
Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Why is Slaughterhouse Five so short and jumbled and jangled? … The odd combination of mustard gas, often used as a chemical weapon, and roses, a symbol of romance, highlights how deeply the war has affected Vonnegut’s life. Vonnegut added this motif in this text to show how all the humans on the train were: “driven into a warm, squirming, farting, and sighing earth.” What does mustard gas and roses mean in Slaughterhouse Five?īilly could almost smell his breath-mustard gas and roses. Why do the men nestle like spoons?īilly and the hobo were “nestled like spoons” on Christmas night to keep warm. He learns that Tralfamadorian books are composed of short telegram-like clumps of symbols separated by stars. In his zoo enclosure, Billy reads the novel Valley of the Dolls, the only earthling book available. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral. What is the only book Billy can read on the trip to Tralfamadore? He is struggling to come to terms with the horrors he witnessed in the second world war. It’s his way of escaping and reconfiguring a reality that hurts him. Most of the times Billy goes to Tralfamadore, he does so in response to trauma, or stimuli in the real world. Did Billy Pilgrim actually go to Tralfamadore? The fourth-dimension that they attain symbolizes the Tralfamadorians lack of emotion. The perfect world where there were no sadness or any kind of emotion. Tralfamadore symbolized the fantasy of a utopian world, the perfect society.


The image above fits into the symbol, sight, because the pupil resembles the world, but more specifically – life. Sight is prevalent throughout Slaughterhouse-Five because Billy Pilgrim is a optometrist and sight symbolizes one’s perspective, or outlook, on life. Birdsong rings out alone in the silence after a massacre, and “Poo-tee-weet?” seems about as appropriate a thing to say as any, since no words can really describe the horror of the Dresden firebombing.

The Bird Who Says “Poo-tee-weet?” The jabbering bird symbolizes the lack of anything intelligent to say about war. The book was banned in Levittown, New York in 1975, North Jackson, Ohio, in 1979, and Lakeland, Florida, in 1982 for its “explicit sexual scenes, violence, and obscene language.” Slaughterhouse-Five was challenged as recently as 2007 in a school district in Howell, Michigan because the book contained “strong sexual … Why does Vonnegut use poo weet?

According to Sparknotes, it symbolizes the thin line between life and death worldly and unworldly experiences. A major symbol in the book “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut, is “Blue and Ivory”. 37 Is Kurt Vonnegut Sci Fi? What is blue and ivory?īackground Info.
