Connections - Chapter Ten: Poo-tee-weet?

"Poo-tee-weet?" This bird seems to be the only one who knows what has happened throughout the war. The last lines of the novel show the unknown of war. Many people who live in a country at war do not even know what is happening in the war. They are oblivious to the death and destruction that surrounds them. When people try to explain what is going on, it sounds like gibberish. The people could understand the bird better than the war. Poo-tee-weet?

Literary Term - Chapter Ten: Motif

Throughout the whole novel, Vonnegut uses the phrase "so it goes." "He was arrested for plundering. He was tried and shot. So it goes." That is one of the many instances where "so it goes" is used. This phrase is a motif. A Motif is a recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work, unifying the current situation to previous ones, or new ideas to a theme. This phrase tends to come after the information that a death has occurred. Vonnegut uses this phrase to appeal to the Tralfamadorians' idea that people are still alive in the past, even when they are seemingly dead in one moment.

Connections - Chapter Nine: The Coffin Wagon

Billy Pilgrim and other Americans are looting abandoned houses in Dresden when they come across a wagon with two horses and a coffin in the back. They decide to take this and use is as transportation. When Billy Pilgrim is riding in the coffin, it makes me wonder about the connection between war and death. I believe this is a symbol that after war is over, a part of all who took part in it has died.

Literary Term - Chapter Nine: Epigraph

In Chapter Nine, Kurt Vonnegut talks about his epigraph for Slaughterhouse Five. An Epigraph is a quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of the theme. The epigraph of Slaughterhouse Five is "The cattle are lowing, The Baby awakes. But the little Lord Jesus No crying He makes." Vonnegut chose this quote from the famous Christmas carol, Away in the Manger, because of Billy Pilgrim's quiet and private weeping. Vonnegut said Billy Pilgrim resembled this epigraph because he saw many things worth crying about, but he didn't.

Connections - Chapter Eight: Dresden in Flames

The Dresden Firestorm takes place in this chapter. So many lives were taken, some guilty and some innocent. Kurt Vonnegut was among the few that survived the incident. When Billy Pilgrim arrives at the German inn owned by the blind man, he and the other Americans are given food and shelter. This shows that mass destruction can bring together any enemy.

Literary Term - Chapter Eight: Stock Character

In Chapter Eight, Billy Pilgrim is having an eighteenth wedding anniversary party at his house. He invited his favorite author, Kilgore Trout, and he was talking to a pretty young woman named Maggie White. Billy Pilgrim described her as "a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies." Kilgore Trout was telling her stories and she was so gullible that she believed them and was scared of some of the fictional details. Maggie White is a stock character. A Stock Character (a.k.a. Stereotype) is a fixed idea of a character that does not allow for any individuality, often based on religious, social, or racial prejudices. Maggie White is the equivalent of our society's "dumb blonde." She is a pretty girl who is not as smart as most people.

Connections - Chapter Seven: We are Machines

When Billy Pilgrim described his father-in-law as a machine, it made me think of the Terminator movies. Billy Pilgrim says that "Earthlings are offended by the idea of being machines." Just like in the movies, the people are scared of the Terminator so they try to hunt him down and kill him. The Tralfamadorians say that every creature is a machine. If you think about it, our bodies are organic machines that work in such a meticulous way so that we can live and function.

Literary Term - Chapter Seven: Symbols

In Chapter Seven, Billy Pilgrim is working in a factory that makes vitamin and mineral enriched syrup for pregnant women. Secretly, "Everybody who worked in the factory spooned the syrup all day long. They weren't pregnant, but they needed the vitamins and minerals, too." When Billy Pilgrim and Edgar Derby tried the syrup for the first time, they became very emotional. Spooning the syrup is a symbol for hope. Symbols are people, places, things, or events that stand for something more than itself. This action of spooning syrup into their mouths gives the workers hope and nourishment. They get hope that there are still simple pleasures that they can enjoy.

Connections - Chapter Six: Dresden

Dresden

Indianapolis

The American prisoners finally arrive in the beautiful city of Dresden. Vonnegut describes this city as "the loveliest city that most of the Americans had ever seen." Vonnegut also is able to compare the ridiculousness of the Americans outfits to the ridiculousness of the Dresdeners outfits; he also describes slaughterhouse five as a "home away from home." I think that Vonnegut is comparing Dresden to Indianapolis, the only two cities he has ever known. He describes Dresden as a lovely place even though he is there to do contracted labor as a prisoner.

Literary Term - Chapter Six: Static Character

In Chapter Six, Paul Lazzaro takes a more prominent role in the book. He had appeared earlier in the book as the man who held Roland Weary when he died, but now he plays a bigger role. Paul Lazzaro is a spiteful man who wanted revenge on any man who crossed his path, including Billy Pilgrim. He talks about "a certain man who promised to have me killed. He is an old man, living not far from here. He has read all the publicity associated with my appearance in your fair city. He is insane. Tonight he will keep his promise." Throughout his life, Paul Lazzaro has not changed much; this is the characteristic of a static character. A Static Character is one who does not change much in the course of a story. Paul Lazzaro is still a spiteful man who gets his revenge on Billy Pilgrim.

Connections - Chapter Five: Science Fiction

Billy Pilgrim's hospital buddy, Eliot Rosewater, had a massive collection of science fiction books that he and Billy Pilgrim shared. Throughout this chapter, there are references to previous events. Examples are the "Three Musketeers" with Roland Weary and the universe of the Tralfamadorians as compared to Billy Pilgrim's fiancé's Three Musketeers and Milky Way candy bars. When Billy Pilgrim was in that hospital, I think he developed a fantasy reality in which Tralfamadorians and the "Three Musketeers" story really existed. Billy Pilgrim was not satisfied with his life so he developed his mind to make his life meaningful.

