• Style—diction, imagery, symbolism, etc.
  • Theme/Characterization

Billy had to miss his wife's funeral because he was still so sick. He was conscious, though, while Valencia was being put into the ground in Ilium. Billy hadn't said much since regaining consciousness, hadn't responded very elaborately to the news of Valencia's death and Robert's coming home from the war(continuation of children in war/each generation of US gets a war—{the balkanization of 1976?}/ the failure that this book is from Ch 1) and so on-so(refrain that diminishes) it was generally believed that he was a vegetable (Dehumanization/ no free will). There was talk of performing an operation on himlater, one which might improve the circulation of blood to his brain.

Actually, Billy's outward listlessness(Used to describe soldiers—connects war to post war/ dehumanization/no free will) was a screen. The listlessness concealed a mind which was fizzing and flashing(alliteration) thrillingly(connects to Billy entering Dresden—same word). It was preparing letters and lectures about the flying saucers(Highlights fiction—humorous image), the negligibility of death and the true nature of time.

Professor Rumfoord said frightful things about Billy within Billy's hearing, confident that Billy no longer had any brain at all. 'Why don't they let him die?' he asked Lily.

'I don't know, she said.

'That's not a human being(Dehumanization/ connection--Vonnegut has used this word to describe soldiers)anymore. Doctors are for human beings. They should turn him over to a veterinarian or a tree surgeon. They'd know what to do. Look at him! That's life, according to the medical profession. Isn't life wonderful?'

'I don't know,' said Lily.

Rumfoord talked to Lily about the bombing of Dresden one time, and Billy heard it all. Rumfoord had a problem about Dresden. His one-volume history of the Army Air Force in the Second World War was supposed to be a readable condensation of the twentyseven-volume Official History of the Army Air Force in World War Two. The thing was, though, there was almost nothing in the twenty-seven volumes about the Dresden raid, even though it had been such a howling success(irony). The extent of the success had been kept a secret for many years after the war-a secret from the American people (Ironic/satirical—also relates to “secrets”—it was a secret Billy kept from himself).It was no secret from the Germans, of course, or from the Russians, who occupied Dresden after the war, who are in Dresden still.(Theme: Perception)

'Americans have finally heard about Dresden,' said Rumfoord, twenty-three years after the raid. 'A lot of them know now how much worse it was than Hiroshima. So I've got to put something about it in my book. From the official Air Force standpoint, it'll all be new.'

'Why would they keep it a secret so long?' said Lily.

'For fear that a lot of bleeding hearts'(imagery—drawn from a famous image of Christ? Used to deride liberals {PS, fun fact about reading the Bible from neww research)said Rumfoord, 'might not think it was such a wonderful thing to do(Understatement/sarcasm).'

It was now that Billy Pilgrim spoke up intelligently. 'I was there' he said.

It was difficult for Rumfoord to take Billy seriously, since Rumfoord, had so long considered Billy a repulsive non-person(Dehumanization) who would be much better off dead. Now, with Billy speaking clearly and to the point, Rumfoord's ears wanted to treat the words as a foreign language that was not worth learning.(Ears are personified—more agency/humanity than Billy) 'What did he say?' said Rumfoord.

Lily had to serve as an interpreter. 'He said he was there.' she explained.

'He was where? 'I don't know,' said Lily. 'Where were you?' she asked Billy.

'Dresden' said Billy.

'Dresden,' Lily told Rumfoord.

'He's simply echoing things we say,' said Rumfoord.

'Oh, ' said Lily.

'He's got echolalia now.'

'Oh.'

Echolalia is a mental disease which makes people immediately repeat things that well people around them say. But Billy didn't really have it. Rumfoord simply insisted, for his own comfort, that Billy had it. Rumfoord was thinking in a military manner: that an inconvenient person, one whose death he wished for very much, for practical reasons, was suffering from a repulsive disease (Truth/ History—who’s perspective will have a larger audience?).

Rumfoord went on insisting for several hours that Billy had echolalia-told nurses and a doctor that Billy had echolalia now. Some experiments were performed on Billy. Doctors and nurses tried to get Billy to echo something, but Billy wouldn't make a sound for them. 'He isn't doing it now,' said Rumfoord peevishly. 'The minute you go away, he'll start doing it again.' Nobody took Rumfoord's diagnosis seriously. The staff thought Rumfoord was a hateful old man, conceited and cruel. He often said to them, in one way or another, that people who were weak deserved to die. Whereas the staff, of course, was devoted to the idea that weak people should be helped as much as possible, that nobody should die.

There in the hospital, Billy was having an adventure very common among people without power in time of war: He was trying to prove to a wilfully deaf and blind enemy that he was interesting to hear and see. He kept silent until the lights went out at night, and then, when there had been a long silence containing nothing to echo (The diction and imagery here “echoes” the other chapters about the same theme.), he said to Rumfoord, 'I was in Dresden when it was bombed. I was a prisoner of war.'

Rumfoord sighed impatiently.

'Word of honor,' said Billy Pilgrim. 'Do you believe me?'

'Must we talk about it now?' said Rumfoord. He had heard. He didn't believe.

'We don't ever have to talk about it,' said Billy. 'I just want you to know: I was there.'

Nothing more was said about Dresden that night, and Billy closed his eyes, traveled in time to a May afternoon, two days after the end of the Second World War in Europe. Billy and five other American prisoners were riding in a coffin-shaped green wagon, which they had found abandoned complete with two horses, in a suburb of Dresden. Now they were being drawn by the clop-clop-clopping horses down narrow lanes which had been cleared through the moonlike ruins. They were going back to the slaughterhouse for souvenirs of the war. Billy was reminded of the sounds of milkmen's horses early in the morning in Ilium, when he was a boy.

Billy sat in the back of the jiggling coffin. His head was tilted back and his nostrils were flaring. He was happy. He was warm. There was food in the wagon, and wine-and a camera, and a stamp collection, and a stuffed owl, and a mantel clock that ran on changes of barometric pressure. The Americans had gone into empty houses in the suburb where they had been imprisoned, and they had taken these and many other things.