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.