War and Bad Breath

"Trout's leading robot looked like a human being, and could talk and dance and so on, and go out with girls. And nobody held it against him that he dropped jellied gasoline on people. But they found his halitosis unforgivable. But then he cleared that up, and he was welcomed to the human race."

-pg 214

In this particular passage, Vonnegut is describing a story by Billy Pilgrim's favorite science fiction writer, Kilgore Trout. However, Vonnegut does not pass up this moment in order to bring to light a characteristic of human nature regarding the blind acceptance of war. Vonnegut is placing "dropping jellied gasoline on people" and "halitosis" on the same level, and further makes hurting other human beings to be more acceptable. He is not creating this comparison in order for it to be taken seriously (similar to the rest of the novel), rather he is creating this comparison in order for the reader to make a realization about human acceptance of the war. Most humans accept war as a necessary evil- of course many people do not support it, yet war continues to be looked upon as something that must be done. Most people look at war as one single action, yet fail to recognize the smaller actions within war, such as hurting other human beings. Mankind can forgive people who do this "necessary evil," yet many times steer clear of people who have simple undesirable qualities such as "halitosis." Although Vonnegut takes this comparison to the extreme (dropping jellied gasoline is not a common practice in war, and no one would actually exclude someone on the basis of halitosis), such extremity forces the reader to reflect upon common beliefs about war and its acceptability as a whole.

In your opinion, do you think that this novel effectively brought war to the extreme in order for a greater truth to be exposed? Also, is this tactic what people need in order to recognize that war is not what people crack it up to be?

Vegetable

"Why don't they let him die?" he asked Lily.
"I don't know," she said.

"That's not a human being anymore."

Billy's roommate in the hospital, Professor Rumfoord, and his wife have this conversation about him while he is assumed to be in a vegetable state. Billy is aware of his surroundings, what is happening and what is being said, but he doesn't fight this attitude people have taken toward him. If he cared to say anything in response, it would probably "I know! that's what I've been saying all along, I just want to die." Finally people are treating him how he wish they would have his whole life. Here, medically he is a vegetable and it seems to be less painful to speed up death.

But hasn't he been a vegetable all along? What does it take to be considered a functioning human being? If Billy Pilgrim has never made any choices, and really tried to live, has he just been slowly dying all this time?

pg. 275

One bird said to Billy Pilgrim, “Poo-tee-weet?” (pg. 275)

I find it interesting that Vonnegut chooses to end the novel with this line. The bird is a recurring symbol throughout the novel that serves to fill the silence when there is nothing left to be said, or perhaps when there is an inability to express what needs to be said. We first encounter it on page 24 when the narrator asks, “and what do birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like poo-tee-weet?” The novel is obviously read as an anti-war piece, yet it also acknowledges that taking this stand is futile and in the end he might as well be writing an anti-glacier book because war is not something that can be simply avoided. Billy visits and revisits the various events of his life, but doesn’t really offer any perspective to the issue at hand, other than the fact that war is devastating. The easy part for Billy is recounting all of these things and living in a state of delusion on Tralfamadore, but in the end he still doesn’t really know what to do with himself, which is why the book ends with the meaningless words “poo-tee-weet.” In my mind I read those last few words as “so now what?”

In your mind, what is the take away message of the novel? What insight did Billy’s repetitive recollections provide?

Dignity

“On an average, 324,000 new babies are born into the world every day. During that same day, 10,000 persons, on average, will have starved to death or died from malnutrition. So it goes. In addition, 123,000 persons will die for other reasons.So it goes. This leaves a net gain of about 191,000 each day in the world. The Population Reference Bureau predicts that the world's total population will double 7,000,000,000 before the year 2000.'I suppose they will all want dignity,' I said.
'I suppose,' said O'Hare.”
Pg. 488

In this passage O'Hare and Vonnegut are traveling back to Dresden and discover these statistics when looking up the population of Dresden. Vonnegut is showing that everyday people want dignity and this is a problem recurring throughout the book. Dignity is a come at a high price to death and Billy cannot find this kind of dignity on his home planet until he accepts the Tramalfadorian idea that death and life can coexist. As Billy accepts this idea, his actions show how futile free will is. If Billy had trained like the other soldiers he still might die. Even with human effort many die as Billy, a joke, survives showing human effort at a dignified death is an illusion, another reason not everyone can choose their death. Vonnegut asks if there will be enough dignity to go around the growing population, but leaves this answer for the reader to decide.

