Slaughterhouse+Five

Please write a brief response to the book in which you provide a quote that you consider interesting, puzzling, or provocative, and create a question based on that quote that might provide meaningful discussion. Remember to place the quote in context the way you would in a summer reading journal.

In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, the author uses satirical writing to express his anti-war sentiment during the height of the Vietnam War in 1969. Through his diction and writing style, Vonnegut is able to impose his beliefs on the reader, revealing the hideous, and perhaps absurd, nature of war. Billy Pilgrim assumes the role of the protagonist in "Slaughterhouse Five" and experiences various time-traveling sequences in which he is taken to different parts of his life. During one account, Lazzaro, a fellow POW and good friend of Roland Weary, threatens Billy saying he'll have him shot a couple of years after the war. However, almost ironically, he gives Billy a piece of advice: "Just forget about it kid. . . enjoy life while you can" (141). Lazzaro's statement is characteristic of Vonnegut's novel, where there is a nonchalant attitude towards death, and that death should be accepted, rather than feared. Furthermore, Vonnegut's recurring motif of the acceptance of death parallels an attitude felt by the American public during the widely unpopular Vietnam War. Lazzaro's advice raises an interesting point of view on death, where death should be accepted and never feared. -William Tutterow

Slaughterhouse Five takes a divine dip into the brain by expanding the realm of what we think is reality. The switching of locations and time from during the war to Billy’s ordinary life with his wife to his life with the Tralfamadorians provides a fascinating look at life and perception of reality. Unlike any other book, Slaughterhouse Five weaves these three diverging aspects of life perfectly into one coherent novel. Billy Pilgrim does in fact stir up some anger to the reader because he is constantly found moping around without much thought of anything of purpose. His condition may be caused by his ability to live any moment he wants to, and therefore the pressure of life to live every moment like it’s your last does not exist with him. Despite the unlikeable character, the novel is constantly begging you to read more and does in fact leave a disappointment with the reader after the pages are all burned up. Through Vonnegut’s superb crafting of the novel, Slaughterhouse Five doesn’t just meet the criteria of a classic novel—it exceeds it. -Brett Dodenhoff

Slaughterhouse Five was a very interesting book that shows the meaningless of war. Billy Pilgrim, the novel's protagonist, experiences time travel as he visits an alien planet named Tralfamadore. Having experienced numerous tragedies in life, he time travels and re-lives these events; such as being a POW in World War II and surviving a plane crash. As he revisits an experience at his POW camp, he sees an Amerian get into an argumentwith one of the german guards. The german guard knocks two of the American guard's teeth out. The American soldiers asks the guard,"'Why me?'...The guard shoved him back. 'Vy you? Vy anybody?' he said" (91). This shows the anti-war aspect of the novel by the writer. The fight was meaningless and so is the war. The book makes the reader wonder why things happen to people. Is there a reason bad things happen to people or do some people just end up at the wrong place at the wrong time? -Charles Carroll

Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist of Kurt Vonnegut's novel, __Slaughterhouse-Five__, suffers through many unfortunate events in his life. Through these tragedies, Billy retains a seemingly indifferent attitude because he believes that everything happens for a reason and there is no way to change fate. This alternate way of thinking was shown to him when he was abducted by the Tralfamadorians. They reveal to Billy that all points in time have already happened, so it would be impossible to change the future. They tell him that "only on Earth is there talk of free will." This way of thinking explains why Billy always says "so it goes" after bad things happen. This novel conveys the powerful message that free choice might not exist and that there is a plan for everything. -Reese Allison

In Kurt Vonnegut's satirical novel, __Slaughterhouse-Five__, Billy Pilgrim experiences multiple misfortunes and tragedies. These horrific events change Billy, yet he always finds a way to move on. This novel made me realize the cruelty and often times unfairness of death, but also that life goes on. This quote is an example of that, " Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like “Poo-tee-weet?” Although there is nothing left to say after a massacre, life still manages to go on. -Ryan Henry

Kurt Vonnegut's __Slaughterhouse-Five__ was of course fictional, but many non-fictional attributes flowed throughout the novel. There are clear messages in the book that people can accomplish anything with the help of others support. For example Billy says " I've been opening the window and making love to the world." (169) This is when Billy meets his idol, Kilgore Trout, who was delivering newspapers at the time. This stood out to me because Trout had basically given up on himself and especially his writing, but Bilyy was his most avid fan and encouraged him to keep writing and never lose hope. --Jake Spandorfer

In Kurt Vonnegut's __Slaughterhouse-Five__, Billy Pilgrim witnesses the inevitability and unfairness of death. The satire in the novel does not go unnoticed. Instead, the satirical elements provide a lens through which to see life, though viewed in a lopsided order. The pointlessness of war and the imminent death that it brings is explored, as well as the reality that any battle that ends in death is simply a massacre that cannot be won. The protagonist- Billy- often disappoints or angers the reader with his moping and sadness, when the reader wants a different outcome. This attitude conveys his own perspective on war, free will and other controversial topics at the time this novel was written. -- Savannah Cash

Kurt Vonnegut's __Slaughterhouse-Five__ was a book that surely left me in awe and seriously pondering death. Sure, this book is radical and fiction a far extent, but it's messages can be translated and applied into our life too. For example the quote, "People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it any more," is one that I can really grasp for daily use. Living in the past can honestly destroy someone; putting what's happened behind you and never going back to it makes for a life more smoothly sailed, looking to the future and making a better one for yourself. Vonnegut's writing is full of metaphors and morals, this one really struck out to me this Summer as I read __Slaughterhouse-Five__, and began to think back to my past year. -- Logan Coleman

Kurt Vonnegut's novel __Slaughterhouse-Five__ shows the many paths that the protagonist Billy Pilgrim took. The novel takes place during World War II. At the beginning his father gets killed in a hunting accident. Billy joins a regiment in Luxembourg and then he is sent to the Battle of Bulge which takes place in Belgium. He gets captured by the Germans. Throughout the book he travels between different periods in his life. Throughout those different periods of his life we experience he always weeps for someone's death. One of the themes in the novel is the difference between fate and free will. There is this quote about something the protagonist did in his life, "Billy could almost smell his breath--mustard gas and roses. It was a wrong number. He hung up." Billy's life had been changed because of the mustard gas and roses. Mustard gas is a weapon and roses are used for romance. Both the mustard gas and roses are examples how the war going on affected Billy's life. -Henry Sutin

