Timeline: (important  references to dates: pp. 23, 58

1922 (birth in Ilium)   sink-or-swim;   Grand Canyon experience	1944 (arrested)/  unstuck in time; set up in business (optometry)	1945 discharged	1957  Lion's Club  elected president (p. 49; 50)
1965  BP's mother:  "How do I get to be so old?"	1966 in Zoo;  dozing, forgetful;	1967 smiling in his car, Lion's Club speech about Vietnam,  kidnapped;	1968 plane crash	1976 2/13 B's death

I. Image of the author:

II. The war

irrationality Children's Crusade; "all the real soldiers are dead" 159
Edgar Derby, old school teacher;

cruelty/inhumanity Roland Weary  -- and Iron Maiden 35; his equipment 39-40; his narrow vision 41-42; revengeful 79

--Lazzaro's revenge 84; 139
-- Weary's torture

civilian soldier and humanity
* just babies p. 14
* the trip to Dresden--the carts that carry the POW 67-69; 70; becoming babies 75
* delousing 83 and bathing--in the prison and as a baby 84-85

--bombing, POW's experience  <--> spooning the syrup 160-161  "I suppose they all want dignity"

--the German farmers as soldiers 52

humanity and Nature--"I suppose they all want dignity"; spooning the syrup 160-161

bird's "Poo-tee-wee"

C). heroism, myth vs. reality

--the Three Musketeers-- the commander and his golden boots,53 (--Cinderella myth)

--Wild Bob's heroism

--the trip to Dresden

Howard Campbell 162; boundary 144 familiar since childhood

E) un-representable--reality unbearable
no characters 164
"It was like a dream" 121

III. Dark comedy:

the author's life after the war //Yon Yonson 7 (//Billy Pilgrim) //Kilgore Trout's fourth dimension 104,

"So it goes." (//airplane crash, and the wife's car accident 25)? lice, champaign84; 73;

the author in the novel 125 "There they go"  67, 121, 148

--candle and soap made from dead Jews 96; water 101; Billy's own death 143

last one Montana and Slaughterhouse -- the taxi driver's mother'plain old death' 4; 69
-- a story he reports, 21 Celine's dance with death;
-- BP's father 24; 25;
-- plane crash 25;
-- BP's wife35--
-- people killed by the tank36--W's father's torture instruments37--Weary's torture fantasy 38 Christ41--the assistant that tries to sell the picture45--the mother's and an old man's 45--Eddie Slovik52--dead people's clothes, 54--two scouts62--his dog; 65--corpses72—champaign was dead79--the hobo dies; Weary dies84
--lice, bacteria,

life¡XA. So it goes.

1. Billy in a constant state of stage fright
1. The moment simply is. We are all bugs in amber. 86

Billy's life¡X

• Before the war -- his mother and the crucifix 38-39; old age 44; Trip to Grand Canyon 89; sink or swim 43
• During the war--
• After the war -- 24 Optometrist p. 29; his motto 60; his view of Vietnam 60 in Lion's Club, 61; his wife, Valencia 107
• Time travel: first one 49-51; 58 simultaneously in 1944 and 1967
• BP's his motto 60-61 his feelings about Vietnam --  indifference, complicity

Tralfalmadore 26-27 // the Earth's similar activity 31; the kidnapping moment¡Xseeing the movie forward and backward¡X1967 a building on T

¡@IV. Tralfamadore--

all moments exist simultaneously, hence nothing can be done to change the past or the future

death--in a bad condition at that moment

the moment simply is 77; no why

human beings as millepedes 87; their view of our concept of time 115

• the authors and their doubles: the author's life after the war //Yon Yonson 7 (//Billy Pilgrim// Rosewater) //Kilgore Trout

¡@
¡@

War and Literature: Some Examples of Related Issues; Reasons and Consequences in the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam civil war

Dresden & The Bombing of Dresden:

The Culture of Dresden, including an informative history tour, which the two photos below are from. View from the tower of the City Hall 1945 (source)

Historical Analysis of the 14-15 February 1945 Bombings of Dresden - from the United States Air Force History Support Office.   Truth About the 1945 Bombing of Dresden - subjective memory of the event.   Was the Bombing of Dresden Justifiable? Clearing the ruins on Neumarkt square (source)

  Destruction of Dresden, destruction of Vonnegut's dream       Brittany Dunstan     - A reasearch paper on the affects of WWII on KV's writing, especially Slaughterhouse-Five.

  The themes of Slaughterhouse-Five  Marek Vit

  Synchronicity between parallel plot lines in Slaughterhouse-Five'   Cortney Joseph Fusco
                 - Kurt Vonnegut's universal acclaim and appeal surely comes in no small part from his gift for connecting, almost unnoticiably, seemingly unrelated objects and events to give them deeper meaning, creating a phenomenon known within Jungian circles as synchronicity.

  So It Goes   Leslie Phillips
                   - An overview of various things such as themes, symbols, metaphors, etc. in Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. It stresses the idea of predestination throughout the text.

  The Use of Fragmentation in Slaughterhouse-Five  Jason Dawley
                 - An essay analyzing the structure of Slaughterhouse-Five.

   More Essays on Kurt Vonnegut Essay Collection