Slaughterhouse Five section IV (part IV) LAST BLOG!!!

A majority of Slaughterhouse Five is spent describing the horrors of war and how war destroys people's minds. In case readers had not already known, Billy is essentially crazy. War destroyed his mine. He doesn't jump in and out of time because of the Tralfamadorians or the plane crash. Billy is simply a man deranged by the horrors of war and all the death he saw in Dresden. However, I think the most powerful part of the book comes at the end when Vonnegut is talking of a conversation he had with O'Hare about the increasing world population and Vonnegut writes, "'I suppose they will  all want dignity,' I said. 'I suppose,' said O'Hare (p. 212)." I thought this was interesting because Vonnegut spends an entire 211 pages prior telling the tale of Billy and how terrible was is, and then Vonnegut drops this bombshell. I took this line to mean that Vonnegut even agrees that war will always occur and is necessary simply because of the amount of people there are in this world. I think Vonnegut is trying to say that he could spend forever trying to convince everyone that war is a terrible thing and that he would not wish it on anyone, but he also believes that war will always exist. I still think Vonnegut wrote this book because he wants to cause readers to think of the war in a critical way. Unrelated but as a quick note, I enjoyed that he ended the book with the line "Poo-tee-weet?" I still do not know what the question is, but I like how it is symbolic like the birds are with Billy in the beginning and end moments just as Billy thinks people are always alive in moments an memories.

Slaughterhouse Five section IV (part III)

One very interesting thing I have found in Slaughterhouse Five is that Vonnegut references the Bible and Jesus several times. I know it can be a stretch to incorporate outside knowledge when analyzing a book, but I know that Vonnegut is a humanist. I read another one of his works, Cat's Cradle, and I learned that Vonnegut was not a big fan of organized religion. I find it interesting that a humanist would make several references to the Bible and Jesus without degrading the idea of God and Jesus. I know it seems closed minded of me to think that, but I think that Vonnegut uses these allusions because people can easily understand them. Also, I believe Vonnegut is still fascinated with the idea of the person Jesus was. At one point, Billy is in an adult store and reading a book by Kilgore Trout about a man that travels back in time to see if Jesus was really dead when he came off the cross. The man climbed the ladder to check and it said, "There wasn't a sound inside the emaciated chest cavity. The Son of God was dead as a doornail (p.203)." When I read this part I thought to myself, "Oh, this is it. This is the part of the book where Vonnegut is going to denounce Jesus." However, I was proved wrong, and Vonnegut used this as another way of showing the interesting ways history has been shaped through what is practically fate.

Slaughterhouse Five section IV (part II)

At the beginning of the novel, Vonnegut says that his purpose of writing Slaughterhouse Five is to tell his story of Dresden and his opinion of war. The introduction of Professor Rumfoord gives readers the historical view of the firebombing of Dresden. As an aside, I think it is hilarious that Rumfoord is an old, intelligent man that makes fun of his young, beautiful wife for her lack of intelligence. I think Vonnegut throws this in there as a part of his dark, witty sense of humor. However, Rumfoord presents the document on the bombing of Hiroshima. Later, Lily presents a book about the bombing of Dresden that says, "I deeply regret that US and British bombers killed 135,000 people in the bombing of Dresden....The atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima killed 71,379 people (p. 187-188)." The way Vonnegut presents this is that humans are capable of terrible methods of mass destruction without a nuclear bomb. Vonnegut is making the argument that war is not about the atom bomb because we are already capable of flattening cities and killing a large number of people at once. This is where Vonnegut makes a strong point in his disgust of war. Not only were the killings not necessary in the bombing of Dresden, but it killed twice as many people as were killed in the necessary bombing of Hiroshima.

Slaughterhouse Five section IV (part I)

Vonnegut brings up death many times throughout Slaughterhouse Five. However, death is talked about nonchalantly. The phrase "so it goes" appears repeatedly throughout the entirety of the novel, which emphasizes the nonchalant way Vonnegut speaks of death. I think the most surprising time Vonnegut disregard death was with Valencia's death. Most people would think the death of his wife would be a devastating event, but Billy is not even phased by the news. Of course, Billy was also severely injured. I find it odd that Billy never seems to have the will to keep on living. For example, when Billy is in the hospital he says, "'You guys go on without me (p.184).'" This is in reference to one of Billy's moments  during the war when he tells the three musketeers to leave him and let him die. Just like when Billy was in war, Billy does not want to live when he is faced with the possibility of death. Of the few things Billy voices his concern about, he talks of letting himself die. I think that the emphasis Vonnegut makes through the irony and repetition is that Billy will die when he is meant to die, and the course of the world cannot be changed.

Slaughterhouse Five Section 2 (Part IV)

Vonnegut makes great use of repetition throughout the novel. Of course, the phrase "so it goes" has occurred many times. The phrase "so it goes" seems to always end a paragraph that talks about death. This is the death of anything such as a person, champagne, or a dog. I think the explanation of this phrase come from Tralfamadorian's attitude toward unfortunate events. The speaker talks of death very matter-of-factly. I think this has to do with how people view death. Outside of war, people are devastated when a single person dies tragically from cancer or a car crash. However, the public reacts almost nonchalantly about the death of a soldier in a war because they think it is a part of war. I think Vonnegut is trying to convey that death is death regardless of the situation, death is inevitable, and so it goes. I think the inevitability of death relates to the inevitability of war.

In addition to the repetition of  "so it goes", Vonnegut also brings back other lines from early in the novel. For example, " 'My God, my God' - I said to myself, 'It's the Children's Crusade.' (p.106)" The repetition of the Children's Crusade highlights another one of the themes of how war is practically fought by children. The novel wants to highlight the tragedies of war, and this is accomplished through this phrase about the Children's Crusade.

Slaughterhouse Five Section 2 (Part III)

As I have read Slaughterhouse Five, one of the most nagging questions I have had is whether Billy is the speaker or not. I had assumed this was going to be the author's story of how war ruined him, but this is not the case. I was a little shocked to read, "That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book (p.125)." Until this point, I thought that the story of Billy was the story of the author. I think Vonnegut made up the person of Billy Pilgrim to create the story the way he wants to tell it. Billy just becomes the innocent bystander of situations that could represent some of the author's real experiences or some fictionalized stories. I also assumed that the Dresden firebombing was fiction as well until I looked it up. It made sense to me that this significant event would be fiction because this is coming from a guy that writes about meeting aliens. Apparently, the Dresden firebombing did occur, and it is as brutal as the author describes it. Vonnegut  calls it "the greatest massacre in human history." I think this is interesting because following this statement, Billy is back talking with the Tralfamadorians, who are indifferent to the emotional aspect of this bombing.

Slaughterhouse Five Section 2 (Part II)

One of the most frequently occurring images is time. Vonnegut repeatedly talks of time throughout the novel. Most of the time, the Tralfamadorians are the ones that provide deep insights about time. I think Vonnegut chose to use aliens as the mode of presenting these thoughts because this type of thinking is completely foreign to how humans think. One example of this is "All time is time....It just is (p.86)." Of course, this novel was written before Jurassic Park, but the part about bugs in amber reminds me of Jurassic Park. I think that is a very interesting way to think of this though. Just as the scientists were able to bring back species from the past, so does Billy's time work in this sense because he is capable of seeing any part of the time in his life. Additionally, the events of one's life are inevitable. I think this is significant because it links all of this logic about time and humans with war. Humans are like machines and their life is going to happen as it is destined to happen. Similarly, war will always occur because humans functions like machines making their actions inevitable.