Throughout Vonnegut’s __Slaughterhouse-Five__, we are presented with a protagonist who undergoes countless hardships in his life, causing us to antagonize the event that began all of the madness in his life. The inevitable fact is when Billy is sent off to Europe to fight for his country, his life deteriorates. Perhaps the idea of an entire town being obliterated caused him to become supposedly “mad”,or maybe it was the fact that he was assigned to kill other human beings. We therefore believe the unknown derivation of his possible insanity to be the war itself, which proves Vonnegut successful in writing an anti-war novel, even though the book does not focus on that specific aspect. The idea that Billy should take pride in the fact that “there were dead Germans all over the battlefield who wished to God they had never heard of the Four-fifty-first”(67) most likely drove him insane or emotionally disturbed. Billy story allowsus to ask ourselves, “Why do we even have war if it causes so much suffering?” -- James Huey

One of the most interesting aspects of Kurt Vonnegut's novel __Slaughterhouse Five__ is the inner peace Billy Pilgrim finds inside himself despite going through tragedy after tragedy. Towards the end of the book, Billy goes back in time and describes the incident of the plane crash. While being dragged out of the crashed airplane with a fractured skull Billy looks at all of the people riding up the mountain on a chair lift. " He supposed that they were part of an amazing new phase of World War Two. It was alright with him. Everything was pretty much alright with Billy." (200) This quote exemplifies the calm and easygoing nature Billy retains through his every misfortune. Most humans would never be able to deal with the life he had with such an outlook.Though the novel in its entirety is not wholly positive, the character of Billy Pilgrim asks us all if we could look at things in a less pessimistic light. -Kate Bryan

__Slaughterhouse Five__ is about Billy Pilgrim who experiences events in the past, present, and future. My favorite and perhaps the most significant aspect of the novel is the order in which the narrative is written. Kurt Vonnegut cleverly wrote the novel without any particular order, symbolizing Billy’s struggle through time and his inability to choose which time period he wants to be in. “Billy is spastic in time, has no control over where he is going next, and the trips aren’t necessarily fun. He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next” (29). Do you find it confusing or clever that the narrative skips through time, paragraph by paragraph, not in chronological order? -Julia McAvoy

Kurt Vonnegut's intruiging novel, __Slaughterhouse Five__, is about POW Billy Pilgrim who gives us stories from his life of the most memorable events of his life, both good and bad, for example, the death of his wife and what it was like to be in a war camp as a hostage. Towards the beginning of the book Billy is having a conversation with Harrison Starr; Harrison states that when he hears about someone writing an anti-war book he wonders why, instead, they don't make an anti-glacier book? Billy explains to us what Harrison meant by saying: "what he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers." To this, I question, why are wars so hard to stop? If wars are so unpopular among the population, why are there so many and why are they so hard to stop? -Beth Hanckel

In the last chapter of __Slaughterhouse Five__, Kurt Vonnegut writes, "If what Billy Pilgrim learned from the Tralfamadorians is true, that we will all live forever, no matter how dead we may sometimes seem to be, I am not overjoyed. Still -- if I am going to spend eternity visiting this moment and that, I'm grateful that so many of those moments are nice" (211). This quote really sums up this novel in the fact that he understands that he visits different moments in his live. As difficult and annoying as that many be, he is able to find the brighter side and is thankful for the good times he has had in his life. However, the Tralfamadorians teach him that, "... we all live forever, no matter how dead we may sometimes seem to be." So my questions is, if we all live forever then how could we feel dead? -Madison McNeill

Kurt Vonnegut's eye-opening novel, __Slaughterhourse-Five__, encourages the reader to reflect and question the absurdity of human life through the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim. Throughout the novel, Billy experiences many tradgedies such as the loss of a wife, surviving a plane crash, and living as a prison of war during World War II. During Pilgrim's prison of war experience, he overhears a fellow American POW and a guard quarreling. After a heated argument and having two teeth knocked out, the American gazed upon the face of the stern guard and asks "'Why Me?'..The guard shoved him back. 'Vy you? Vy anybody?' he said" (91). This conversation highlights Vonnegut's pessimistic style throughout the novel, a style through which he points out the irony within human life and the concept of "free will." He presents the case that moments are simply passing moments, and people are trapped in them. The concept of "free will" is presented as an illusion by the Tralfamadores, Pilgrim's alien allies. They argue that free will is only ever discussed on Earth, for they are aware that humans cannot escape time. We are prisoners of time, therefore, it is impossible for us to have the power to make decisions that fully determine how our life pans out. The irony that is laced throughout this novel is sumed up nicely in Vonnegut's reoccuring phrase: "So it goes." Because of the human ignorance to acknowledge our inability to control this life we were given, we persist in thinking we have the choice of how our life will turn out. Vonnegut demonstrates that life and time are both concepts bigger than us, tragedy will continue to occur, and humans may in fact not be in control of their own fate--despite what they may believe. -Colin Wallace

Kurt Vonnegut's chilling novel, __Slaughterhouse Five__, showcases the tragically unusual life of Billy Pilgrim, a man who experiences a number of events that do not usually happen to the average human. One of these events is being a prisoner of war in World War II. At one point during Billy's POW experience, an altercation breaks out between an American POW and a vengeful guard. After having two teeth knocked out and his blood spilled upon the ground the American looks up and asks "'Why me?'...The guard shoved him back into ranks. 'Vy you? Vy anybody?' he said" (91). This exchange of words exhibits the underlying pessimism that permeates Vonnegut's entire novel and supports assertions that have been made regarding __Slaughterhouse Five__ as an anti-war novel. This conversation empowers readers to ask themselves why anything happens to anyone- are life's happenings simply a conglomeration of random events or is there a reason that certain things happen to certain people? Rebecca McNeill

