Epilogue

This is my final blog entry. So it goes. I'll use this blog entry to make some closing remarks on the story of Slaughterhouse-Five.

The last chapter opens with Vonnegut describing the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy, the carnage taking place in Vietnam at the time, and the death of Vonnegut's father. So it goes. These are used to nail in one of the story's main purposes, showing how widespread death is, and how some people just don't care. King and Kennedy were both mourned by the nation; Vonnegut's father by his family; and those in Vietnam scarcely by anyone.

On a side note, Vonnegut says of his father "He was a sweet man. He was a gun nut, too. He left me his guns. They rust." This short passage serves to show Vonnegut's anti-war views.

The second and third paragraphs compare alien cultures described by Pilgrim and Trout. On Tralfamadore, the aliens state that they have a greater interest in Darwin's philosophy that corpses are improvements than Jesus' philosophy that death can be overcome. When describing Trout, Vonnegut makes a humorous juxtaposition of the alien's interest in both Darwin and golf, an odd pairing, although it would make sense for alien cultures to have a different sense of importance.

Next, the trip to Dresden undertaken by Vonnegut and his old war buddy O'Hare is described. It is seemingly a rather trivial passage. However, two parts are important. One describes Vonnegut mentally reliving his experience in the bombing of Dresden while staring down at the modern city from his airplane seat. This passage provides a dark tone to the passage. The next describes O'Hare's finding of the world's population growth and death rates. After reading it, Vonnegut remarks dryly "I suppose they will all want dignity." He says this not because he does not believe that they should have dignity, but because through his own experiences he has found that the world's leaders appear to not believe there is enough dignity to go around.

The final part of the chapter describes Pilgrim's experiences after the bombing. He and a Maori are made to dig holes for corpses. The Maori dies of dry heaving after smelling the rotting bodies. So it goes. Due to his death, the Germans decide on a new strategy of immolating the corpses with flamethrowers. So it goes. Meanwhile, in another part of the city, poor old Edgar Derby is found with a stolen teapot. Even in the face of a horrendous massacre, the Germans still take time to shoot him. So it goes. Finally, at the end of WWII, Pilgrim steps outside his stable, alone in Dresden. Only the birds are there to speak to him. The book ends on the bird asking the unanswerable and incomprehensible question of "Poo-tee-weet?"As Vonnegut himself once said, "there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre."

So It Goes

Throughout all of Slaughterhouse-Five, and especially in chapter 10, the phrase "so it goes" is used to describe death. Whenever a character, no matter how small or large, dies, the only remark made of his or her death is the story's infamous understatement, "so it goes". The meaning of the refrain can be taken as the obvious Tralfamadorian view of the book, or applied to reality in either a cynical or fatalist fashion. The cynical view would be that Vonnegut does not care about death, that we are all so small and insignificant that none of us is worthy of anything more than 3 words to mark our death, no matter what we did in life. The fatalist view is simply that death happens. Nothing can be done to avoid death, and thus we need not worry about mortality, as it is inevitable and there should be more time spent enjoying life than attempting to prolong it.

She Was a Heavenly Azure

In chapter 9, Billy Pilgrim's dull, plain, unattractive, obese wife whom who loves dearly yet is very distant from, Valencia Merble, dies of carbon monoxide poisoning. Billy's reaction is typical to his reaction to all the tragedies in his life; "So it goes". Slaughterhouse-Five includes fatalism as a constant theme. Fatalism is a philosophical belief that the past, present, and future are all set in stone, and thus attempting to change things is futile. Fatalists will normally choose to just "go with the flow" when it comes to life. After all, if it's impossible to change something, why bother? This perfectly describes Billy Pilgrim. Even after the firebombing of Dresden, the execution of poor Edgar Derby and the accidental death of his wife, he's still pretty much alright with everything.

Rumfoord

In chapter 9, the only form of direct characterization other than Billy's passivity is used. The other man in Pilgrim's hospital room, Professor Bertram Copeland Rumfoord, is described as "a hateful old man, conceited and cruel. He often said to the [hospital staff], in one way or another, that people who were weak deserved to die." The reason direct characterization is not used in the book is simply because Vonnegut did not view characters as important to the story. They were "machines", in a very Tralfamadorian sense. Vonnegut uses characters simply as pawns in his story. They exist simply to serve a purpose, allowing Vonnegut to explain his views and recount his war experiences in a narrative form.

Kilgore Trout

Throughout Slaughterhouse-Five, the author Kilgore Trout is referenced repeatedly. He is used to make interesting analogies to reality. Although he is never cited due to his “terrible prose”, his story ideas are regarded as very great. In Chapter 8, the plot of two of his stories are cited. The first was “a book about a money tree . . . it attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer.” The second was a book called The Gutless Wonder, a story about a very humanlike robot who was judged more for his “unforgiveable” halitosis than his job as a mass murderer of humans.

