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Chapters 5 & 6

1-What examples of the unique Tralfamadorian perception of the universe are presented at the beginning of Chapter 5? Discuss them. Explain why Tralfamadorian novels are so different from Earth novels. How does this information relate to the structure Slaughterhouse-Five—does it have any implications for how the novel should be read?

2-Describe the English officers that Billy and the Americans are left with.

3-Interpret Billy’s dream about being a giraffe. Why does he commit himself to a mental hospital? (Consider his belief that his decision to marry Valencia is “one of the symptoms of his disease.”) Is there any connection between the dream and his decision to have himself committed?

4-Why do Billy and Eliot Rosewater enjoy reading science fiction? Why do you think people in the modern world need “a lot of wonderful new lies” and that the wisdom in The Brothers Karamazov “isn’t enough anymore”? How might the Tralfamadorians’ philosophy of life provide an answer to the problem of how to go on living in the modern world? (Consider, for example, the lesson for Earthlings passed on to Billy while he is in the Tralfamadorian zoo and Billy’s attitude toward his own death.)

5-What flaw does the author Kilgore Trout see in the teachings of the New Testament?

6-What do you think is the meaning of the epitaph on the drawing of the gravestone (“Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt”)?

7-How are Americans perceived by Germans (through the propaganda written by Howard W. Campbell)? Is there any truth to his descriptions of Americans and American culture?

8-What do you think is the significance of the brief appearances of the narrator (presumably Vonnegut himself) in these chapters (as an American soldier overheard by Billy)?

9-What transformation do we see in Billy in the scene in which he is assassinated (also hinted at in earlier flash- forward scenes of his later life)? How would you explain this change in him?

10-How is Dresden described in Chapter 6, and what is the significance of this description?