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut follows the narration by himself who in turn uses his character to follow Billy Pilgrim, a soldier who wasn't a soldier in World War Two. One of the books biggest ideas is the unnecessary human entrapment called war, where he says we fight over trifling matters that claim the lives of millions, and disrupt many more. Yet, Vonnegut says, "War is necessary, and we will always have war." A claim can be made that the book is anti-war, but in reality, there is an equal amount of pro-war and anti-war in the text. Billy once asks the Tralfamadorians how their planet was so peaceful, and they replied that they too have wars, they just choose to ignore them. So that brought up the question for Billy, is it better to ignore the problems or face them head on? -David Hendrix

In __Slaughterhouse-Five__, Kurt Vonnegut gives an inside view into the fragmented life of of Billy Pilgrim. This prisoner of war finally returned home only to suffer a plane crash, the death of his wife, and his alleged travels through time which cause people to think he's insane. Billy was there during the fire-bombing of Dresden, which is a theme throughout the novel referring to the needless death of so many innocent civilians in a war where that was necessary. Early on however, Vonnegut describes the biblical story of Lot's wife looking back on the destroyed cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. She was then turned into a pillar of salt since she was ordered not to do so. Vonnegut goes on to say, "People aren't supposed to look back. I'm certainly not going to do it anymore" (28). This novel was intended to be an antiwar book; and yet the author is essentially telling us not to care or feel guilty about war. The auther continuously says after every death or mention of death, "So it goes." It begs the question, is someone's death important? Should we feel at all responsible for taking a life even if we were ordered to. It seems Vonnegut would say that it's just the way it is; that death happens even if it's not supposed to. - Ben Schools

In __Slaughterhouse-Five,__ by Kurt Vonnegut, the main character Billy Pilgrim has multiple horrific encounters. These events included the death of his wife, being captured and put into a POW camp, to even being taken by extraterrestrial beings known as the Tralfamadorians. Throughout the novel Vonnegut compares many objects such as mustard gas and roses. " Billy could almost smell his breath—mustard gas and roses. It was a wrong number."I found this to be a very interesting comparison, because they are two smells that are nothing at all alike. Being in the POW camp must have changed Billy's view on the world so much that he could associate these two conflicting smells. -Thomas Hartsock

During Vonnegut's Novel, __Slaughterhouse-Five__, our protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, experiences many traumatic experiences. Event that ranged from the torture of a prisoner of war camp all the way to the death of his wife. Eventually, we see a phrase scrawled across Billy Pilgrim's tombstone. Etched into the face of this tombstone is the phrase, "Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt." This is the one thing we all hope for in our lives. We all want peace, tranquility, freedom from pain. Vonnegut is essentially telling us the only way to achieve that is through death. However, if Vonnegut were encouraging us all to off ourselves, he would certainly be more blunt about it. Instead, he takes us through the entire life of one man to show us that we all have to make it through the journey to have the peace at the end. Granted Vonnegut is usually dark and satirical, here he gives us a positive message of perseverance. We have to press on through the suffering, make it all the way to the end, and finally rest in peace. -Joe Ayers

The protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, goes through many twists and turns throughout the novel. There are many instances in the novel when two completely opposite emotions are placed in direct comparison of one another. For example, in Chapter 4 Billy answers a phone call and compares the mans breath to mustard gas and roses. The quote is as follows: "Billy answered. There was a drunk on the other end. Billy could almost smell his breath—mustard gas and roses. It was a wrong number. Billy hung up". This particular pairing of feelings is especially poignant, as it gives us insight into what the first things that come to Billy's mind are. First of all, he thinks of mustard gas immediately, lending to the fact that he experienced horrendous warfare with chemical weapons. Secondly, he thinks of roses, lending to a possibility of romance in the novel. These two smells are directly conflicting and show how Billy's mind can make these obscure connections as a result of his war-torn experiences inn battle. -Sam Blakeney

Kurt Vonnegut's novel __Slaughterhouse-Five__ explored the catastrophic life of Billy Pilgrim, delving into detailed stories of this man's interesting life. What made this novel so unique is Vonnegut's style regarding the order of events in Billy's life, which to the author it is apparent that there is no order pertaining to the events in his life. Within the novel, Billy jumps into new moments of his life without knowing what time period it is, everything encompassing his life is jumbled and confusing. Billy's jumbled life represents the absurdity of war. The author uses Billy's confusing life to portray war and how in times of war everything becomes confusing and cannot always be explained. Leah Crawford

The novel of __Slaughterhouse-Five__ is, in my opinion, best defined as a book focused on anti-war sentiments. The protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, faced the atrocities of war and was forever mentally changed in unimaginable ways. Those who have not experienced real warfare can not begin to comprehend the psychological trauma that all veterans undergo. One quote that I believe describes the book as a whole very nicely is in Chapter 1: "The nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought". Many people who have never experienced warfare do not see it for what it truly is. However, as this quote conveniently explains, the veterans who have experienced war are the only ones who can truly understand the atrocities of war and how truly awful it is. This quote shows off the anti-war focus of the novel very well. -Charles Sullivan

When Billy Pilgrim becomes abducted by the Tralfamadorians, one of the aliens mentions to him, "Only on earth is there any talk of free will". This leads to the idea that free-will is not "real" and that our own personal decisions to do certain things may or may not actually matter or make a difference. One example of this occurs early in the book when Billy is a child and is thrown into the pool and decides that he prefers to stay on the bottom of the pool rather than the top. Even though it was his personal choice to remain at the bottom, he is forcibly removed in an effort to save his life. This futility of effort also applies to the devastating fire bombing of Dresden in the war. Thousands of soldiers, who are trained much better and stronger than Billy, died in the bombing, but Billy, who is by no standards an effective soldier, lives. This perfectly expresses that the idea of free will and calculated effort are irrelevant. According to the Tralfamadorians, specific moments in time all occur simultaneously and endlessly, and the existence of the typical "cause and effect" system is absent and does not apply to their unique perception of the universe. -John Bozeman