The purpose of Kilgore Trout is to show Vonnegut’s opinions through colorful parables without having to use any prose. The story about the money tree is very plainly about how money corrupts people to kill each other, while the only one who truly profits is the money itself. The Gutless Wonder’s purpose is to satirize how the human race can find something as inoffensive as bad breath as a larger evil than cold-blooded mass murder. Vonnegut was known to vehemently oppose war, and Trout allows him to indirectly insert himself into the story (although he does appear for humorous purposes in a few places in the story).

The Barbershop Quartet

In Chapter 8, Billy Pilgrim falls to an odd kind of foreshadowing. Although the reader already knows of the plane crash, Pilgrim does not. However, while he is at his and Valencia’s anniversary party, the barbershop quartet that performs on his airplane sings. Their singing causes him to become incredibly uncomfortable, foreshadowing the plane crash. However, Pilgrim still does not know of the crash in that particular moment in time, while the reader does, creating dramatic irony. This is inserted into the story in order to show that Pilgrim did not always possess the ability to see through time directly, although he was able to foreshadow disaster indirectly.

Absurdity

At several points in Chapter 7, Vonnegut will briefly go completely off topic to make a note about a seemingly trivial detail. For instance, after singing a rather vulgar song about Polish people, Vonnegut writes “speaking of people from Poland: . . .” and then goes on to explain the hanging of a Polish man being hanged in Dresden, despite having nothing to do with the airplane scene. In a similar vein, it is later pointed out that Billy Pilgrim and Werner Gluck, a young, weak, scrawny German guard, “were, in fact, distant cousins, something they never found out.” The purpose of these random notes could be explained in two ways. The first is that simply Vonnegut was simply writing his stream-of-thought, regardless of the relevancy of his remarks. The second is Vonnegut trying to enhance his absurdist tone taken throughout the book.

Billy Was Alright

In Chapter 7, a potential motivation for Billy’s constant ramblings of time travel is given. In the chapter, he is involved in a plane crash, which he supposedly knows about beforehand but doesn’t tell anyone because he doesn’t wish to look like a fool. Everyone in the plane dies but him and the copilot, including Lionel Merbel, Billy’s father-in-law. So it goes. Afterwards, “he was taken to a small private hospital. A famous brain surgeon came up from Boston and operated on him for three hours.” It is commonly known that even after brain surgery, severe head trauma can cause severe mental issues. His staunch belief in time travel could be a result of this trauma. A symptom of his insanity could include him falsifying his own memories in order to fit them in with his convoluted state of mind. His condition is used by Vonnegut to satirize those who believe in the inevitability and necessity of warfare.

Pilgrim

In this chapter, Billy's death is revealed via time travel. Oddly enough, it is after a speech about time travel that he is killed. So it goes. Over the course of the story, Vonnegut never explains why time travel was included in the book. After all, the climax of the story was the firebombing of Dresden; something which could have been executed easily without the addition of time travel. The purpose of time travel in the story is left ambiguous. It could possibly be simply there to shock the reader and draw the reader's attention. It could also be to simply mention events in Billy's life in the order that Vonnegut wanted them explained in, not chronological order. For instance, when "Billy Pilgrim says now that this really is the way he is going to die", it gives a dramatic effect to the story that could not have been achieved without time travel.

"Nobody ever got it from Lazzaro who didn't have it coming"

The meaning of the title of the story, Slaughterhouse-Five, is finally explained in chapter 6. It is the address of Billy's prison during his time in Dresden. Also revealed in chapter 6 is the scene of Billy's death. He recalls that Paul Lazzaro had threatened to have him shot after the war was over. In the chapter, Lazzaro is ranting on who he was going to kill after the war, and he brings up the death of Roland Weary, a man who blamed his demise on Billy Pilgrim. Lazzaro flatly states "He [Weary] died on account of this silly ********** here. So I promised him I'd have this silly ********** shot after the war." Billy, on account of his separation from time, knows that this is true. So it goes.

Billy goes on to explain how the United States was split into 20 petty nations as to neuter it as a threat to world peace. So it goes. He is giving a speech on UFOs, free will, and the true nature of time when an assassin hired by Lazzaro shoots him in the head with a laser gun. So it goes.

All in all, Billy takes a very casual tone towards his death. After all, why should he take it seriously; he is effectively immortal, as he can view any part of his life when he wants and however many times he wants. This is the reason Vonnegut understates Pilgrim's death by adding in his favorite catchphrase, "so it goes", after his death.

Depravity of War

This chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five, once again, has a particular emphasis on war. In the chapter, the Tralfamadorians reveal their views on warfare. They believe that there is nothing they can do about war, and so they tell Billy that "...we simply don't look at them. We ignore them." This can be seen as a metaphor for those who write off war as an inevitability. Vonnegut portrays them as alien and inhuman, and that their ability to accept whatever misfortunes come upon them without resistance will inevitably lead to their end. 

