"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.
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