While I was reading Slaughterhouse Five, many aspects of the novel caught my eye as symbolic. Of these, one subject in particular caught my attention as especially significant and worthy of discussion. Throughout the book, the combination of mustard gas and roses is used multiple times to describe the smell of war and death, in this instance for example: "But then the bodies rotted and liquefied, and the stink was like mustard gas and roses". Such a peculiar combination of mustard gas, a lethal chemical, and roses, a symbol of romance and love, lead me to believe that Billy’s mind has been forever altered by the war. He has begun, with the help of his “experiences” on Tralfamador, to disassociate the good and bad memories of life from one another. This is hinted every time he goes back to the wartime memories, despite the fact he believes one should only view the better memories of life. On the book in general, Slaughterhouse Five interweaves the bombing of Dresden into the remainder of Billy's life while providing a unique perception of the passage of time that greatly benefits the rest of the novel. -Cole McKnight

In __Slaughterhouse Five__, a man named Billy Pilgrim is taken to a planet whose inhabitants do not see time as cause to effect like we do, they see it as more of a snapshot where nothing can be changed, because "Only on Earth is there any talk of free will." This raises the question of free will versus destiny, because if you cannot change time, then how can one make a decision? What this novel is saying is that humans are naive to believe that we can make our own decisions and have free will. If there truly is no free will, then the bombing of Dresden, or dropping the atomic bomb, was inevitable. If this is so, why is it that we feel regret for the decisions that we make? If these decisions were not really decisions at all, why would people even consider that events could have been handled another way? This book raises a very interesting question about time and free will, but in the end everything comes down to what we decide to believe. - Michael Rieder

In Kurt Vonnegut's novel, //__Slaughterhouse-Five__,// Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist who undergoes innumerable war-time atrocities and moral torments, narrates his tangled life-time venture into shades of shattered, contrasting images of reality and daydream, of superficial and interior, and of human and extraterrestrial. Despite his human identity, Billy "incidentally" learns from a higher-dimension being, that human-life is eventually a pre-determined, definitive procedure, what they called "a set of moments with special relations" that is bonds to the time frame that human cannot well perceive. Striving to rebuttal their statement, Billy questions the legitimacy of an so-called "impeccable" process: "Why me?" "That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is. Have you ever seen bugs trapped in amber? ... Well, here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no 'why.'" said the Tralfamadorians, the 4th dimension creatures with the perception of time frame (97). And indeed, after several turns of time-travels Tralfamadorians allow Billy to experience, Billy, in despondency, finds his life-images insolvable and poignant in the sense that ultimately he was restricted within his own time interval. Here, author, Kurt Vonnegut, insinuates his anti-war emotions within Billy's resignation of his living choices, that his despair in war and its inevitability has reflected the author. And, perhaps, human who are always bounded to their own intervals, would have never learnt the doctrines from the past and the dead. --Jack Wang

In the novel __Slaughterhouse-Five__, Billy Pilgrim demonstrates what war can do to a human body. The anti-war novel proves to the reader of how war can destroy and deter a soldier's head. Billy early on in the novel is discussing various details in his life, like the continual theme of the Dresden bombing or the plane crash. He would quickly and sharply switch his opinion or the topic itself. In Chapter two Barbara thinks of Billy as senile: "She thought that her father was senile, even though he was only forty-six"(28). Barbara has to take care of Billy throughout the entire novel, which establishes a thought to the reader, is Billy truly senile or he does have the characteristic of schizophrenia or both? As the readers, we can definitely distinguish that war has taken a toll on Billy's life, which is why it is an anti-war book in the first place. The toll it has taken on his life is evidently severe because he "was trying to hang onto his dignity", but in his mind hanging onto his dignity is making up stories about Tralfamadore (29). Clearly, even in society today, producing nonsense about aliens or other life forms is never viewed as a high-quality. Billy establishes aliens and stories about them for the public to see, which is why it is not hard to believe that Barbara thinks he is senile. I believe he is far from senile, that he just has the characteristic of schizophrenia because schizophrenia, by definition, is the mental disorder that makes it hard to tell what is real and not real. Vonnegut made Billy Pilgrim the character he is in the novel to justify the horrors of war and the traumas soldiers have to live with everyday due to war. -Cameron Kane

In __Slaughterhouse Five__ we see Billy Pilgrim as he goes through numerous events not normally experienced by an average person. He experiences the harsh condition of a POW camp, the death of his wife, and is abducted by the Tralfamadorians. During his time as a zoo exhibit on their planet he asks one of them the question “ Why me?” to which they answer “Why //you//? Why //us// for that matter? Why //anything?// Because this moment simply //is//?”(97) Their response make the reader wonder why does anything happen to anyone? Should we wonder why things happen to us but doesn’t to others? - Mac McKenzie In the novel __Slaughterhouse Five__ we learn about a POW Billy Pilgrim experience a serious of extreme conditions in a german camp. He goes back and forth through time and is abducted by aliens? The book was not one of my favorites as it jumped around a lot through his life which made it confusing at times.The only reason I sometimes enjoyed this novel was because of the real historic battles. In all the novel was pretty interesting. - Chris Moe

In Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, we see the main character, Billy Pilgrim, lose touch with reality and slowly drift off into his own world. No matter what anyone tells him, he passionately believes that there is another dimension that makes him able to see and reflect on his past. Whether this ability is actuality or just going on inside his head, he attempts at understanding and learning more about his life than any other human could. His extra "ability" makes him more keen and reflective and allows him to look back on his life as a whole and find that the general theme of his life has to do with war and peace and other human contact and how he constantly feels alone and deserted, yet makes do with his loneliness and somewhat enjoys it. It's not so much that he enjoys lonliness, as that he isn't trusting of other humans because he has been dissapointed my many of them in his life. We see this expressed when Vonnegut says, “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.” He has become tired of the other beings because he believes that they have all become drab and are ignorant to the destruction that war causes, or any bad thing for that matter. Billy Pilgrim preferred the world in his head over the world all around him. -Elizabeth Hill

