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?