Vonnegut does not follow the traditional story pattern and with this lack of climax shows war has made the climax impertinent. Earlier in the novel, Vonnegut tells O'Hare that the execution of Edgar Derby should be the climax, but his death is stated as a simple, almost overlooked fact: “He was arrested for plundering. He was tried and shot. So it goes.” Derby's reason for being executed seems ironic when contrasted with the bodies they are about to dig up. With the repetition of the phrase “So it goes.” Vonnegut seems to imply that there is no dignity or justice in death by keeping a tally of the dead. This shows that death is inevitable for everyone, even the growing population, so it is unreasonable for every single person to die with dignity.

Is there always dignity in death? Does everyone desire this dignity for their death? By accepting Tramalfadorian ideals can there be more dignity in death?

Page 208

"There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters."

This section stood out to me simply because of the horrible sadness it portrays. He seems to see no hope in the war and expresses his thoughts that nothing good comes from it. Rather than creating all these heroic, ideal images and "characters" of the men fighting in the war, Billy ironically points out that war runs them down so much that they are too weak and malnourished to do anything of heroic worth at most times. When they are not fighting in the actual war, they are too busy being lethargic in their slaughterhouse to even interact, much less have "dramatic confrontations." I liked this part because it shines light, once again, on how bad being in the armed forces can actually get sometimes. It's not all rainbows, bravery, and purple hearts that we as spectators are led to believe. The soldiers are often in harsh living conditions and struggle mentally, physically, and emotionally. I think showing this aspect of the life of a soldier is one of Vonnegut's strongest anti-war arguments.

This section shows the sacrifices our soldiers make for our country. Would you have the courage and endurance to sacrifice your mental/physical/emotional health for the safety and well being of thousands of people in your country that you don't even know? Would the chance of even making it out alive be worth the incredible suffering and struggle? I think we don't think about these things enough and don't realize just how much our soldiers give up for the good of the nation.

Slaughterhouse Five

"Later on in life, the Tralfamadorians would advise Billy to concentrate on the happy moments of his life, and to ignore the unhappy ones - to stare only at pretty things as eternity failed to go by. If this sort of selectivity had been possible for Billy, he might have chosen as his happiest moment his sun drenched snooze in the back of the wagon." 249

At this point in the book, Billy and five other Americans have gone back into Dresden two days after the bombing to go back the the slaughterhouse. Billy stays in the wagon once they get there and takes a nap. I thought it was really strange that this moment was described as one of the happiest moments for Billy. At the beginning we are told that this book is an anti-war novel, which is why it was weird to me that the main character's happiest moment is at a time when he is at war. Although this moment does come two days after the bombing, it is still in a time of war. This book could have continued on just fine without mentioning that this was his happiest moment.

Why does Vonnegut tell the reader that this might have been Billy's happiest moment? If this is an anti-war novel why does this moment come during the war?

Existence

"It was alright," said Billy. "Everything was all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does. I learned that on Tralfamadore."



This is Billy's reply to Professor Rumfoord's inquiry as to how he felt about the bombing of Dresden. Billy's ambivalence to events is an extension of his ability to for see the future, thus, losing all surprise in life. It is important that Billy uses "all right" in the second part instead of "alright." Had he used "alright," he would of been continuing the confession of his emotional view of the bombing, instead, he uses "all right," which is an allusion to the fact that Billy knew what would happen because of his time traveling abilities and that everything had happened all right according to plan. This demonstrates the theme of Predeterminism that clouds the novel and Billy's perception of reality. His blunt, uncaring way of recanting the executions and deaths of his friends stem from the looming element that everything has been preplanned and will only happen that way. Predeterminism obliterates of free will, a concept that the Tralfamadorians also teach. His experiences time travelling and with the Tralfamadorians are a metaphor for the irony of free will in a world that has no surprises or possibilities of alternate outcomes.