Slaughterhouse five is a book about the destruction of war seen through the character Billy Pilgrim in the Dresden bombings. Pilgrim sees, after the Allies firebomb the City, the carnage of war, and he is never able to fully recover from it. My quote is "And even if the wars didn't keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death." In this quote, Vonnegut explains that war is inevitable, unstoppable and it will always occur. He also says that even without war there is always death to bring sadness. My question is: Is war a necessary part of the human existence? If it is not, than is it avoidable? -Brady Chapman

"So it goes." While this is more of a frequently repeated phrase/refrain, and not necessarily a quote, I still find it to be the best way to sum up Vonnegut's novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. Like so much of the novel, the phrase is an acceptance of sorts for the the inevitable. Death, for example, is always followed by the phrase. It also serves as a transition from one idea onto the next. And like the phrase, Pilgrim accepts his death very easily. He finds it inevitable and doesn't even seem phased by the idea. "I,Billy Pilgrim, the tape begins, will die, have died, and always will die on Febuary thirteenth, 1976."(p.440)(this is from a Vonnegut anthology which contains many of his works, hence the page number.) Perhaps Pilgrim's acceptance of death is due to his part in the war, after being utterly besieged by it, he has become numb to the pain and fear it incites in most people. Whatever the reasoning, it raises the question in the reader, is it illogical to fear death? If, "it is simply a violet light and a hum. There isn't anybody else there. Not even Pilgrim is there."(p. 441), because when you take a moment to think about it, you really won't be around to see your own death. -Damian Evans

I think that the game "Singularity" took a lot of themes from this book. -Clay Woodfield

In Slaughterhouse Five we see Billy Pilgrim weep for the deaths of people who are enemies instead of those in cities of the Allies like London who are constantly bombarded by the Germans. "Americans have finally heard about Dresden...Why would they keep it a secret so long?..for fear that a lot of bleeding hearts," (245) People would sympathise for the people lost since the death count was greater than Hiroshima, but not as great as an impact on the Earth. Billy then claims to Rumfoord that he was there during the bombing, but ignores him since he claims he's just repeating what they were saying. Billy shows that he cares deeply about what happened in Dresden and claims that it was a tragic event, but what happened in the war was necessary to weaken the Germans. -Wellsin Price

In __Slaughterhouse Five__, Billy Pilgrim is traveling back and forth through time visiting moments in his life such as his birth date as well as when he died. Overall i thought the book was interesting yet i did not like how it was so choppy, taking us back and forth through his life. It was almost hard for me as the reader to grasp the flow of what was taking place at specific moments. Yet the one thing i liked the most was how it took most of the battles and events were true and yet the story for the most part was fictional. For the most part i enjoyed the novel and was for sure nothing like i have ever read before.

In the novel Slaughterhouse five, Billy's eyes have been opened to the flow of time and he sometimes knows when and where he should be for any event that will have happened in his life. For example, he knows that the day after his daughter's wedding he will be kidnapped by aliens in his backyard. He is watching a movie backwards before this, and he marvels at the reconstructive powers of the germans. They suck the bullets out of the fleets and have planes fly back into the sky when they were junked. They re-animate the dead and watch the planes return to england. This shows the theme of how the "fourth dimension" would affect our perspectives. "Billy saw the war movies backwards then forwards-- then it was time to go outside and meet the flying saucer." (75) This shows that although the book is aimed at WWII, there is a theme of insanity. The narrator is kidnapped by aliens because he went outside because he knew that he had to go outside to be kidnapped by aliens. This loop is repeated throughout the book, but since there is no other perspective than the crazy narrator, we have no choice but to see through his eyes and try to discern some reasonable explanation from what we see. -Tyler Billings

In Slaughterhouse Five, Billy Pilgrim had been captured by the  Tralfamadorians who reveal to Billy who they are, what they are capable of, and the knowledge they posses about Billy. They explain that every moment in time is beyond the control of Billy, but all of the Tralfamadorians don't take freewill into account, except for the one who talks to Billy who said,  “If I hadn't spent so much time studying Earthlings,” said the Tralfamadorian, “I wouldn’t have any idea what was meant by ‘free will.’ I’ve visited thirty-one inhabited planets in the universe, and I have studied reports on one hundred more. Only on Earth is there any talk of freewill.” This quote tells of how humans are the only species in the world who express their philosophy of freewill, making humans stand-out as exceptions to the "rule of nature". My question is, are the Tralfamadorians the real aliens in this novel, or are humans? -Bill Gibson

__Slaughterhouse Five__is a novel that debates the ideas of "fate" and "free will". Billy randomly jumps to different times in his life. This leads himself and the Tralfamadorians to believe in the concept of "fate" and that "free will" is nonexistent. -Daniel Sanderson

in the book Slaughterhouse five Billy is in the Battle of the Bulge even though he has a dislike of war. he gets captured by the germans in the batlle of the bulge and becomes a POW. billy and the other POWs get sent to a old slaughter house for animals that was nicknamed slaughter house five. he survives a city destroying firestorm. Later on he gets captured by aliens and gets put on display at a zoo on the planet tralfamadore. he starts to experence his life non-linear. billy dets killed at the end of the book with a lazer gun because the solder thought billy was to blame for all their misfortanes.

-Phillips Marshall

The part I found interesting was how it talked about how people and things always exist. The example is when he goes into the adult store and finds the dirty picture of the women he was with on Tralfamadore. He said that she always exists because she exists in the picture. I found this interesting because I always felt that people never truly went away, truly famous people and people not so famous never truly die out they live on through photographs and movies. The other thing I found interesting was how after every death they would say "so it goes". I found this interesting because i felt the book was saying that these people dies and there life still moves on and it seems better to try and move on with your life also. -William Mulbry

__Slaughterhouse Five__ by Kurt Vonnegut shows us Billy Pilgrim, a man who unfortunately seems to spend his whole life traveling back and forth through events in his life. He constantly seems to relive his time as a POW in World War II as well as being captured by Tralfamadorians. The Tralfamadorians have such a different way of looking at life then the average human being. Instead of viewing every moment as being in the past present or future, they believe that “‘all time is all time It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is”’ (86). They don’t view life as humans do, instead they believe that anything that does happen to us always will happen. Nothing can change what will happen in the future. When the Tralfamadorian states “‘Only on Earth is there any talk of free will.’” He means that Earthlings are the only ones to think that what happened in the past or what is going to happen in the future can be changed. Is what the Tralfamadorians say true? Is everything destined to happen in life? -Jordan Fishman

