Slaughterhouse Five, pages 136-153

Chapter six of the novel made me realize how pathetic Billy Pilgrim really is. His daughter hates him and his wife married him simply because, as the book said, nobody else would marry her. The idea of love doesn’t exist in Billy’s life. Instead, people around him make him feel hated and ridiculous. Billy has been so marginalized by society that he now feels accustomed to it: “As they moved near the theater, they came upon an Englishman who was hacking a groove in the Earth with the heel of his boot. He was marking the boundary between the American and English sections of the compound. Billy and Lazzaro and Derby didn’t have to ask what the line meant. It was a familiar symbol from childhood.” (p.144). This instance makes me feel pity towards Billy. This individual has never been able to fit in society or identify with other people. Billy Pilgrim is ridiculed all the time, like when the Americans arrived to Dresden and the surgeon began insulting Billy and his country. The most saddening aspect of all is that Billy has succumbed to failure, and is not even capable of responding back or explaining the situation. Maybe this is the reason why Billy Pilgrim might have invented Tralfamadore and the fourth dimension, as a defense mechanism used to escape the problems he encounters in everyday life and construct a universe of his own.

An individual that is far more pathetic and infuriating than Billy is Paul Lazzaro. In fact, Paul Lazzaro reminds me of the character Edmond Dantes, from the book The Count of Monte Cristo. Both Edmond and Paul live their lives to seek revenge from those who have injured them throughout their lives. There is one slight difference between these characters, though: Edmond Dantes feels repented after harming so many people. He feels sorry he placed revenge at the center of his life. Paul Lazzaro has a very different view on this topic. The deaths he plans are far more numerous and violent and are supposed to avenge minor crimes, such as curable physical pain (getting bitten by a dog and having his arm broken). “‘Anybody ever asks you what the sweetest thing in life is-’ said Lazzaro, ‘it’s revenge.’” (p. 139). In my opinion, Paul Lazzaro is a very weak character, more or less a “drama queen” who makes a major problem out of a minor situation. As a person, Paul Lazzaro is very weak and cowardly and, hence, pathetic.

When Billy is time traveling to his own death, the narrator mentions that “He has had to cross three international boundaries to reach Chicago. The United States has been Balkanized, has been divided into twenty petty nations so that it will never again be a threat to world peace.” (p. 142). This instance actually reminds me of the summer reading novel 1984, in which the boundaries of the whole world have been modified to construct a utopia. Although the countries actually merge in 1948 (unlike the fragmentation seen in Slaughterhouse Five), in both books there is an attempt to achieve harmony among the nations of the world to ensure their stability and hence try to establish peace. The most curious aspect of all is that these attempts to construct utopias take place throughout the same time period. In 1984, the continents of Eurasia, Oceania and Eastasia were created in reaction to the Cold War. In Slaughterhouse Five, the fragmentation takes place around 1976 (year of Billy’s death) as a response to North American imperialistic tendencies and inflated power. The time span between both of these events is less than ten years, which might suggest a possible similarity between the social contexts and ideological backgrounds of both novels.

I also noticed how the narrator refers to Edgar Derby as being poor and old just because Billy has foreshadowed that he will die in Dresden. I wonder why, being so indifferent to death and viewing this event as being insignificant, the narrator actually feels pity for Edgar Derby’s fate. Is Derby an important character in the novel? Is he a symbol that represents something abstract and important for Billy?

Is the date of Billy’s death (February 13, 1976) supposed to mean something? Is the number 13 an ominous signal? Why do the prisoners get confined to the fifth slaughterhouse? Why not the first, second, third, or fourth? What are the numbers five and 13 supposed to mean?