Dresden (SF Chapter 6)

This chapter begins with the Listen: Billy Pilgrim... structure of chapter two, whcih is probably to make sure that the reader knows this chapter will be crucial, so they must listen. Indeed, Dresden will finally come into play. Billy finds two items in his coat, resembling a pea and a horseshoe, which are charged with a sense of importance, but once again Billy just takes them in stride. The americans are also showed to be sort of disgusting and unclean to the Brits. Also, Paul Lazzaro and Edgar Derby, who both spent the night in the hospital with Billy fulfill the first line of chapter one, Edgar being the man killed for taking a teapot that wasn't his, and Paul the man who threatened to have his enemies killed after the war. paul seems to be like Roland Weary in his violent patterns, he pretends to be sweet and good and then destroys his target. It seems odd that harmless Billy Pilgrim keeps falling in with characters like that, but they are necessary to illustrate the senseless brutality of the whole war. However Paul also has an honor code and doesn't hurt innocents or enjoy pian he didn't cause. In a way, he is coping too, the way Billy copes by traveling through time. He evens seems to like giving his would be victims some peace, like telling Billy he won't have him killed for a while. Billy is of course unconcerned because he has lived his death before and left a record that says he "will die, have died, and always die on February thirteentn, 1976" (141) He says he dies the way Paul has told him. The US is also in several nations, which I find odd. The place in which speaks is similar to the zoo enclosure and people have come to hear his words on time and aliens with full belief. Death is violet light anbd hum and not even Billy is there (143). I guess it is beautiful, and nothing hurts.

I think Billy being "Cinderella" on page 145 is that despite the bad things he faced, he still has an OK life and even has Montana, which is why is so calm and unaffected by the horrors. The others act like Billy in this page, unaffected as to whether they will life or die, just watching life. On page 146, they are painted an obviously fake vision of Dresden and the reassurance that it won't be bombed. Even then the Americans know to laugh. On page 148, Vonnegut once aagin appears in the book, about the time they see beautiful Dresden. The only city he'd seen before was Indianapolis, and it is somehow heartbreaking to think of all the Americans seeing this place as a Wonderland, when most won't make it out of there alive, when the city will be ruined. At the time, Dresden does seem magical, it hasn't been bombed and life goes on just like before. In fact the Dresden guards are as miserable as the Americans, the same poor, naive soldiers. At the same time, Billy knows the city will be wrecked and people will die, but he calmly marches on. The objects in the coat are finally brought out. A fake tooth and a diamond for Valencia's ring. The reason for the title is revealed, the Americans are to live in Slaughterhouse number five.