Chapters 7 & 8

1-In describing the significance and unusualness of Edgar Derby’s speech denouncing Howard Campbell, the narrator says, “One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters.” What do you think he means?

2-Based on the narrator’s description of its plot, what seems to be the main idea expressed by Kilgore Trout’s

3-Why does Billy have such a strong reaction to the Febs (“four ordinary men, cow-eyed and mindless and anguished as they went from sweetness to sourness to sweetness again”) when they sing at his anniversary party? What is the “great big secret somewhere inside” Billy that he had not suspected he had? How is Kilgore Trout’s comment that he looked “as though [he] all of a sudden realized [he was] standing on thin air” an appropriate description? novel The Gutless Wonder?

4-What ironies are there in the survival of the American prisoners through the destruction of Dresden?

5-Why do you think the Slaughterhouse-Five guards look like a barbershop quartet? What is the tone of this way of describing them?

6-Describe the scenes the narrator witnesses after the firebombing of Dresden. What do the Allies intend to accomplish by destroying the city? After the narrator’s description of the devastation and of the attempts by American pilots to kill the few survivors, he succinctly comments, “The idea was to hasten the end of the war.” Discuss your understanding of the intended tone and effect of this sentence.

7-Why do you think the one hundred American prisoners don’t try to escape from the four guards after the destruction of Dresden?

8-Describe the reaction of the family that owns the inn to the firebombing of Dresden. Discuss the tone and significance of the chapter-ending words spoken by the owner: “Good night, Americans. Sleep well.”