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Slaughterhouse-Five Study

Chapter 1

1- What do we learn in the early part of the novel about the events at Dresden? Why is the narrator so driven to write about Dresden? How does the narrator feel about the significance of the novel?

2- What is the significance of the narrator’s repeated comment “So it goes,” and what attitude do you think it is meant to express?

3- What does the narrator seem to think of “tough” people like his boss in Alplaus, who was a “lieutenant colonel in public relations in Baltimore”? Who are they contrasted with?

4- Why do you think information about the bombing of Dresden was still top secret at the time Vonnegut was working on the novel, years after the war had ended?

5- Why is Mary O’Hare angry with the narrator, and how does he respond to her anger? Consider the poem by Wilfred Owen in this handout. Why is “The Children’s Crusade” an appropriate title for any work about war?

6-What characteristics of the city itself make the firebombing of Dresden especially savage, tragic, and ironic?

7-What is Vonnegut’s attitude toward massacres like the firebombing of Dresden—what lessons does he try to convey to his sons? How does he seem to feel about the Biblical story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah?