Slaughterhouse+Five

PDF of the book: http://english-mechs2.wikispaces.com/file/view/slaughterhouse-five.pdf/290831075/slaughterhouse-five.pdf

 **Discussion and Writing Comprehension**

 //Chapter One//

 The author discusses the false starts and dead ends that he experienced in his twenty-three year struggle to write a book about the fire bombing of Dresden which he experienced as a prisoner of the Germans at the end of World War II.  Identify vocabulary — Guggenheim money  Identify characters — author, Bernard V. O’Hare, Gerhard Muller, Harrison Starr, Edgar Derby, Paul Lazzaro, Mary O’Hare  1.What aspects of the book does the author insist really happened?  2.How did the author find O’Hare?  3.What souvenirs does he recall the American POWs bringing out of Germany?  4.What does the author do to entertain himself late at night? Why can’t he sleep?  5.What did the author learn in college after the war?  6.What jobs did the author have after the war?  7.What fatal accident did he cover?  8.What difference does the author see in the veterans who “really fought” and the veterans who had office jobs? Why do you think this difference exists?  9.What response does the author get when he tries to get information about the Dresden raid from the Air Force?  10.Who originally said, “//Eheu, fugaces labuntur anni”//? What does this phrase mean in English?  11.Why is Mary “polite but chilly”? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 12.What happened during the real Children’s Crusade? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 13.Why is the book “so short and jumbled and jangled”? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 14.Why does the author say that the book “was written by a pillar of salt”?

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> //Chapter Two//

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> The reader is introduced to the main character, Billy Pilgrim. The chapter introduces the concept of coming “unstuck in time” and tells the main events of Billy’s life, emphasizing the events leading up to his capture by the German army at the end of World War II. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Identify characters — Billy Pilgrim, Barbara, Robert, Roland Weary, Valencia <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 1.What does the author mean when he says that Billy “has come unstuck in time”? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 2.What are the major events of Billy’s life depicted in this chapter? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 3.What is Tralfamadore? What happens to Billy there? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 4.How does Billy describe the Tralfamadorians? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 5.What ability do the Tralfamadorians have that Earthlings do not? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 6.What is the origin of the phrase, “so it goes”? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 7.Describe Billy’s war experience up to his capture? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 8.How is he captured? With whom? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 9.When and how did Billy first come unstuck in time? Describe the experience. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 10.Why does Weary try to beat Billy?

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> //Chapter Three//

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Billy travels back and forth in time from his experiences as a POW in Europe to post-war Ilium, New York on the eve of his daughter’s wedding. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Identify vocabulary — “mopping up”, androgyne <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Identify characters — Wild Bob <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 1.Describe the German force that captured Billy. What does that force tell us about Germany at the end of the war? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 2.What happens to the scouts? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 3.Why does the German photographer take a picture of Billy’s and Weary’s feet? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 4.Why does the photographer stage a picture of Billy’s capture? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 5.What are the two causes of the destruction that Billy drives through on his way to the Lions Club meeting? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 6.What does Billy’s encounter with the Marine major tell us about Billy’s approach to life? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 7.Why does the doctor tell Billy to take a nap everyday? What do you think caused Billy’s malady? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 8.Describe the German reserves whom the captured Americans passed. How do they compare to the group that captured Billy? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 9.Describe the conditions on the trains that transported the prisoners. Describe the car that housed the railroad guards. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 10.Why does Vonnegut refer to the prisoners on the trains as “human beings”?

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> //Chapter Four//

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Billy is captured by the Tralfamadorians on his daughter’s wedding night. While being transported on their flying saucer, he travels in time back to the prisoner train in 1945 Germany. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Identify characters — Edgar Derby, Paul Lazzaro, the Tralfamadorians <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 1.What does Billy do to occupy his time before the aliens come? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 2.How does the message of the war movie change when it is viewed backwards? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 3.How is Billy lifted into the flying saucer? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 4.How do the Tralfamadorians answer when Billy asks “why me?” <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 5.Why do the other POWs refuse to let Billy sleep near them? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 6.What does Weary tell the other men in his car before he dies? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 7.What processes do the Americans go through when they arrive at the camp?

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> //Chapter Five//

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Billy continues to move in time between World War II, Tralfamadore, his time in the psychiatric ward of a veterans’ hospital, and his marriage. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Identify vocabulary —rodomontades <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Identify characters — Eliot Rosewater, Kilgore Trout, Valencia Merble, Mr. and Mrs. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Lance Rumfoord, Howard W. Campbell, Jr., Professor Bertram <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Copeland Rumfoord <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 1.What does the way Tralfamadorians view the universe and Earthlings tell us about their concept of time? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 2.Is there a similarity between the format of Vonnegut’s novel and the description of Tralfamadorian novels? Explain. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 3.Describe the English POWs that Billy and the Americans encounter. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 4.What was the main ingredient of the candles and soap used at the welcoming dinner for the American POWs? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 5.Why do the British POWs send Billy to the hospital shed? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 6.What is Billy introduced to in the veterans’ hospital? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 7.Why does science fiction appeal to Billy and Rosewater? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 8.Why is Billy upset by his mother? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 9.In his novel, //The Gospel from Outer Space,// what does Kilgore Trout say is the message of the gospels? How do the aliens change that message? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 10.Describe Billy’s habitat in the Tralfamadorian zoo. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 11.What do the Tralfamadorians suggest Earthlings should learn to do? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 12.What epitaph does Billy think of on his wedding night? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 13.What does Campbell write about American POWs in Germany? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 14.Why does the widowed mother think Billy is “going crazy”?

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> //Chapter Six//

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Billy and the other American POWs are transferred to Dresden as contract labor. Billy describes his own death. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 1.What is the source of the animal magnetism Billy feels in the prison hospital shed? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 2.What does Lazzaro say is the sweetest thing in life? What story does he tell to prove his point? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 3.What advice does Lazzaro give Billy? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 4.How does Billy die? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 5.What positive attributes of Dresden does the Englishman share with the American POWs? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 6.How is Edgar Derby elected head American? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 7.To what does the author compare his first view of Dresden? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 8.Describe the Americans’ arrival in Dresden. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 9.Describe the Americans’ “home away from home.”

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> //Chapter Seven//

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> While Billy is in a hospital in Vermont recovering from injuries sustained in a plane crash, he travels through time back to Dresden in 1945. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Identify characters — Werner Gluck <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 1.Describe the plane crash in which Billy is injured. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 2.What do Billy, Gluck, and Derby discover in the first building they enter while looking for the slaughterhouse kitchen? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 3.What does the war widow in the kitchen think of Billy, Gluck, and Derby? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 4.What work was assigned to the Americans in Dresden? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 5.How do the Americans get vitamins and minerals?

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> //Chapter Eight//

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Billy travels from the slaughterhouse to his meeting with Kilgore Trout, his anniversary party, and back to the fire bombing of Dresden. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Identify vocabulary — nacreous <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Identify characters — Howard W. Campbell, Jr., Kilgore Trout, Maggie White, Montana <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Wildhack <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 1.Why does Campbell visit the American POWs? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 2.How does Derby respond to Campbell? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 3.How does Billy meet Trout? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 4.What does Trout’s story about robots say about the bombing of Dresden? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 5.What two ‘lies’ does Trout tell Maggie White? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 6.How does Billy react to the barbershop quartet? Why? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 7.How does Billy describe Dresden after the fire-bombing? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 8.What do the American fighter planes do after the fire-bombing? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 9.What do the Americans find in the suburb of Dresden?

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> //Chapter Nine//

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> While in the hospital in Vermont recovering from the plane crash, Billy discusses Dresden with another patient. He then travels in time to Dresden and to Tralfamadore. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Identify vocabulary — epigraph <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Identify characters — Bertram Copeland Rumfoord, Lily Rumfoord <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 1.How does Valencia die? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 2.What justifications and critiques of the fire-bombing of Dresden does Rumfoord read? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 3.What did the old man in Billy’s past think about old age? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 4.How had the army improved Robert? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 5.What is Professor Rumfoord’s opinion of Billy? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 6.What might Billy choose as his happiest moment? Why? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 7.What is the only thing Billy cries about in the war? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 8.Why is the epigraph of the book //Away In A Manger//? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 9.What is Professor Rumfoord’s opinion of the raid on Dresden? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 10.What two acquaintances does Billy indirectly encounter in the “tawdry bookstore”? How? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 11.What happens to Billy on the New York radio show?

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> //Chapter Ten//

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> Billy and the other POWs are used by the Germans to exhume corpses after the fire-bombing. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 1.What does the author describe as one of his nicest moments? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 2.What does the author mean by the term //corpse mine//? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 3.How does the Maori POW die? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 4.What new technique for disposing of the corpses is devised? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 5.Why do the Germans leave? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 6.What does the bird say to Billy Pilgrim? Why?

<span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> **Discussion** <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 1.After reading the book, why do you think that Vonnegut dedicated his novel to Mary O’Hare and Gerhard Muller? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 2.Why does Vonnegut choose to write a “jumbled and jangled” war book? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 3.What is the significance of the phrase “so it goes”? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 4.What is the significance of the bird cry “poo-tee-weet”? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 5.Explain the subtitle, //The Children’s Crusade or a Dirty Dance With Death//. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 6.Discuss the major themes of //Slaughterhouse-Five//? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 7.How does Vonnegut use time to communicate his themes? <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 8.Discuss the use of irony in the novel. <span style="font-family: verdana,arial,sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: normal;"> 9.Are we intended to believe Billy’s tales of Tralfamadore or are we, like Barbara, supposed to assume that Tralfamadore is a figment of Billy’s post-brain-damaged imagination?