SUBJECT Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, illustrates the events of the Dresden bombing through the life of Billy Pilgrim. Throughout the novel Billy Pilgrim has no control over time and constantly travels to different points of his life. Billy Pilgrim was born in Illium, New York and pursued a career in optometry. After graduating high school Billy was drafted into the army during World War II. In the war Billy meets up with three men, one of them named Roland Weary. These men decide to help keep Billy alive as he appeared to them as a helpless human. Eventually Billy along with Roland are captured by the Germans and taken as prisoners of war. While on the trip to Germany in boxcars, Roland Weary dies and tells a man named Paul Lazzaro
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Throughout the entirety of the novel he uses this phrase especially when speaking of death. An example of this is when Billy is in the war and Vonnegut states, “There was a battle there. People were dying there. So it goes” (83). The author makes it clear during the novel that this phrase symbolizes death. It is used repeatedly to finish a story told about something or someone dying in the novel. The character Paul Lazzaro symbolizes revenge in the novel. He promises Roland Weary before he dies that he will revenge his death, and kill Billy Pilgrim. In the novel Paul Lazzaro says, “Anybody ever asks you what the sweetest thing in life is... it 's revenge” (177). He also goes on to keep his promise to Roland and ends up killing Billy Pilgrim later in his life. Therefore it is obvious that Lazzaro is the symbol for revenge in Slaughterhouse Five. The death of Edgar Derby symbolizes the how ludicrous and foolish war can be sometimes. In the end of the novel Vonnegut writes, “Somewhere in there the poor old high school teacher, Edgar Derby, was caught with a teapot he had taken from the catacombs. He was arrested for plundering. He was tried and shot” (274). This shows how chaotic and crazy war could be at at times. Although he did do the wrong thing by stealing a teapot there was no reason for this to lead to his
Throughout the entirety of the novel he uses this phrase especially when speaking of death. An example of this is when Billy is in the war and Vonnegut states, “There was a battle there. People were dying there. So it goes” (83). The author makes it clear during the novel that this phrase symbolizes death. It is used repeatedly to finish a story told about something or someone dying in the novel. The character Paul Lazzaro symbolizes revenge in the novel. He promises Roland Weary before he dies that he will revenge his death, and kill Billy Pilgrim. In the novel Paul Lazzaro says, “Anybody ever asks you what the sweetest thing in life is... it 's revenge” (177). He also goes on to keep his promise to Roland and ends up killing Billy Pilgrim later in his life. Therefore it is obvious that Lazzaro is the symbol for revenge in Slaughterhouse Five. The death of Edgar Derby symbolizes the how ludicrous and foolish war can be sometimes. In the end of the novel Vonnegut writes, “Somewhere in there the poor old high school teacher, Edgar Derby, was caught with a teapot he had taken from the catacombs. He was arrested for plundering. He was tried and shot” (274). This shows how chaotic and crazy war could be at at times. Although he did do the wrong thing by stealing a teapot there was no reason for this to lead to his