Slaughterhouse-Five Chapter 9 - 10
In a state of hysteria, Valencia embarks on a journey to the hospital where her husband, Billy, is recuperating from a plane crash. En route, she collides with another vehicle but continues her journey, leaving behind the accident scene with a damaged exhaust system. Upon reaching the hospital, she succumbs to carbon monoxide poisoning, her face a vivid shade of blue. An hour later, she breathes her last.
Meanwhile, Billy is unconscious, lost in his time-traveling escapades, oblivious to the tragic demise of his wife. Sharing his hospital room is Bertram Copeland Rumfoord, a pompous Harvard history professor and the official Air Force historian, who is recovering from a skiing mishap. Rumfoord is engrossed in compiling a condensed history of the U.S. Army Air Corps in World War II, which includes a section on the successful bombing of Dresden, despite some sources describing it as unnecessary carnage. When Billy regains consciousness, he appears to be in a vegetative state. However, behind his catatonic exterior, he is gearing up to reveal to the world the existence of Tralfamadore and the true nature of time. Despite Rumfoord’s disinterest, Billy discloses his presence in Dresden during the firebombing. He then time-travels back to a sunny afternoon in Dresden, two days before the war’s end.
With the impending arrival of the Russians, many Germans have fled. Billy, along with a few other prisoners, stumbles upon a green, coffin-shaped wagon hitched to two horses. They load it with food and souvenirs. As Billy dozes off in the wagon, he is awakened by the conversation of a middle-aged German couple discussing the pitiful condition of the horses. Oblivious until now, Billy is forced to confront the reality of the horses’ broken hooves, bleeding mouths, and severe dehydration. This realization triggers his first tears of the war. The following day, back in the hospital, Rumfoord interrogates Billy about Dresden. Billy’s daughter, Barbara, arrives to take him home and arranges for a live-in nurse. However, Billy feels compelled to share his message with the world. He escapes and drives to New York City to reveal the existence of Tralfamadore.
In Times Square, Billy spots four books by Kilgore Trout in an adult bookstore. One of the books narrates the tale of a man and woman abducted by aliens and taken to a zoo on a distant planet. Inside the shop, Billy also catches a glimpse of a pornographic magazine headline about Montana Wildhack and a brief clip of a pornographic movie featuring a young Montana. Near his hotel, Billy finds a radio station. Posing as a writer from the Ilium Gazette, he joins a panel of literary critics discussing the state of the novel on a talk show. Billy seizes the opportunity to speak about Tralfamadore, Montana Wildhack, and the nature of time. After being escorted out, he returns to his hotel and falls asleep, time-traveling back to Tralfamadore where Montana is nursing their child.
In 1968, the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. occurred, and the Vietnam War is ongoing. According to Billy, the Tralfamadorians are more interested in Darwin than Jesus Christ. They appreciate the Darwinian perspective that death serves a purpose and that “corpses are improvements.” Vonnegut expresses his gratitude for the pleasant moments in his life, despite his skepticism about the Tralfamadorian concept of eternal existence. He reminisces about his return to Dresden with his war buddy O’Hare. On the plane, they enjoy salami sandwiches and white wine while discussing a book predicting the world population to reach seven billion by 2000. “I suppose they will all want dignity,” Vonnegut muses.
Billy is back in Dresden, two days post-war, engaged in the grim task of excavating bodies. The pace of decomposition outstrips the recovery efforts, leading to the adoption of a new policy - cremation of bodies in situ using flamethrowers. During the excavations, Edgar Derby is caught with a teapot found in the ruins. He is convicted of plundering and executed by firing squad. As spring arrives, the Germans retreat to fight or flee the Russians. The war ends. Trees sprout leaves. Billy finds the horses and the green, coffin-shaped wagon. A bird chirps, “Poo-tee-weet?”
Analysis
Vonnegut highlights the absurdity of life through Billy’s blissful moment in the sun, post-German surrender. This moment, however, is marred by the symbolic death of innocence and meaningful existence, represented by the coffin-shaped wagon. Billy’s victory is tainted by the sight of the suffering horses, leading to his realization of defeat.
In the Vermont hospital, Billy’s interaction with the historian Rumfoord underscores the interchangeable nature of history and fiction in “Slaughterhouse-Five”. Despite Billy’s dubious tales of time travel and alien abduction, his claim of witnessing the Dresden destruction is dismissed by Rumfoord, the official author of Dresden’s history. This dismissal reveals how our understanding of history is shaped by those who write it.
Billy’s visit to the Times Square bookstore further blurs the line between reality and fiction. The mysterious display of Kilgore Trout’s books, the bewildered clerks, and the fantastical aura surrounding the books suggest that Billy’s experiences might be delusions influenced by fictional works. The bird’s question, “Poo-tee-weet?”, to which there is no answer, signifies the futility of making sense of war. Despite the meaninglessness of words and stories, Vonnegut persists in breaking the silence left by the massacre, constructing beauty from senselessness and anguish. The issue of dignity resurfaces in the end. Every individual craves dignity, but it comes at a high cost - death. Billy must journey far from Earth to find his own dignity. Vonnegut questions whether there will ever be enough dignity on Earth, a question that remains unanswered.
In “Slaughterhouse-Five”, Vonnegut dismisses the conventional story structure, including a climax, showing how war renders it irrelevant. The shooting of Edgar Derby for plundering a teapot, which could have been a tragic climax, is presented matter-of-factly. With the phrase, “So it goes,” Vonnegut implies the absence of justice in death. The Tralfamadorians advise revisiting pleasant moments eternally, but Billy has no control over his time-traveling. This lack of control mirrors our own lack of control over memories. The Tralfamadorian universe suggests more accountability than Billy admits, as both pleasant and awful moments last forever. Somewhere, Billy’s moment of joy still exists, but so does the firebombing of Dresden and the eternal uncovering of an infinite mine of corpses. Time cannot erase these moments.