Billy's experiences serve as a metaphor for the senselessness in human behavior in the context of predetermination and existentialism, is the inclusion in the war a cause for Billy's beliefs or an extension of them?

He was tried and shot. So it goes.

"Somewhere in there the poor old high school teacher, Edgar Derby, was caught with a teapot he had taken from the catacombs. He was arrested for plundering. He was tried and shot. So it goes" (274).

Throughout most of the novel, the narrator refers to the death of Edgar Derby. His death by firing squad is mentioned on several occasions, in fact, Vonnegut refers to Derby's death every time he is mentioned. The reader expects the description of the death, when it finally comes time for us to bear witness to it, will be detailed and lengthy because it seems to have effected the narrator as well as Billy so profoundly. In the first chapter, Vonnegut even mentions that he wished the death to be the climax in his original drafts and outlines of the novel. However, the actual event in the novel is much different than is to be expected. It comes on the second to last page and only occupies a total of 5 lines (including "So it goes" which occupies a line of its own). This ties in with the overall sense that this is the way things are, were, and always will be that Vonnegut seems to be portraying throughout the novel. Describing Derby's death in full will not change it, and reliving an unpleasant moment is, as one imagines the Tralfamadorians might put it, a foolish waste of time.

Why do you think Vonnegut mentioned Derby's death so many times throughout the novel, but then only dedicated 5 lines to describing the actual death?

Belief and Experience

“The time-traveler in the book went back to Bible times to find out one thing in
particular: Whether or not Jesus had really died on the cross, or whether he had been
taken down while still alive, whether he had really gone on living. The hero had a
stethoscope along.
Billy skipped to the end of the book, where the hero mingled with the people who were
taking Jesus down from the cross. The time-traveler was the first one up the ladder,
dressed in clothes of the period, and he leaned close to Jesus so people couldn't see him use the stethoscope, and he listened.
There wasn't a sound inside the emaciated chest cavity. The Son of God was as dead as
a doornail
So it goes.” (260).

In this passage, Billy has traveled to New York and finds himself reading a Kilgore Trout novel that he has discovered in an adult bookstore. Quite Humorously, Trout’s novel is about a “time-traveler” who journeys to Golgotha in in an effort to discover how mortal “The Son of God” really is. The empiricist time-traveler, who is twice referred to as “the hero” of the story, has wisely chosen to bring a “stethoscope” along to find out if Jesus is dead, one way or another. Interestingly, just as Billy interrupted the continuity of Trout’s narrative when he “skipped to the end of the book,” the “stethoscope,” serves as an ironic connection from the senses to experience, which disrupts the linear features of a divine being. By removing deity from the equation in “Slaughterhouse Five,” Vonnegut amplifies the absurdity of war while, simultaneously, highlighting the distinctions between belief and experiences. After all, there is no resurrection for Jesus here. In fact, there is an absence of sound indicating that no experience can be found to support his existence as myth in this passage. Jesus ends up just like everyone else, “dead as a doornail”.

How is the dismantling of Christian fantasy in this passage consistent with the non-linear structure of time throughout the novel? Could Vonnegut be suggesting that the worst things in life result from action derived from (A priori) beliefs rather than those founded in actual experience?

Why me?

‘Why me?’ he asked the guard. The guard shoved him back into ranks. 'Vy you? Vy anybody?' he said" (116).

The simple question, "why me?" is echoed here from earlier on in the book when the Tralfamadorians abduct Billy, as that is the only question that he has for them in the strange situation. It seems as if this question sums up Billy's overall question about his life, in a way, which is odd because this directly contrasts with the novel's mantra, "so it goes." "So it goes" is a phrase that exudes an easy-going undertone and makes it seem as if Billy does not care how, when, or why things in life happen, just like the Tralfamadorians. "Why me?" counters all of these ideas by showing that Billy really does wonder what the reasons are for the way that things happen, and why these things are always happening to him.

Is Billy trying too hard to buy into the ways of the Tralfamadorians after he meets them? When before, he always asked questions about why he had to suffer?

Sci-Fi Therapy

“…he and Billy were dealing with similar crises in similar ways. They had both found life meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in war. Rosewater, for instance, had shot a 14 yr old fireman, mistaking him for a German soldier. So it goes. And Billy had seen the greatest massacre in European history, which was the fire-bombing of Dresden. So it goes.

            So they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe. Science fiction was a big help” 

–pg. 128

In this passage, we learn that Billy and Rosewater have both been permanently damaged by their individual experiences in the war. Both of which are characterized the loss of innocent life and the overwhelming guilt that the two men feel as a result. The outside world becomes a constant reminder of the traumatic incidents they both experienced in their pasts. So, the two soldiers turn to reading Science Fiction novels, specifically those written by Kilgore Trout, who even becomes Billy’s “favorite living author,” to psychologically distance themselves from the realities of the real world. By immersing themselves in a different world with different people, places, physics, laws, and lives, they are able to block out the facets of ordinary life that remind them of the horrors that the world is capable of, especially in war. This shows some encouraging resolve in Billy, who uses his Trout novels to “re-invent (himself) and (his) universe” instead of simply succumbing to the misery of his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Reading science fiction is a “big help” in this regard for Billy as he tries to live a post-war life that he and Rosewater both consider to be utterly pointless.

It is also important to note that the phrase “So it goes” follows the description of both men’s most horrific moments in the war. This phrase summarizes the powerless feeling and eventual resignation that Billy and Rosewater experience in the wake of such lasting emotional trauma.

Is Billy’s constant “time-travelling” throughout the plot an attempt to use Science Fiction themes in order to “re-invent himself and his universe” as he tries to cope with civilian life, or is he simply powerless to these shifts in time as the phrase “so it goes” would imply?

"There isn't any particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time" (Chapter 5, Page 207-208 ebook).

Billy is attempting to read the Tralfamadorian's novels and finds that he cannot understand nor comprehend exactly what they are trying to convey. Not really understanding just how to relate this form of literature to the norm on Earth, Billy asks if they are like telegrams, to which he is told that they are alike in that they are "brief, urgent message[s] - describing a situation, a scene." This description is almost exactly parallel with Billy's life as a time traveller and the entire structure of Slaughterhouse Five. Vonnegut replicates this sense of telegraphic communication by inserting lines of three star-dots, aligning his attempt to tell his story about Dresden with Billy's narrative. Though out of order, like both of these stories, all of the elements come together to create one beautiful and understanding piece of literature or art. Vonnegut seems to use Billy as a way to convey that his story cannot be complete without taking in all of the information as a whole. Just like the Tralfamadorian's literature, it's more about the big picture, like memories, all coming together at once to show a story, yet still giving important and moving details. This description makes it easier to understand the novel as a whole, rather than focusing on the snippets of information that we receive as readers. Memories are hard to decipher, and Vonnegut's attempt to organize them is interesting and entertaining.

Does Vonnegut negate the sole purpose of time and learning from past experiences to improve the future? If past, present and future are all irrelevant, does our existence become frivolous?

Determinism and War

“The American was astonished. He stood up shakily, spitting up blood. He’d had two teeth knocked out. He meant no harm by what he’d said, evidently, he had no idea that the guard would hear and understand.

‘Why me?’ he asked the guard.

The guard shoved him back into ranks. ‘Vy you? Vy anybody?’ he said” (116)

The simple response that the German Soldier gives to the American POW conveys both the idea of determinism and that war is inevitable and stupid. The German does not necessarily know why he wanted to hit the POW he just knows that the American is his enemy and should be disrespected in any way, shape or form. The German soldier also understands that he could have hit any other POW but, he happened to hit the man who talked. This encapsulates the idea that humans do not have free will and we are governed by predetermined actions. The beating also goes hand in hand with the repetition of “so it goes” to represent that we have choice in life and everything is predetermined. Vonnegut is also able to show the pointlessness of war by depicting the senseless beating of the prisoner. There was no reason for the German to beat him, he just did it because it was determined that he was his enemy. The beating was pointless, just like war is pointless from a moral and ethical standpoint.

