Chapter 10

"There were barricades on the main roads leading into the ruins.  Germans were stopped there.  They were not permitted to explore the moon" (Vonnegut 213).

This picture shows a distant moon in the sky, past branches and clouds.  In this passage in the book, Billy Pilgrim and the other prisoners of war are being taken back into Dresden after the bombing to work clearing the wreckage and recovering bodies.  The description of the city as the moon, and the fact that civilians weren't allowed back into it show the utter destruction of Dresden and its isolation.

The imagery of Dresden as the moon serves to describe the scale of the destruction, that it no longer even looks like a human habitation.  It also makes Dresden seem so isolated from the rest of the world.  As seen in the picture, the moon is incredibly far away.  And although Dresden was still just as close to other German cities after it was bombed, the description makes Dresden seem set apart from the rest of the world after the destruction it had gone through.  The physical barriers to keep civilians away also served to isolate Dresden.  I would imagine that some of the descriptions in this section come from Vonnegut's personal experiences from his time in Dresden after it was bombed.

Chapter 9

"[Rumfoord] didn't know that [Lily] couldn't read much.  He knew very little about her, except that she was one more public demonstration that he was a superman" (Vonnegut 185).

This picture is of a Barbie doll, representing Lily.  In the quote, Vonnegut is describing Bertram Copeland Rumfoord, a seventy-year-old man who shares a hospital room with Billy Pilgrim after Billy was in a plane crash, and Rumfoord's twenty-three-year-old wife, Lily.  This larger description of Rumfoord goes along with Vonnegut's stated goal in the first chapter not to glorify soldiers and war.

This quote portrays Lily as a trophy wife who Rumfoord doesn't care about and only married because she was young and pretty, and it made him look good to be with her.  The book also mentions that Lily is Rumfoord's fifth wife.  This, along with the way Rumfoord treats Billy, paint him in a very negative light.  Rumfoord is also very vocal in his support of war.  Back at the beginning of Slaughterhouse Five, when Vonnegut is speaking in the first chapter, he promises a friend's wife that when he does write a war story, he won't glorify anything about the war, and he won't tell a story that will make children want to go to war one day.  So in the book, most of the soldiers are people like Billy Pilgrim, who don't want to be there and aren't huge heroes.  Characters who do support war, such as Roland Weary and Rumfoord, are portrayed negatively, often as violent, foolish men who think that they are better than they really are.

Chapter 8

"Trout, incidentally, had written a book about a money tree.  It had twenty-dollar bills for leaves. . . It attracted human beings who killed each other around the roots and made very good fertilizer.  So it goes" (Vonnegut 167).

In this picture, I tried to recreate the imagery of a money tree (although I used one dollar bills instead of twenties, since it was a windy day).  The quote from Slaughterhouse Five describes one of fictional author Kilgore Trout's books about a money tree.  This is included as a criticism of humanity's greed.  

This scene caught my eye because it is so morbid, casually saying that the dead humans were good fertilizer.  Here, Vonnegut is criticizing greed.  The bluntness of these lines makes it seem ridiculous that people are willing to kill over money, yet in the real world people are willing to go to great lengths out of greed.  This scene feels like a criticism of humanity in general, and our weakness towards hatred and greed.  If Vonnegut did have any feelings of disillusionment with humanity after spending time as a soldier and a prisoner of war, and watching a city be destroyed, this scene might also play off of those feelings.

Chapter 7

"'All the real soldiers are dead,' she said.  It was true.  So it goes" (Vonnegut 159).

This picture shows toy soldiers scattered across a floor.  In this scene in the book, Billy Pilgrim, Edgar Derby, and a sixteen-year-old German guard named Werner Gluck have been sent to collect food for the prisoners of war working in the slaughterhouse.  The woman preparing the food points out that Werner Gluck is too young to be a soldier, Edgar Derby is too old to be one, and Billy Pilgrim doesn't have the dress or manner of a soldier.  She then says this quote.

This exchange shows, yet again, the anti-war sentiments of Slaughterhouse Five.  Slaughterhouse Five takes place towards the end of World War II, when the fighting has already been going on for years and many of the "real soldiers", the young men with full military training, have already been killed.  Vonnegut points out that by their ends, wars are fought by the old and the very young, people who probably did not want to be involved in the fighting in the first place.  The point is driven in again that wars will always change or destroy many innocent lives.  This is one scene out of the many in Slaughterhouse Five that portray war as a bad way of solving conflicts.

Chapter 6

"So Billy experiences death for a while.  It is simply violet light and a hum.  There isn't anybody else there.  Not even Billy Pilgrim is there" (Vonnegut 143).

This image shows violet light against darkness, similar to Billy's experience of death.  This scene in the novel describe's Billy's brief time spent being dead before he jumps back in time to when he was alive.  This scene highlights the low view of religion in Slaughterhouse Five.

This is an unusual interpretation of death, and one directly contrasting with the ideas of an afterlife that most religions have.  Slaughterhouse Five seems to take a low view of organized religion in many places, and this is another one of them.  This scene implies that there is no afterlife, and by extent, many elements of organized religion are wrong.  Rather than traditional views of what happens after death, Billy keeps experiencing things by traveling back in time to when he was alive.  This goes along with the Tralfamadorian ideas that Vonnegut presents in the novel, that a dead person just isn't in a very good situation in that moment, but is perfectly fine in many other moments.  I think that Vonnegut's low view of religion may relate to disillusionment with good and humanity after experiencing the horrors of a World War.

