"It was the next night that about 130,000 people in Dresden would die." - pg. 165
I like to think that I know a fair amount of history, especially when it comes to WWII, which is why I thought it was a little weird when I didn't know a whole lot about the Dresden air raid. So naturally, I Wikipedia-ed it. Not quite 130,000 people died, but there really were a ton of people. I think this is the perfect event to center an anti-war novel around. It was meant to hurt the enemy, but it's different when people see it from an American point of view. There weren't supposed to be any Americans in Dresden, only Nazis.
That's the picture of a women in a bomb shelter after the air raid that pops up on Wikipedia. It seems like a valid military solution to a problem - bombing the enemy; however, when you start to see the other side it opens your eyes a little more.
"Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does. I learned that on Tralfamadore." - pg. 198
Billy is so lax throughout the novel after he gets back from his time travels - which I think he made up in his mind. Believing that all those terrible thiings he witnessed needed to happen is much easier than forming an opinion and fighting for it. In Billy's case, he can think of all that death as just another moment in time. I think Billy is just a pacifist who got caught up in the war, even though he didn't want to be there. He displays how much he hates conflict the entire time. He's basically convinced that eveything will work out and he'll get passed it if he doesn't worry. Post-Tralfamadorian Billy and Bob Marley would've gotten along pretty well I think.
"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. But old Derby was a character now." - pg. 164
The point of view changes from someone telling a story about Billy Pilgrim to the author letting the reader into his thought process. We now know, thanks to Vonnegut, that Derby is about to make some important decisions. He could either become an American Nazi or stick up for his fellow POWs. Vonnegut starts to explain why there are only a few main characters that just jump from scene to scene. The action is never really focused around one solid plot. Vonnegut's voice convinces the reader to feel sorry for the characters. If he has to come right out and say that they are listless and tired, then it must be true. He wants to make sure the reader knows that they're being forced into the life they've led during the war; it shouldn't have been an option in the first place.
This is a stretch, but everyone needs a little *NSync in their life. Just like the
soldiers in the war, they're being controlled by some outside force.
For the boy band, it's a person working the ropes. For the American soldiers,
it's the government and the fight for freedom and power.
"It was dropped on them from airplanes. Robots did the dropping. They had no conscience, and no circuits which would allow them to imagine what was happening to the people on the ground." - pg. 168
Kilgore Trout's novels all connect to Billy Pilgrim's life in some way, but The Gutless Wonder also satirized WWII. This novel was all about robots who killed thousands of people because they knew no better. The Americans dropped napalm bombs knowing the damage that would be done. The satire continues when Vonnegut copies an excerpt from Truman's speech on Hiroshima. It all seems so ridiculous when it's isolated and the details are pointed out. Americans seem ruthless and cruel when they're compared to heartless robots that perform the same actions. We're a bit biased when reading this because we all know that the nation's harmed in the war have recovered and America is not proud of their actions, but as a reader in the late 60's this book would get its anti-war point across.
"Thus began the first corpse mine in Dresden." - pg. 214
I couldn't really tell where most of the plot points were in this story, simply because it's so jumbled and out of order. However, I believe the whole story builds up to this point. This is the worst of the worst when it came to the war and the bombing in Dresden. There were so many bodies they legitimately stopped retrieving them and began to just burn them. Billy Pilgrim spends the entire story avoiding Dresden and the death he'd seen, but it finally resurfaces when he travels back to that day. It's fitting that this climax is near the end, because it's the most grotesque image of the war thus far. I think Vonnegut concluded the novel shortly after the description of the corpse mine to really bring home the anti-war point. Billy was impacted for the rest of his life by that day, and we should all realize how senseless all of the death is after reading about it first hand.
"The creatures were friendly, and they could see in four dimensions."
"Friendly" is not the first word that pops into my mind when I think of these creepy little green creatures. They basically kidnap Billy and throw his entire world out of whack. They have insane concepts about life and death. They think death is nothing more than another moment. I understand that it's a part of life, but it also should mean something. It should remind us how precious time is, which wouldn't occur to the little plunger people since time is too simple for them. If I were Billy, I would not respond so kindly to these creatures. I think it's completely unfair that they are making him relive so many aspects of his life that he doesn't enjoy. However, it's all necessary. Billy has to face all of these things that he's avoided for so long. Running away from the darkness and terror in his life caught up to him when he was thrown right back into them.
"Among the things that Billy could not change were the past, present, and the future." - pg. 60
If I were to go back to the past or be put into the future, I'd want to be able to know what kind of an effect I'm having. Not being able to change anything would be so incredibly difficult. Knowing that terrible things are going to happen and you just have to sit back and watch would be terrible. I can't imagine what Billy felt like as he relived just about every awful thing that happened in his life. Most normal people just forget all about it and move on, but that's not possible for Billy. Poor guy, he has to go through bits and pieces of his life and figure out what's happening. I don't know how I would keep all of that straight. I can't even read what's going on with out being really confused. These flashbacks that last two lines then move on are messing with my mind.
This prayer hangs in Billy's office, but he doesn't exactly know why.
The convenient thing about it is that Billy is pretty much
a pacifist whose strongest trait isn't exactly courage, so it's
good that he can't change anything. Also, the seagull in the background
of the picture really shows how majestic that pray card is.
