Chapter 10 term: symbol

The bird at the end of the novel utters a line that confused me at first glance.  "Poo-tee-weet?"  I did not know why an author would end an award winning novel with a gibberish question asked by an animal.  Then I realized that Vonnegut did not want us to understand the bird.  The novel's finishing line is actually great because of the fact that the reader cannot understand the bird.  The misunderstanding of the bird is a symbol of the misunderstanding of war.  The question that is asked by the bird cannot be answered because one does not know how to answer a question that he does not understand.  War and destruction in today's world are things that are incomprehensible to people.  Why would people destroy one another over disputes?  The question cannot be answered just as the question from the bird because people cannot understand the war and violence today.

Chapter 10: So it goes

One of the major themes of the novel seems to be the repetitive use of the phrase "So it goes".  The phrase is used after every single death in the story no matter how tragic or ironic it may be.  The phrase does not discriminate between races, sexes, or brutality of the death.  Because the phrase does not change, it is used to display the equalization of dignity among all deaths in the novel.  No death is different from any other when the phrase is used afterwards.  All people are equal after death, and the phrase "So it goes" is the symbol that brings them all together throughout the novel.

Chapter nine term: Metaphor

When Billy is sunbathing in Dresden, he sees a couple who have survived the bombing.  The couple were German doctors, and they approached Billy to scold him for the condition of two horses that had been pulling the wagon that Billy was in.  The two scolded Billy because "...the horses' mouths were bleeding gashed by the bits, that the horses' hooves were broken, so that every step meant agony, that the horses were insane with thirst."  After being scolded by the two doctors, Billy wept for the first time during the war. This event stands as a metaphor between Billy and the horses.  Both the horses and Billy were victims of a cruel war that had taken their lives from them so that they were nothing.  The horses were forced to live on the moon-like ground and hurt after every step.  That was how Billy felt his entire time during the war.

Chapter Nine: Billy and his son

Throughout the novel so far, I have not learned much about Billy's son, Robert, other than the fact that he used to be troubled and then joined the Green Berets.  The lack of description of Billy's son may be because Billy does not have a very good relationship with his son.  Vonnegut described their relationship when he wrote, "Billy liked him (Robert), but didn't know him very well.  Billy couldn't help suspecting that there wasn't much to know about Robert."  That relationship does not sound like a very healthy father to son relationship to me.  The reason that these two are not very close may be due to Robert's profession.  Being in the Green Berets, Robert is a symbol of war and destruction to his father.  After being through the second world war, the last thing Billy wants is a reminder of the destruction he experienced during the war.  Even when Robert returns from the war in Vietnam to visit his father in the hospital, all Billy can do is close his eyes to block the image.  After all, Billy is just following the advice of the Tralfamadorians which says to not concentrate on the bad images of life, but to only look at happy images.

Chapter 8 term: simile

In chapter eight after the bombing of Dresden, the entire city is barren of anything that can burn.  The city has been reduced to nothing but mineral which is reinforced when Vonnegut uses this simile, "Dresden was like the moon now, nothing but minerals."  Vonnegut also describes the group of Americans and their guards as contemporary space men as they navigated through the foreign face of this new planet created by the bombing.  Vonnegut describes the group in their dire circumstance, "if they were going to continue to survive, they were going to have to climb over curve after curve on the face of the moon."  The bombing of Dresden was so destructive, Vonnegut was forced to describe the city as a foreign object that most people have never seen.

Chapter 8: Bombing of Dresden

At Billy's anniversary years after the war had been over, a barbershop quartet was singing a tune. The song sounded suspiciously similar to the bombing of Dresden.  Many of the lines described the scene:
 "Prayin' for sunshine, 'cause it will rain
  Things gettin' worse, drivin' all insane;
  Built a nice bar, painted it brown;
  Lightning came along and burnt it down..."
The lyrics to this song describe the horror that was the Dresden bombing, but it is written in a jolly song for a barbershop quartet.  The "sunshine" never came for the people in Dresden, but they did get a lot of "rain".  The "rain" and "lightning" came down in bombs and "burnt" the entire city down.  It is no wonder that Billy was so torn up after hearing this song at his anniversary.  The memory of the bombing caused Billy to leave the party and have to go to his bedroom to sleep.  The bombing was estimated to kill up to 500,000 people, a number that is staggering even today.  Billy had the right to be upset at this memory.

Chapter seven term: mood

The mood of this chapter is felt when the reader hears the war widow in the kitchen say, "All the real soldiers are dead."  This sets the mood because it is the truest statement in the chapter.  None of the boys in front of the woman are suited for war, from the poor old Edgar Derby, the young German soldier, or the horribly dressed Billy Pilgrim with his Cinderella boots.  The mood that is implied by the statement from the woman is a sense of hopelessness.  With no "real soldiers" left in the second world war, the hope for many of the nations in the war is gone and Vonnegut is explaining this to the reader by one simple line from a woman who will probably only make one appearance in the entire novel.