Why Include the Narrator?

       For some reason, Vonnegut decided to make the narrator of his story a character in the book. He threw this narrator into the very first chapter, then threw him in again at the beginning of chapter 10. He was even pointed out at random times in the middle of the story, for no apparent reason. I wondered why the narrator’s perspective was needed when Billy’s story was the one being told. What did the narrator’s personal voice add to the narrative?

     Perhaps Vonnegut was trying to ground his story in reality, such as with the very first quote of the book: “All this happened, more or less...One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn't his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on...”

      When he interjects to point out this narrator, a normal person who could very well be himself, it reminds the reader that these sort of  events really did happen in the war, even if they’re shown alongside time travel and aliens.

       I also think that the first chapter sets a tone for the rest of the story. Vonnegut paints a picture of a slightly senile old man(maybe a version of himself) who has lived a full life but is still haunted by the war. It's a perspective that we hardly get anywhere else in the book, this looking back on the war and seeing how the memory of it permeates an otherwise normal life. The narrator reveals this struggle on a much more personal level then we see it with Billy.

      Why do you think Vonnegut chose to include the narrator's personal perspective? Is the narrator Vonnegut, or is he a fictional character like any other?

Billy's death

I was very surprised by the description of Billy’s death.

“At that moment, Billy’s high forehead is in the cross hairs of a high-powered laser gun. It is aimed at him from the darkened press box. In the next moment, Billy Pilgrim is dead.” (p. 143)

It was weird for me to read about the main character’s death in the middle of the book. Usually, the main character dies in the end, but this whole book is not in chronological order.

Also, I have never read a book, where the character would be so careless about his own death. I think it relates to the Billy’s perception of the life (Tralfamadorian perception of the time).

I wanted to share, that the description of his death was really strange for me. I did not feel sad for him which was also created by the fact. that the story continued the next line.

How did you feel about his death? Do you like this non-chronological storytelling?

Somewhere a dog barked

I noticed the repetition of this sentence. First time, it appears on page 75: “...It was a flying saucer from Tralfamadore, navigating in both space and time...Somewhere a big dog barked.” I noticed that the sentence does not belong to the context very well. but I did not pay a big attention to it, because there are many moments throughout the book, when I was confused.

However, then I read the sentence second time on page 82: “...Somewhere a dog barked. With the help of fear and echoes and winter silences, that dog had a voice like a big bronze gong...:” Now, I stopped. This was the second time Vonnegut used this sentence and again, it does not belong very well into context.

            I do not know, what is the author trying to say with this sentence. I think, maybe he is trying to emphasize the silence of the moment. It was so quiet, that you could hear a dog barked somewhere.

What do you think about the importance of this sentence? Is it important at all?

Feet Symbolism

When I asked my sister, (who has read Slaughterhouse Five) to give me ideas for a blog post, she said, “write about feet.” I thought about it, and I realized that this book does have a lot of references to feet.  Of course, there is the common phrase “blue and ivory,” used (seven times) to describe both Billy’s feet and the feet of dead people.

“Billy got out of bed in the moonlight….He looked down at his bare feet. They were ivory and blue"(Vonnegut 72).

“They saw the dead hobo again....Somebody had taken his boots. His bare feet were blue and ivory"(Vonnegut 148).

However there are also many other times when feet are featured at critical parts of the story. For example, the first thing Billy sees when he is captured are the golden boots and rag swaddled feet of the two German soldiers(pg 53). A photographer takes propaganda photos of Weary’s and Billy’s feet as “evidence of how miserably equipped the American Army often was”(Vonnegut 58). Roland Weary is in terrible pain from his feet and then dies of gangrene that starts there(pg 79). The horses pulling the wagon in Dresden are in pain from their broken feet (pg 196).

           I started to think about what these references might mean. One thought I had was that feet are what connect a person to the Earth, something that anchors a person to life.  Maybe when feet have turned to the dead color of “blue and ivory” it is showing how the connection to life has withered. Maybe Billy’s blue and ivory feet are showing his disconnection from the life he lives, and his removal from reality. Another thought I had was that feet that are bare and unprotected have a more direct connection with the earth, the world. Maybe the horses’ bare hooves and Billy's or Weary’s shoeless feet were indicating a direct connection with the suffering and pain of the world.