If war is inevitable then why should their be anti-war books or ideas, shouldn’t we just accept that war happens? What is the point of existing if our lives are predetermined?

Pg 112

"There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time."

At this point in the novel, Billy is discussing how Tralfamadorians write their books, which is coincidentally (or not so) how Slaughterhouse Five itself is written. I think the form in which is written is vital to the jumpiness and sparatic memories experienced by Billy. Like the books on the alien planet, Slaughterhouse Five, as well as Billy, are just a jumble of scenes and thoughts and memories that have "no beginning, no middle, no end." Also, because Billy can "time travel" he knows exactly how his life will play out and shares his knowledge of the future with the readers, which in turn gives us "no suspense." Sometimes reading the book can be a struggle if you aren't paying attention or forget what was previously happening in the scene when Billy revists it. However, overall, I think the way it is written helps us to relate to Billy and see his jumpy life from inside his mind and through his eyes.

Do you think Vonegut wasn't satisfied with telling his story in chronological order? Did he create these aliens in the story for the sole purpose of planting the idea in Billy of jumping around in the past, present, and future, so that he could construct the novel differently to make it stand out against other novels?

SlaughterHouse- Chapter 5

"There isn’t any particular relationship between the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time." P. 112

In this passage, Billy attempts to read a Trafalmadorian novel. However, he is unable to read it but realizes that the books are laid out in clumps separated by stars. In the quote above, one of Billy's captors explains why Trafalmadorian novels are structured as they are.

Kurt Vonnegut obviously adopts this model in the structuring of Slaughterhouse Five. He separates clumps of texts with a row of dots. Like billy, Vonnegut also lack the power to choose his moments. Vonnegut's use of the Trafalmadorian structure appears to be a desperate effort to achieve the beauty and depth he thinks his novel may lack. The rows of dots in Slaughterhouse are something the novel can go without; they do not add any dimensions to the novel that Vonnegut may have strived for.

Do you think Vonnegut achieves the depth he aims for by separating the text with a row of dots?

Vision and Time

“While he examined the boy’s eyes, Billy told him matter-of-factly about his adventures on Tralfamadore, assured the fatherless boy that his father was very much alive still in moments the boy would see again and again.
“Isn’t that comforting?” Billy asked.
And somewhere in there, the boy’s mother went out and told the receptionist that Billy was evidently going crazy. Billy was taken home. His daughter asked him again, “Father, Father, Father— what are we going to do with you?” (172)

Billy, refreshled and inspired by his “wet dream about Montana Wildhack,” has decided to return to work and preach the “Tralfamadorian” gospel of the “fourth dimension” to an unsuspecting war widow and her son. As Billy “examined the boy’s eyes,” he attempts to adjust his sight by offering the boy a perspective of time in which his father is still alive. For Billy, the things we see are what we will always see, which is why he has taken it upon himself to inform the “boy that his father was very much alive still in the moments the boy would see again and again”. Unfortunately, the boy’s mother and Billy’s daughter are unable to appreciate his “Amor fati” (love of fate) that he describes as being a “comforting” alternative to the dull surprise offered by mortality and they conclude that he must be “going crazy”. In a final display of life as repetition, the passage concludes with his daughter asking Billy “—again, Father, Father, Father— what are we going to do with you?” Thus, the emphasis upon the importance of vision and time becomes apparent as Billy attempts to share the insights that resulted in his being “unstuck”.

How does fragmenting the narrative into non-linear parcels of time, enhance the effectiveness of the novels antiwar message? Are Billy’s deconstructed views of his experiences capable conveying the absolute absurdity of wars to todays reader?