Kurt Vonnegut's novel, __Slaughterhouse Five,__ blends the nature of an autobiography and fiction into a thought-provoking tale unlike any other. Life no longer seems to move straight forward as it once did; time and space coexist in a realm unknown to man in the novel. From the Tralfamadorians, Billy Pilgrim, our protagonist, learns about the concepts of time and life. "There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects." The thought that time is always, past present and future, at the same time, every time, provokes thought in our world, not just in the book. Through his writing, Vonnegut may be expressing his own beliefs and views and passing them along in the novel - especially due to the autobiographical nature of the books beginnings. What are Kurt Vonnegut's intentions of writing mystical beliefs in a "semi-autobiographical" novel? - Trey Low

In __Slaughterhouse-Five__ by Kurt Vonnegut, an interesting passage pulled at my attention whilst I was reading the paggage was "The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only //appears// to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist" (33-34). The concept is hard for us to grasp, but death is only a phase of one's life and should be view wholy as such so as to incorporate all phases of the aforementioned person when you begin to remeber them. In thinking about this concept at a funeral in the above-mentioned quote would be an attempt at leasening the sting of death while also remembering that the person would live on in your memories at all times. -Jake Arnold

In the novel __Slaughterhouse-Five__ by Kurt Vonnegut, the first few sentences of the book caught my attenttion as odd which was, " All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew //was// really shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn't his. Another guy I knew really //did// threaten to have his personal enemies killed ny hired gunman after the war." I found it strange how he states that it, "happened, more or less," (1) which starts the book off with a sense of doubt that the story may or may not be completely true in the first place. This is reinforced by his next statements about how the people he knew "really" did what they did followed by an italic verb.

As the Protagonist is sitting in the motel room, waiting on the next flight out of Philadelphia, he opens up the Bible and reads about the destruction of Sodom and Gamorrah. His is interested in Lot's wife and how she looked back at the destrcution after being told not to. The protagonist then states, "People arent supposed to look back. I' m certainly not going to do it anymore" (22). This entire excerpt from the Bible reading represents the protagonists participation in the bombing of Dresden (especially because of the rain of fire from heaven sinse this was a fire bombing). The protagonist attempts to look back at the events of the Dresden bombing, but he deceides instead to forget the terrible event. The protagonist therefore decides that he will no llonger reflect on the past, but instead look to the future. --Wil Blanton

The novel __Slaughterhouse-Five__ takes many twists and turns throughout the story. The story takes Billy Pilgrim from the bombing of Dresden to the United States and even on to the far surface of the planet of Tralfamadore. This all occurs over different time periods of Billy's life and his life is filled with countless other huge events. Although the story travels all over the place, the main point of the novel is anti-war throughout the whole story. In the first chapter Kurt Vonnegut (the author) is in Schenectady, New York talking with veterans and he says "The nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought.". This quote poses the question, does more involvement in war always cause more hate for war? -Bolton Sanford

The novel __Slaughterhouse-Five__ by Kurt Vonnegut was a very interesting one. The main character is Billy Pilgrim, who was a solider in World War II. He was captured by the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge and taken to a POW camp. We then go through the book and Billy goes through time travel to the planet Tralfamadore. He was captured by aliens from this planet. Billy continues in the book to experience real and fake experiences from his life. This was a very good book where Billy has new and different looks on life and things surrounding it. Thomas Rogers

Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, is a novel set in WWII. It describes the experiences of an untrained, unarmed Assistant Chaplain, Billy Pilgrim. Billy is supposedly captured by a foreign species and is imprisoned in their zoo. These beings are known as Tralfamadorians. While Billy is on Tralfamadore, he learns their way of life and view towards "time." They are able to see the future and relive events in the past because of their fourth dimension. Although they have the ability to see the future, they believe the it cannot be manipulated. Vonnegut writes, "Only on earth is there any talk of free will" (109). In response to death the Tralfamadorians often say, "So it goes." They do not seem to fear death and avoid it as do we. They believe that the person never really dies, they just simply live on in a different time period. --Harrison Frickman

In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, __Slaughterhouse-Five__, the main character, Billy Pilgrim, seems to parallel the authors war experiences. The author inserts himself into the plot of the book at various times, most importantly saying, “An American near Billy wailed that he had excreted everything except his brains. Moments later he said, ‘There they go, there they go.’ He meant his brains. That was I. That was me. The author of this book” (chapter 5). This graphic account of the authors death was probably meant to mirror the death of a friend that Vonnegut saw during his time as a soldier in war. But why would he interject himself as the character who dies? Perhaps he wanted to put himself in the book just for the sake of doing it, or maybe since they were likely his experiences he wanted to make sure that he remained part of them. He could have even wanted to frighten the reader to instill the essence of the fragility of life and the reality of death. Since __Slaughterhouse-Five__ is to me an anti-war book, Vonnegut must have placed himself in the novel for the latter reason. Having served it the army during World War II, Vonnegut truly appreciated the value of life and the evil in death. Although he tried to convey this message through Billy Pilgrim, the most effective way to instill it in the minds of the readers was to connect it to the real world as we live in. -Jack Cahill

__Slaughterhouse-Five,__ in my opinion, tries to explain how human perception occurs in the present and how it may be altered drastically if we were to know information from beyond our time of reference. Billy Pilgrim's experiences shed light on the connections made between reality in and perception, and in this case their parallelism. While gains the ability to see his future and is proven correct on occasion his reality is only mere perception to other characters like his daughter who cannot grasp his ridiculous claims. Vonnegut may be attempted to convey that the mind when slightly changed can effect the whole of a person dramatically, but being only in that one persons head it is near impossible to relay the same experience. Vonnegut was trying to connect war with this infection of the mind and spirit that cause men to lose their grip on reality. Vonnegut mentions a time, "When everything was beautiful and nothing hurt," almost begging the question, when is this time? It seems to me that the time is when the soul has not been obstructed by the horrors of life and society (war in this case). Also pointing to death as a rebirth allowing for the haunting demons of an old life full of god and bad experiences wash away. -Logan Dennis