         Am I reading too far into this?  If not, do you have other thoughts about the importance of feet, particularly when related to the phrase “blue and ivory”? How could this be related to the relationship between life and death?

Edgar Derby

Out of all of the characters, Edgar Derby was the one that really stood out to me. He seemed to have more strength and personality than any of the other characters. In a way, he seemed to be the soldier most suited to being a soldier.

When the narrator first talked about Edgar Derby’s death, he mused, “‘The irony is so great. A whole city gets burned down, and thousands and thousands of people are killed. And then this one American foot soldier is arrested in the ruins for taking a teapot....and then he's shot by a firing squad.'”

            For me this quote connected back to the idea of the unpredictability and injustice of war. Edgar Derby, a strong, heroic leader, seems like the type of soldier who should die in some heroic blaze of glory, but in reality, he dies in the least glamorous, least meaningful way possible.

I also found it interesting that Derby was immediately introduced to us as a doomed man.

“Billy was put to bed and tied down, and given a shot of morphine. Another American

volunteered to watch over him. This volunteer was Edgar Derby, the high school teacher

who would be shot to death in Dresden. So it goes”(Vonnegut 98).

In not just this instance, but in every single instance, the name is accompanied by “poor old,” “doomed,” or “would be shot in Dresden.” It seems to me that the narrator wanted to impress upon us the belief that what happens in the “future” will always happen, and cannot be changed. By always reminding us that Derby dies, the narrator tells us that his death is an undeniable part of him, a part that can never be undone. Derby always has died in this way, and always will. This reminded me of Billy’s complete acceptance of his own death, seen on page 143. Billy made no attempt to prevent his death, as he accepted that it was absolutely inevitable.

How does Edgar Derby contrast the other American soldiers, and why? Are there other characters that you found particularly interesting?

Soldiers or Children?

For almost the entire time I was reading this book, I was frustrated with how dull,  uninteresting, and unmotivated the characters were. I also wondered why Vonnegut, writing an anti-war book, wouldn’t describe anything that actually resembled warfare. Then I read this quote, and started to understand Vonnegut’s motivations for writing this way.

“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.”

    I took this quote as an explanation for why Vonnegut never showed the horrors of battle, and never showed his characters reacting too dramatically to anything. He wanted to reinforce the idea that most of the people who fight wars aren’t strong, heroic soldiers, but weak, spineless children. It seems to me that he showed only the miserable, unglamorous realities of war, while steering clear of the dramatic battles, so as not to risk us ever seeing these children as soldiers. I compared Slaughterhouse Five to All Quiet on the Western Front. The characters in All Quiet endured horrible things and mused about the horrors of war all the time, which did have a powerful effect. However, we saw the All quiet characters fight.  We saw them endure terrible things but be strong enough to get through it. We knew that they were children, but they seemed like real soldiers. In some ways, by not showing the gruesome battles, Vonnegut did a better job of illustrating the injustice of sending young and unprepared children to fight.

    What are your thoughts? Do you think Vonnegut made the book more or less powerful by choosing not to show scenes of warfare? What other explanations might there be for Vonnegut to write his characters and scenes this way?

Time

As many of us have figured out, hopefully, this book does not occur in a chronological structure of events. I, for one, have never read a book quite like this one. There are many questions I had wrestled with when first beginning this novel; the primary one being: why would one choose to structure a book like Kurt Vonnegut has structured his?

There is evidence of this odd writing style found scattered in this novel.  The time "Billy first came unstuck in time" was very near to the beginning of the book (43), and has been going on constantly. My most thoughtful answer to why one would choose this writing style is to reinforce the ideas of the Tralfamadorians. The aliens we have come to know have a very different perspective on time than what "Earthlings" possess (83). The Tralfamadorians believe that, "all moments, past, present, and future, always have existed" (27). So, my best guess. is that this book is a reflection of that belief.

What are your thoughts on the structure? Do you see the Tralfamadorians lifestyle/ beliefs reflect anywhere else in the book?