Chapter 5

"The water was dead.  So it goes.  Air was trying to get out of that dead water.  Bubbles were clinging to the walls of the glass, too weak to get out" (Vonnegut 101).

This picture shows a water glass with a few bubbles along the edge, as described in the book. In this scene, Billy is in a ward for nonviolent mental patients in a veterans' hospital, three years after the end of World War II.  The "dead" water reflects how Billy is feeling, tired and disillusioned with life.  One again, the anti-war sentiments of Slaughterhouse Five appear.

Vonnegut uses the water as a metaphor in this scene, again reinforcing the ideas of the true cost of war.  Billy had witnessed the death and destruction caused by war firsthand, particularly the bombing of Dresden.  Billy still seems haunted by the war and is disillusioned with his life.  His jaded world is the "dead" water, and he is like the bubbles, unable to summon the strength to leave the "water"- in his case, the way he has retreated into himself.  The toll that war takes on people is brought up again in this scene.  This scene also raises the question if these feelings, like some other events in the book, were based off of Vonnegut's experiences, an idea made more valid by the fact that Vonnegut did suffer from depression at about the time Slaughterhouse Five was written.

Chapter 4

"The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas.  It was their business to put them back into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so that they would never hurt anyone ever again" (Vonnegut 75).

The picture shows compost and a pile of old bricks, with ivy growing up over them.  The things in the picture are crumbling apart and being retaken by nature.  The quote comes from a scene where Billy is watching a war movie in reverse- seeing planes fixed, cities rebuilt, soldiers returning to high school, and weapons taken apart and their parts put back into the ground.  This scene empathizes the anti-war sentiments of Slaughterhouse Five.

I thought that this was a sad scene, reflecting on what could have been if not for the war.  Vonnegut's own experiences from his time serving in World War II, especially his time as a prisoner of war and his witnessing the bombing of Dresden, probably influenced this scene.  It reflects the sentiment that war is a bad thing that will only lead to death and destruction.  But I think that there is also an element of hope here.  The fact that Vonnegut includes the weapons being taken apart and the material in them returned underground shows a glimmer of hope that one day people will stop using war as a solution to problems, and that peace will eventually come.

Chapter 3

"Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future" (Vonnegut 60).

The picture echoes the idea expressed in the quote that life is set in stone.  In Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut seems to stress the idea that there is no such thing as free will, and that fate determines people's lives.  People's lives follow paths that were predetermined, and choices are only illusions.

I think that this is an interesting debate.  It can be argued that free will does exist, and that people can choose to make their own decisions and control what happens in their lives.  But Vonnegut seems to support the idea that we aren't really changing our futures.  Perhaps it is within our personalities that we are predetermined to make the choices that we make, even if we think we are making them out of our free will.  It can also be argued that much of our lives are shaped by outside forces.  Personally, I think that there is some truth to both views.  Outside forces do have a strong role in our lives, but we chose how to react to them.  And while our personalities impact the choices that we make, they are not the only factor.  Our lives are influenced by both fate and free will, and we have the ability to shape our own futures.

Chapter 2

"All moments past, present, and future have always existed, always will exist.  The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just the way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance.  They can see how permanent all the moments are..." (Vonnegut 27).

The picture shows a mountain range (in this case, the Appalachian Mountains) extending into the distance.  Mountains are used to illustrate the Tralfamadorian idea of time, that all points in time exist simultaneously and permanently.  Each mountain is a different moment, still present alongside the others.

I think that this is an interesting concept.  It seems to emphasize that events are connected, and that the past isn't some forgotten thing that is gone forever once it has occurred.  I also wonder if some of the tragedies Vonnegut suffered in his past helped him to form this view in the novel.  Vonnegut's mother committed suicide when he was a child, and his sister died of cancer when he was an adult.  He also witnessed the devastation and lives lost in World War II, especially at the bombing of Dresden.  The idea might appeal to Vonnegut that all of those people weren't truly gone; if the past is just as real of a moment as the present, and some beings could visit different points in time, those people would still exist.  Death wouldn't be an end for everyone.

Chapter 1

"People aren't supposed to look back.  I'm certainly not going to anymore" (Vonnegut 22).

The picture shows a road at night, with everything farther than a few feet away obscured in the dark.  In this quote, Vonnegut reflects morosely on the past, seeming to imply that it is better to forget and move on than to hold onto dreams of things that could have gone differently.  The picture reflects this idea that anything far from where you are should be forgotten and fade away.

I find this quote interesting because it contrasts with points brought up later in the novel that time is connected, and isn't just one linear chain.  In his personal life, Vonnegut certainly endured hardships in his past, but the very fact that he wrote Slaughterhouse Five and other books that looked back on his experiences proves that he didn't stop looking back.  And personally, I disagree with the quote.  We are shaped by our experiences, and are the people we are because of the things we have done and have lived through.  When we look back we can be sustained by the good times, grow stronger from the hard times, and learn from our mistakes.  We wouldn't be complete as people without our pasts, so as tempting as it can be to forget the past, it is impossible to truly never "look back".  

Vonnegut, Kurt. Slaughterhouse Five. New York City: Random House, Inc., 1969. Print.