__Slaughterhouse-Five__, by Kurt Vonnegut, is an interesting story about the incarceration of Billy Pilgrim by the Germans near the end of WWII. Billy is a soldier and a pacifist, which adds an interesting point of view to the war. Vonnegut scattered different episodes of Billy's life throughout the story which kept the reader interested with all the different places Billy had been in his entire life, such as Tralfamadore. Vonnegut, making the story almost schizophrenic, makes the reader try to help out Billy make sense of all the events he has seen in his lifetime. One quote i found interesting took place in chapter four. "Billy answered. There was a drunk on the other end. Billy could almost smell his breath--mustard gas and roses. It was a wrong number. Billy hung up" (Vonnegut 73). It was interesting to me that Vonnegut writes "mustard gas and roses" because they are too complete opposite objects. Mustard gas is used in chemical warfare while roses represent romance and love. -Larkin Dobson

In the book __Slaughterhouse-Five,__ by Kurt Vonnegut Billy Pilgrim is a person who is wrong in the head, and hallucinates. The plot jumps constantly from Billy as a soldier in WWII to him being abducted by aliens, to eventually his assassination. at the end all the strings come together and expose the whole plot, but while you are reading the book you can never get a whole picture. One quote that I found was "Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war"(Vonnegut1). This is significant because it shows foreshadowing, and reveals how crazy the plot will be. in the end this is an anti-war novel but it takes a while to understand that. -Wyatt Hay

Kurt Vonnegut's __Slaughterhouse-Five__ contains an inventive and ever-changing plot regarding both time travel and the importance of life and death. The protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, is constantly falling asleep. In the event of drowsiness, Billy is faced with yet another moment in his life, whether with his family, during his incarceration in WWII Germany, or aboard the space-ship of the mysterious and seemingly all-knowing Tralfamadorian race. These aliens abduct him away from the numerous moments in which Billy experiences suffering, often at the expense of the things he experienced as a soldier. Vonnegut's anti-war sentiment is heavily visible as the novel progresses especially when Billy notes, "The nicest veterans in Schenectady, I thought, the kindest and funniest ones, the ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought." The effects of war on Billy are quite noticeable to his friends and colleagues, who take him for a lunatic. Yet as the amount of memories re-visited increases, the horrors of war wrought on Billy make it increasingly difficult to look to the future and not the past, as Vonnegut describes in vivid detail. -Luke Nyland

Early in Kurt Vonnegut's __Slaughterhouse-Five,__ Mary O'Hare accuses the author of wanting to write just another book in which "...war will look just wonderful, so we'll have a lot more of them..." Vonnegut promises that he won't. The bombing of Dresden epitomizes what war in his eyes really is: horrible and useless. This pointless destructiveness is summed up in the terrible yet poignant bombing of beautiful, historic Dresden: a town of no military or strategic value as the last days of the war in Europe come to a close. Thousands of lives and years of architecture are reduced to mere dust literally overnight. The author, himself a survivor of this tragedy, uses the unorthodox style of this novel to not only break the normal linear mold of literature but also the common belief that glory and war walk hand in hand. Vonnegut keeps his promise to Mary. -Lally

Slaughterhouse Five follows the tragic and terrifying life of the Prisoner of War, Billy Pilgrim. Throughout the novel, Billy is haunted by traumatic events from his days in the war. This showcases how frightening life as a soldier is and how it can negatively alter one’s life forever. When Billy is captured by the Tralfamadorians, they tell him how they do not believe in free will and how they perceive time and life differently. A quote that stands in Billy’s office reads “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,” which many of his patients find inspiring. However, in the world of the Tralfamadorians, a quote like this would mean nothing because they felt they had no control over their future. This leaves the reader wondering if we have the ability to change our lives or is our destiny left in the hands of fate? -Annie Hay

In Vonnegut's __Slaughterhouse-Five__, the theme of war and the effects it can have on a society are present within the book; however, the notion of time as displayed by the book proves to be far more interesting. __Slaughterhouse-Five__ doesn't follow any sensible path; it doesn't quite have a beginning and an end. The reasoning behind this decision is supported by the way Vennogut explains time to the reader. Time isn't meant to be a linear, ever-growing entity. Time, as explained by Vonnegut and exmplified throughout the book, was fully created when the universe was created. "All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is". When Billy is abducted by the Tralfamadore he learns how time is much wider and inclusive then he thought. He discovers the idea of fate as being unchangeable, which plays a huge role in how Billy reacts to his time-travelling. He understands he can't change what is happening even though he knows his demise. The fact that our lives are decided before hand is what Billy experiences and is what Vonnegut's is trying to show in writing __Slaughterhouse-Five__. -William Southgate

In the book, Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist, experiences things unlike any other beings, in that his life is spent skipping back and fourth through different episodes of his life. Billy could not change the times in his life that the events would take place and he states, "God grant me the serentity to accept the things i cannot change, courage to change the things i can, and wisdom to always tell the difference"(60). This was during the event that the Tralfamadorians took Billy to Tralfamadore. The question that id ask is that Is change really a good thing for Billys sake? In that is it a good thing that his life is like this?-Amy Ferira

In the novel __Slaughterhouse Five__, written by Kurt Vonnegut, you are taken through time to experience the life of Billy Pilgrim. One quote that was written all throughout the book was “so it goes.” This quote could be found right after someone had died. One interesting aspect to his novel is that at the end of the first chapter he tells you the exact words of how the book is going to start and the exact words of how it is going to end. Which makes you wonder why he would tell you how the novel is going to end. Although the words don't actually make much sense until you get to the end of the novel. -Emma Donaldson

