 1

Dear All,

Below you'll find 14 questions!  I would like for there to be only one person per question.  Therefore, I would like for each of you to lay claim to a question by posting a comment to THIS blog.  It should say something like "I, Jennifer Hughes, lay claim to question 14."  Strive to write a clear, thorough, and thoughtful response to your question.  Here they are:

1. The New York Times said of Vonnegut that he was “Our finest black humorist… We laugh in self defense.” Explain what the NYT meant by that statement.


2. On page 10, Vonnegut talks about what he learned in college, and why he doesn’t have villains in his novel. What do you think this passage (and the novel) says about college?

3. Why, do you think, on page 12, that Vonnegut makes note of the fact that the woman reporter was eating a Three Musketeer Bar while talking with him about the elevator man’s death.

4. Looking at page 13, what does Vonnegut think about toughness? Who are the “kindest and funniest people” according to him, and why?

5. On page 14, Vonnegut includes lines from his two limericks after writing “Eheu, fugaces labuntur anni.” What does that mean, who said it originally, and why does Vonnegut quote it here? (Google it!)

6. Vonnegut includes a poem from a Theodore Roethke book, Words for the Wind (26). How does this poem fit in with the books themes?

7. Why does Vonnegut say, at the end of chapter 1, that this book was written by a pillar of salt? Why is that meaningful?

8. Look up Private Eddie D. Slovik. Wikipedia’s fine. Why do you think Vonnegut talks about him in this novel?

9. At the end of chapter 2, Weary starts to “beat the shit” out of Billy, and Billy “makes sounds that were a lot like laughter.” What do you think they were? Was it laughter? Why or why not?

10. Why do you think that Vonnegut has an “Impeach Earl Warren” bumper sticker? Who is Warren, and what does this say or not say about Billy that he has the sticker on his car?

11. What do you think the black man in the ghetto wanted to talk with Billy about? (75)

12. Why, on page 86, does Vonnegut interrupt the story of Billy Pilgrim to say “I was there.”

13. How do you think we are supposed to understand the Hobo’s persistent claim that he’s “been in worse places than this… this ain’t so bad” (87, and other places!)?

14. At the end of chapter 3, Vonnegut lets us see the boxcars of soldiers through two different perspectives. One is from German soldiers, and one is from inside the cars. What effect do these perspectives have on readers, potentially?