What is the main conflict in Slaughterhouse-Five?
major conflict Billy struggles to make sense out of a life forever marked by the firsthand experience of war’s tragedy. rising action Billy and his fellow prisoners are transported across Germany and begin living in a slaughterhouse prison and working in the city of Dresden.
Does Billy die in Slaughterhouse-Five?
Moments after he predicts his own death and closes his speech with the words “Farewell, hello, farewell, hello,” Billy is killed by an assassin’s high-powered laser gun. He experiences the violet nothingness of death, and then he swings back into life and to early 1945.
What is the point of Slaughterhouse Five?
Slaughterhouse-Five makes numerous cultural, historical, geographical, and philosophical allusions. It tells of the bombing of Dresden in World War II, and refers to the Battle of the Bulge, the Vietnam War, and the civil rights protests in American cities during the 1960s.
Is Billy Pilgrim a good person?
The word that best describes Billy is “weak”. Billy is not a strong person, either physically or mentally. He is described in the book as “a funny-looking child who became a funny-looking youth – tall and weak” (30), and in many ways he is the exact opposite of how one would imagine the hero of a war novel to be.
What animal does Paul Lazzaro kill?
After the Englishman leaves Lazzaro tells Billy and Edgar Derby about the sweetness of revenge, describing how he killed a dog who bit him by feeding it a steak loaded with tiny blades. He tells Derby how he will have the Englishman shot and how he also plans to have Billy shot as revenge for Roland Weary.
Where does Billy Pilgrim die?
In 1968 Billy gets into a plane crash on his way to an optometry conference in Montreal. He has a terrible skull fracture. Valencia dies of carbon monoxide poisoning on her way to see him in the hospital.
How is Paul Lazzaro characterized?
Paul Lazzaro is a key character with hard and complicated destiny too. Unfortunately, he is described in the story as an evil. In his life, he is a fellow American POW with a grudge against Billy. His character is tiny, weak, and physically repulsive, Lazarro is foul-tempered and cruel.
Who else is taken captive along with Billy?
Billy meets a man named Wild Bob, an American colonel and prisoner along with Billy at the Luxembourg/German border. As he is extremely sick, he imagines that Billy is a member of his own regiment and gives him a very moving speech.
How would you describe Billy Pilgrim?
Billy Pilgrim The central character of Slaughterhouse-Five. A pacifist, a soldier, a prisoner of war, and an optometrist (someone who prescribes corrective lenses for people who have visual defects), Billy is the epitome of a mild-mannered Everyman who adapts to life’s situations rather than challenge them.
What happens to Billy while on tralfamadore?
After his military service in Germany, he suffers from a nervous collapse and is treated with shock therapy. He recovers, marries, has two children, and becomes a wealthy optometrist. In 1968, Billy survives a plane crash in Vermont; as he is recuperating, his wife dies in an accident.
How does Billy describe the Tralfamadorians?
How does Billy describe the Tralfamadorians? This is what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people because they have a different concept of time. They believe that all time, past, present, and future, exists forever, so people don’t really die. Death is no big deal to them.
What does Billy ask Tralfamadorians when they take him?
Once on board, Billy is asked if he has any questions. He asks, “Why me?”—a question that his captors think very typical of earthlings to ask. They tell him that there is no why, since the moment simply is and since all of them are trapped in the moment, like bugs in amber.
How did Billy Pilgrim kill weary?
Weary winds up dying of gangrene because his feet are too damaged by a pair of wooden clogs the Germans make him wear in exchange for his own state-of-the-art combat boots. He dies cursing Billy’s name.
What does blue and ivory mean in Slaughterhouse-Five?
Background Info. A major symbol in the book “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut, is “Blue and Ivory”. According to Sparknotes, it symbolizes the thin line between life and death;worldly and unworldly experiences. Blue symbolizing hope, is being crossed with Ivory (a mix of white and yellow).
Why is the book so short and jumbled and jangled?
It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds.
What is the meaning of so it goes?
The expression In the 1969 novel Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut used the phrase “So it goes” as a transitional phrase to another subject, as a reminder, and as comic relief. Generally the phrase was used after every time someone’s (or something’s) death is described or mentioned in the novel.
What does mustard gas and roses symbolize?
Billy could almost smell his breath—mustard gas and roses. The odd combination of mustard gas, often used as a chemical weapon, and roses, a symbol of romance, highlights how deeply the war has affected Vonnegut’s life.
What is mustard gas do?
Mustard gas, or sulfur mustard (Cl-CH2CH2)2S, is a chemical agent that causes severe burning of the skin, eyes and respiratory tract. It can be absorbed into the body through inhalation, ingestion or by coming into contact with the skin or eyes.
How many times does it go Slaughterhouse Five?
“So it goes,” the book’s melancholic refrain, appears in the text 106 times.
What is the meaning of and so on?
Definitions of and so on. adverb. continuing in the same way. synonyms: and so forth, etc., etcetera.
Who said everything was beautiful and nothing hurt?
Kurt Vonnegut