Back in WWII, another aspect of war is covered; its horrors. The American and Russian prisoners are kept in squalor, looked down upon by both their captors and the Englishmen. A scene is shown where the Americans are swimming in manure, as their weeks of starvation combined with a rich English feast and a small latrine has led to disaster. Also, once again the massacre of innocents at Dresden and the execution of poor old Edgar Derby are touched on as horrors of war. As an Englishmen exclaims upon seeing what the war has wrought upon the young, "My God, my God - it's the Children's Crusade."

Exposure

In the fifth chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five, the moral weaknesses of Americans are exposed and mocked by the Englishmen and the Germans. In addition, Billy Pilgrim's seeming insanity and foolishness are touched upon by the same men as well as his daughter and the Tralfamadorians.

It is stated by the fictitious war criminal and traitor Howard W. Campbell that "it is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor." This is said while the Americans are piling over and trampling one another in the latrines, much to the utter disgust of the physically and mentally fit Englishmen. America was and is, in some ways still, unique in that it attaches a negative stigma to poverty. In the eyes of the wealthy American, their wealth came entirely from their hard work, and thus all the poor must have been lazy. Meanwhile, the poor were taught to hate themselves, as in America there was no legitimate excuse for poverty. The end result is the mental state of Americans seen and satirized in Slaughterhouse-Five; sniveling, backstabbing cowards who feel no kinship toward their fellow American. In the book, Vonnegut even satirizes himself, inserting himself into the story as an American in the latrine screaming about excreting every organ in his body, ending with his brain.

Pilgrim himself is also satirized parallel to America. The British and Germans see him as a weak and mentally broken in addition to all the other negative American traits. His daughter views him as losing his grip on reality. She begins to systematically strip him of his freedom to keep his odd behavior in check. The Tralfamadorians, meanwhile, scold Pilgrim for his foolishness as he attempts to make himself look intelligent by proclaiming to the all-seeing Tralfamadorians the danger that humanity poses to the universe.

Seeing in 4D

"A planet of playthings/We dance on the strings/Of powers we cannot perceive"


On the planet of Tralfamadore, there is no talk of free will. Indeed, as a member of its race affirms to Billy Pilgrim, "If I hadn't spent so much time studying Earthlings, ... I wouldn't have any idea what was meant by 'free will'." According to the Tralfamadorians, there is no such thing as free will; things happen only because they must. They can see all time, from its beginning to its end in a cataclysmic yet unavoidable experiment involving the testing of rocket fuel. So it goes.

This creates many questions for the denizens of Earth. One obvious question is why should the Tralfamadorians be trusted? Especially when they had already named themselves as the harbingers of the doom of the universe. Furthermore, even if they legitimately believe themselves, they could still be deceiving themselves, and because they all believe in it, nobody would have tested their theory. The lack of free will brought up by the Tralfamadorians poses many interesting questions indeed.

*Introductory quote from the song "Freewill" by Rush

More Spoilers

In Chapter 4, Vonnegut's odd method of foreshadowing makes another appearance. In it, he introduces the character of Edgar Derby. He is a schoolteacher from Indianapolis, a very physically and mentally adept man despite his old age. Rather than continue with the story, Vonnegut immediately states "that good body of his would be filled with holes by a firing squad in Dresden in eight  days. So it goes." In this sentence, Vonnegut briefly touches on what will become a major point in the story later on. The scene in which Derby is killed is a pivotal scene, showing fully the inherent absurdity of war, and yet it is plainly stated in two sentences at random when the character is introduced. This is used by Vonnegut to show that the meaning of the book is more important than the plot.

The Cost of War

Chapter 3 of Slaughterhouse-Five takes place inside a train transporting prisoners of war. This chapter alludes to one of the primary costs of war; the sanity of its survivors. In the chapter, there are several characters who show signs of losing their grasp on reality. One of them was "Wild Bob". He began yelling and screaming at the prisoners as if they were of his own regiment, even though only one was, and he wasn't listening. He ranted about how "after the war he was going to have a regimental reunion in his hometown, which was Cody, Wyoming. He was going to barbecue whole steers." After losing his sanity, he died. So it goes.

Another character from chapter 3 is the ex-hobo that sleeps in Billy's boxcar. He constantly goes on about how "This ain't bad. This ain't bad at all." Later on, he dies. His last words were "This ain't bad". So it goes.

Slaughterhouse-Five shows very clearly the effect war has on the psyche of it soldiers. His firsthand experience allows him to write a realistic account of the horrors of war.

In Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim is always shown exhibiting passivity, a lack of caring about what is going on. For example, although he has the Serenity Prayer framed on his wall, he believed "the things [he] could not change were the past, the present, and the future." Thus, Pilgrim believes himself a passive observer of his life, incapable of changing a single thing. For example, he does not care in World War II when is is abducted by the Germans, and neither does he care about the excessive bombing in the following Vietnam War. His summation of the death of his dog, a normally tragic event, was "So it goes. Billy had liked Spot a lot, and Spot had liked him."

Vonnegut uses Billy's passivity to contrast his anti-war views. He uses Pilgrim to make a cold comparison to those who claim war is an inevitability. He shows Pilgrim as believing all things as an inevitability, and thus he simply idly stands by and lets tragedy take her course. So it goes.

Tralfamadore

An interesting aspect of Vonnegut's novel is the alien society of Tralfamadore. While mentioned very frequently in the story, there is one aspect that is never commented on. Although it is plain that the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, sincerely believes Tralfamadore exists, it is never explicitly stated that he is correct. Throughout the story, Tralfamadore's existence is left ambiguous. Slaughterhouse-Five may, in fact, be a story told through the eyes of a delusional war veteran whose fear of death has manifested in the form of his belief in the Tralfamadorians. Indeed, Slaughterhouse-Five may be Vonnegut's way of saying how absurd the notion that things must happen is. It is a well-known fact that Vonnegut was anti-war; Slaughterhouse-Five may be a symbolic representation showing how absurd the notion that war "must" happen is.

Unstuck in Time

In the second chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five, the story's odd methods of storytelling are revealed. Half of the plot, from Pilgrim's childhood, to his deployment in WWII, to his marriage, to his wife's death are all "foreshadowed", in Vonnegut's odd manner. Later on in the story, these moments are often flashed back to, normally for dramatic effect or to further explain details only lightly touched upon earlier. Indeed, the entire story is told in a very non-linear manner, with frequent jumps between the past, present, and sometimes even the future. Thus, it could be said that the incidence of Billy's coming "unstuck in time" could be so that Vonnegut could put together a story with a message without having to worry about utilizing a linear plot.

"The ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought."

Slaughterhouse-Five is, in addition to the overarching theme of free will, an anti-war book. The story was written by a veteran of WWII, the bloodiest war in human history. The first chapter of the book tells Vonnegut's story of his involvement in WWII, specifically the incident in Dresden. "All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. 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." In the story, Vonnegut expounds in the story of Billy Pilgrim the futility and pointlessness of war. He uses Pilgrim's indifference to provide a neutral, non-sugar-coated view of the horrors of war. This view reminded me of a very powerful song I had heard before, "Hero of War" by Rise Against. As a warning, this song does use slight profanity; however, the profanity is not the important part; the message is.

Vonnegut and Rise Against both show different sides of the horrors of war. Vonnegut showed the inherent ridiculousness of taking the time to execute one man for petty theft while men are dying by the thousands outside, the massive civilian casualties, and the barbarism of the soldiers of both sides. Rise Against shows torture, the loss of friends, and a soldier suffering from PTSD. Vonnegut, in his personal life, was adamantly anti-war, which is shown in his writing. He uses Slaughterhouse-Five as a testament to his vendetta against war.

War, Free Will, and Aliens: The Story of Slaughterhouse-Five

A little heads-up to anyone reading this; I have already read the entire book. I had a long car ride at the beginning of summer, and read the whole book in one go. Thus, although I am doing a chapter-by-chapter analysis of the story, I will occasionally reference future events. In a way, it suits the theme; Billy Pilgrim knew all that had happened or ever will happen in his life; I'm just putting myself on level ground with him. In addition, to be quite frank, it's more convenient for me. So it goes. So without further ado, I will begin my analysis of the story, starting with the quote that begins the tale.

The story of Slaughterhouse-Five is introduced by an epigraph, "The cattle are lowing, the Baby awakes. But the little lord Jesus, no crying he makes." This quote offers an interested parallel between the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and the main character of the story, Billy Pilgrim. In the Bible, it is shown that throughout the story Jesus is aware of his inevitable fate of suffering and death. However, outside of his Agony in the Garden, he never shows any sign of apprehension or fear of death. Likewise, Billy Pilgrim knows how, when, and why he will die, but shows total indifference, as he believes that he has truly become separated from time, and thus immortal. After reading the rest of the book, Vonnegut seems to reference Jesus and His story quite frequently, for the dual purposes of shocking his audience into paying attention with occasionally irreverent references to Him and to compare Jesus' power to that of the Tralfamadorians, Billy's personal Messiahs. These references also serve to contrast Jesus and the Tralfamadorians, with Jesus' philosophy of actively attempting to change the world for the better being contrasted with the Tralfamadorians' fatalist views. This quote started off the book with the great way to compare and contrast Billy Pilgrim and the Talfamadorians to Jesus.