Ben Bontrager’s Reviews > Slaughterhouse-Five > Status Update

The Tralfamadorians are comfortable with a lack of explanation and agency. To believe in agency is to believe that the bug can escape the amber and escape suffering. But any attempt to rationalize suffering is unheard of to them.

Hobo is now representing denial. And the amber and bug analogy being people trapped in suffering without explanation. Weary is attempting to find a why, but is wrong.

Every time Vonnegut breaks the forth wall, it’s a reminder that Billy Pilgrim is rooted in his own story. He constantly plays with this idea of fiction and reality that leaves me guessing.

For a former POW, painting a German soldier as innocent and beautiful as Eve (but not Adam?) shows that he’s trying to humanize the Germans while also showing that they’re capable of grave sin.

The rabbi who’d been shot through the hand is clearly a Christ figure. He’s giving Billy a place to rest.

Once again, he’s using irony to show that Weary isn’t nearly as noble as he thinks he is. Billy is laughing because he thinks he’s finally going to get the one thing he wants most… death, but then the German’s (who are supposed to be the villains) save him from his own demise. A hero one minute and a villain the next and vice versa.

I read this book in high school and a lot of it was over my head. I’m excited to reread it with fresh eyes. I think the first chapter is setting up the thesis for the rest of it. Never-ending wars and more-so never-ending death. Vonnegut doesn’t glorify or romanticize death, but he also doesn’t seem to fear it. Also, he uses irony to show the inconsistent morality of people.