Slaughterhouse Five - pgs 154- 182

"He knew it was going to crash, but he didn't want to make fool of himself by saying so (pg 154)." Billy thinks this as he enters the fateful plane in which he would crash and be one of the two survivors. There is an uncomfortable plainess in this passage. He knows of a terrible accident that will happen, even killing his father-in-law and he doesn't say anything out of looking stupid. This reminds me of all those movies like Paycheck where the main character sees the future and he attempts to change the outcome of the story. Why doesn't Billy resemble those characters? Perhaps its the classic Trafalmadorian thinking of fate and how it will never be changed. How does this thinking come into the anti-war theme of this book? To me it does the exact opposite, people will die, there will be war, and there's nothing we can do about it. How Vonnegut uses this is still unclear to me.

In Billy's plane, some singers sing about Poles and then the novel tells us, as if it was nothing serious, that Billy saw a Pole being hanged during the war. "Speaking of people from Poland: Billy Pilgrim accidentally saw a Pole being hanged in public, about three days after Billy got to Dresden (pg. 155)." This small-talk about someone's death is what really gets anti-war feelings in me, not time travel or Trafalmadorians. In this sentence there's another curious thing. The author writes it with no pronouns, he uses Billy's name every time he mentions him. Probably to add to the journalistic, impersonal tone of the book.

As the chapter moves on, Billy remebrs his work in the Dresden factory he was contracted to. It produced malt syrup. Billy often scooped syrup and drank it while no one was looking, but in one of those cases this happens:

So Billy made a lollipop for him [Derby]. He opened the window. He stuck the lollipop into poor old Derby's gaping mouth. A moment passed, and then Derby burst into tears. Billy closed the window and hid the sticky spoon. Somebody was coming.

Why did Derby cry? Was it the joy of tasting the syrup? Was it the fear caused by that "somebody" that was coming? Did he see Derby? Was this why he was gonna get shot? A ver interesting thing in this excerpt is the unique adjective given to Derby, "poor old Derby". Was this because of his desire for syrup or because he was gonna get shot soon? If it was for the second reason it would be a unique description as whenever someone is dead or close to being he is never reffered with any kind of affection. Why would Vonnegut do the exceptionwith Derby?

The beginning of the next chapter has no reference to the previous incident, likely another "impersonality" literary method. In this chapter they talk about Howard W. Campbell Jr. an American that became a Nazi. When he addresses the Americans, Derby speaks back to him. Here they mention him again as "Poor old Derby". " Poor old Derby, the doomed high school teacher, lumbered to his feet for what was probably the finest moment in his life (pg 164)." Why does Vonnegut treat Derby so affectionately while treating the death of thousands others as if it was nothing?

Then Vonnegut actually narrates the destruction of Dresden by the Allies. Instead of mentioning more destruction, he states it beautifully, "It was like the moon (pg 179)." Such a simple and unrelated sentence, but when the reader actually pictures the moon and then pictures Dresden the simile is understood. Its not as much as the destrucition but the desolation and emptiness. After such a brief and strong imagery, Vonnegut wraps it up perfectly for the anti-war theme, "The idea was to hasten the end of the war (pg 180)."