Literary Term - Chapter Five: Flashbacks

In Chapter Five, there are a lot of Billy Pilgrim's time travel moments. Billy Pilgrim would "go to sleep and wake up as a widower in his empty home in Ilium" or would travel "from [Montana Wildhack's] delightful bed to a bed in 1968. It was his bed in Ilium...." These are flashbacks in Billy Pilgrim's mind. Flashbacks are scenes that interrupts the normal chronological sequence of events in a story to depict something that happened at an earlier time. Billy Pilgrim's dreams are like flashbacks into his memories and when he awakes, he is back at his home in Ilium in 1968.

Connections - Chapter Four: Human Inferiority

Humans are at the top of the food chain. So it goes. Billy Pilgrim asks the Tralfamordians why they chose him, and they respond, "That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim." In Slaughterhouse Five, Humans are not on top; Billy Pilgrim realizes this when he makes contact with the Tralfamordians. The Tralfamordians have a superior knowledge that we humans don't yet possess. They show Billy Pilgrim that many concepts humans believe in do not exist, such as free will. Ideas that we believe make humans superior could very well possibly be figments of our imagination.

Literary Term - Chapter Four: Litotes

In Chapter Four, Billy Pilgrim is aboard a train to a prison in Germany. He finds himself standing by a forty-year-old hobo; he always repeated the phrase "This ain't bad. I can get comfortable anywhere." The phrase ain't bad is a litotes. Litotes is a form of understatement in which the positive form is emphasized through the negation of a negative form. Vonnegut could have said is good instead of ain't bad. By saing ain't bad, Vonnegut still shows that the conditions could be better, but they are good in the eyes of the hobo.

Connections - Chapter Three: Religion

In Billy Pilgrim's office at work, there is a prayer on the wall that goes "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference." The the previous chapter Billy talks about a crucifix that his mother gave to him. Billy Pilgrim is not a religious man, so why does Vonnegut throw in these religious references? Kurt Vonnegut described himself as an atheist, so why would he want to include objects that talk about religion? I think he is trying to show that in times of despair, many turn toward religion for comfort and solace. 

Literary Term - Chapter Three: Imagery

In Chapter Three, Billy Pilgrim describes his bedroom in his Gregorian house. Pilgrim goes into great detail by saying "the room had flowered wallpaper. There was a double bed with a clock-radio on a table beside. Also on the table were controls for an electronic blanket..." Vonnegut is using imagery to describe this scene. Imagery is the use of sensory language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, a thing, a place, or an experience. Vonnegut also uses imagery to describe the blood from the two dying scouts as "a color of raspberry sherbet."

Connections - Chapter Two: Time Travel?

Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time. I cannot fathom what goes on inside Pilgrim's head when he becomes "unstuck in time." His delusions of Tralfamadorians and his traveling through time is mind-boggling; it makes me wonder what happened to this wealthy optometrist during that tragic plane crash. Vonnegut writes in such a way that the reader cannot figure out where Billy Pilgrim really is. He could be fighting in the war or he could be at his house, just remembering the war in a prolonged moment of time travel through his mind. What is going on inside Billy Pilgrim's head? 

Literary Term - Chapter Two: Stream of Consciousness

In Chapter Two, Billy Pilgrim is portrayed as a wealthy man who becomes a senile, deranged man who speaks of two-feet tall aliens called Tralfamadorians. When he speaks about Tralfamadore, Vonnegut is using a stream of consciousness. A Stream of Consciousness is defined as a style of writing that portrays the inner, often chaotic, workings of a character's mind. Vonnegut also uses a stream of consciousness when writes about Roland Weary. Weary views his journey with two scouts behind enemy lines as a tale of the Three Musketeers. The men "fought like hell until everybody was dead...and decided to fight their way back to their own lines. They shook hands and called themselves 'The Three Musketeers.'" Vonnegut hints that this is a stream of consciousness by telling the reader that Weary felt like he was telling a war story even thought the real war story was still going on.

Connections - Chapter One: Kurt Vonnegut is Human

Kurt Vonnegut makes himself so easy to relate to; it is as if he is trying to become friends with his readers. In his writing, he speaks about his "disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone" and how he has become "an old fart with his memories and his Pall Malls, with his sons full grown." In this chapter, Vonnegut avoids all formalities and writes as if he's speaking to a friend. Vonnegut is very appealing to the reader; he wants to tell a story, not write a book. I think Kurt Vonnegut might become one of my favorite authors, and I've only read the first chapter!

Literary Term - Chapter One: External Conflict

When Vonnegut visits his friend from the war, Bernard V. O'Hare, his wife subtly shows her anger toward Vonnegut when she "made a lot of noise banging the ice-cube tray in the stainless steel sink...opening and shutting doors, even moving furniture around to work off anger." This is an example of an external conflict. External conflict is defined as a conflict existing between two people, between a person and nature, or between a person and a whole society. Mrs. O'Hare eventually expresses her anger by telling Vonnegut that he will be "played in the movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving, dirty old men...and [wars] will be fought by babies like the babies upstairs." She doesn't want her babies to fight in any wars. Two external conflicts appear in this chapter:  Her conflict with Vonnegut and her conflict with war.