The war novel, __ Slaughterhouse Five __//, // by Kurt Vonnegut, was a captivating read that left me looking at life and death from a different perspective. It describes the traumatic experiences of a man named Billy Pilgrim who travels through different time periods of his life uncontrollably. Aliens who lived on the planet Tralfamadore kidnapped Billy, and later he wrote and published a letter about his experience on their planet. Billy wrote, "The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist" (26-27). The difference between these aliens and humans is that aliens can see moments all at once, while humans can only see the current moments. This quote shows an underlying theme of Fate. Every moment in a person's life is destined to happen, including death. Later in the novel the aliens talk of no other planet besides Earth believing in free will. It's thought provoking to think about death as only a moment or event in life. This quote says that death isn't the ending of a person's life; it's merely an inevitable moment for all living beings. A person's life has a past, present, and future that will permanently exist. -Savanna Barrineau

In Kurt Vonnegut's novel, __Slaughterhouse-Five__, the main character, Billy Pilgrim, has several pychologicaly traumatizing experiences, in which he skips to different parts of his life and is also abducted by aliens called Tralfamadorians. While he is captured, one of the Tralfamadorians says, "Only on Earth is there talk of free will." This is the author saying humans don't really have control over what happens to them because they choose which point in time they want to live in. Even Billy Pilgrim is without free will. He can travel through time but he still cannot choose which point in time he travels to or when he travels through time. -Dawes Caldwell

In Kurt Vonnegut’s __Slaughterhouse Five,__ we meet a character named Billy Pilgrim who was a WWII soldier. During the novel, Billy travels back and forth through different events in his life. These events include the death of his wife, being captured in a POW camp, and being abducted by the Tralfamadorians. As we read through the novel, we experience the real and fake experiences that Billy goes through in his life. Overall I thought the book was very interesting to read because of the different experiences Billy went through. -Nick Windham

In Kurt Vonnegut's Novel, __Slaughterhouse-Five,__ we are introduced to an intriguing character named Billy Pilgrim. Pilgrim is a WWII soldier, and gets taken to POW camp. He goes through several traumatic experiences during his stay in POW camp. He is abducted by aliens named Tralfamadorians. __Slaughterhouse-Five__ is an extremely interesting novel that offers historical facts and also a surreal reading experience with the inclusion of aliens. -Hutson Harrigan

Kurt Vonnegut's book __Slaughterhouse Five__is a very interesting novel. The book has many interesting experiences for Billy Pilgrim. One of the weirdest experienced for Billy was getting abducted by the Tralfamadorians. This book was very interesting because every event that Billy experiences is in the past, and he travels back and forth in time. One of the things that caught my attention is when the book says "and so it goes". This interested me because the Tralfamadorians taught Billy that when something dies it just goes back in time and never ceases to exist. Billy also experiences life threatening situations being a prisoner of war. Another thing that was odd about the book was that he could not choose where he would go back in time. -Bo Harrell

In Kurt Vonnegut's book, __Slaughterhouse Five__, we go through the life of Billy Pilgrim. Throughout the book he travels through time mainly from the life he lives on Tralfamadoran to his life during the war and to his life with his family on Earth. He is able to travel through time with the help of the Tralfamadorians who have taken him to their home planet to live. While he is living there he learns that you must only focus on the happy times in life and not pay attention to the sad and bad times. The book is filled with action and a little bit of romance. Even though it was a weird book it was still good. -Fleetwood Brown

In the book, __Slaughterhouse Five__, by Kurt Vonnegut, he puts you into the start of writing this book. How he went to an old war buddy's house to talk and bring back the old stories and memories. Then, it goes into the life of Billy Pilgrim, who has these time travels to memories of the past and into the future. Billy was also in the Slaughter House, and held as a POW. In his time travels, he goes from World War II to his job in the 1960s and an eye doctor, to being born, to when he was abducted by aliens, and back to another memory all in random sequence. He claims that his time travels are because he was abducted by Tralfamadorians, or aliens from Tralfamadoran that can see in the fourth dimension, and can see time as a tangible thing. They have no thoughts about life or death, because they know they are already somewhere else in time doing something different. That is why every time someone dies in the book the author says,"So it goes," as if they are alive somewhere else in time. -Parker Chavis

When asked, “what is __Slaughterhouse Five__ about,” I find it very difficult to concisely and definitively respond. Kurt Vonnegut’s narration of Billy Pilgrim, a wandering consciousness ‘unstuck in time,’ can really be interpreted in myriads of manners as Billy’s voyage represents the greater ‘pilgrimage’ of mankind striving for advancement. According to Vonnegut through the characters of the Tralfamadorians, there is no ‘advancement’ except for the acknowledgment of this inevitability. Time just happens there is no why. Life is a collection of perspectives and experiences in a chaotic order. Much like life is subject to perspective so is an understanding of __Slaughterhouse Five__. Some would argue that the novel is an antiwar novel, supported by the excerpt regarding bomb manufacturing in the reverse sequence, “The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again” (94). But, I will argue that Vonnegut is striking more deeply than this “world peace rally.” Vonnegut stresses confusion and ambiguity. For instance, it is extremely difficult to definitively discern Billy Pilgrim’s ‘true’ predicament and its resolution (if there is one). Through this masterful use of ambiguity Vonnegut seems to be stressing that events can be interpreted into many different ‘truths’ based on perspective, as people tend to sequence experiences differently. So it goes. -Jonathan Ellison

In __Slaughterhouse Five__, by Kurt Vonnegut, we follow the life of Billy Pilgrim, a WWII vet who experiences time shifting, an experience which sends him back and forth through periods of his life; because of this the book is told as more of a collection of misplaced memories, instead of linearally. We later come to find out that Billy's time travels are caused by an encounter he has with the tralfamadorians: two foot tall aliens who see in the fourth dimension, as well as see time as non-linear. They believe that when we die we are born again someplace new, and the cycle begins agan. This is better explained by the author, who says, "All time is all time. It does not change. It does not lend itself to warnings or explanations. It simply is". This is saying that time is not linear, and we can not change what happens in our lives. Time was determined long before we were born, and will not change or be impacted by our actions. -Kole Burke