Unjust

"Alright, you want me to be a Nazi, you got ahead and classify me as a Nazi. You want to hang me, go ahead, you hang me if you think it will raise moral...." -Campbell
"I just want you to know how little we can really do for you." -Wirtanen

In this scene, Campbell is angry at Wirtanen, because no one in the U.S. can know what he has done to contribute to the war. Campbell has sacrificed his life and is left with nothing once he has returned to America. No one can know that he was actually a spy, and the world can only know that he is a broadcaster for Nazi's propaganda. This scene in the movie highlights how Campbell has made a such a big sacrifice for his nation, and yet, his nation refuses to do anything for him. The war highlights how the Nazi's were the ones who would abuse and torment the Jews, but essentially, America has done the same to Campbell. Instead of celebrating how he has aided in the war, no one can even have knowledge of the fact that he was a spy for his nation, and is left to fend for himself. The scene highlights the shortcomings of war and deglorifies it. Typically everyone hears about the heroes that have done amazing things to win the war for their nation, but we forget about the unspoken heroes.

Was it justified for America to not acknowledge Campbell's contribution to the war? Did Campbell truly remain loyal to America when he was with the Nazi's?

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?