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Although Howard W. Campbell, Jr., is a fictional character, "The Free American Corps" was very real. Look it up.
What do you make of Derby's stance against Campbell? What do you make of the fact that he's the only one to make that stand?
Why does Billy's daughter want to kill Kilgore Trout?
Kilgore Trout created the idea of burning jellied gasoline. What is this substance referred to as today? Where was it used extensively? Why is it important that robots created and used it in the book?
Another great description: "She was a dull person, but a sensational invitation to make babies." Made me chuckle.
Why do you think Billy reacts so adversely to the "old gang of mine" song?
Has anyone ever tried the mirror/dog trick? I wonder if it works...
Odd thing to say about one's son: "Billy liked him, but didn't know him very well." How do you think this came to be?
Odd that after the bombing of Dresden, one of Billy's strongest memories is that the guards reminded him of a barbershop quartet...
Bombing of Dresden: 2/13/45. Why does this date sound familiar?
So Billy fathered a child with Montana Wildhack. He also goes through the entire pregnancy with her while in the Tralfamadorian zoo. As far as characterization goes, what does this tell us about Billy?
What a bizarre scene...Billy and the Americans come out of the slaughterhouse to see Dresden utterly destroyed...they make their way through the destruction, and just outside of town they see an inn open for business. Why do you think Vonnegut included this seemingly unlikely scene?
46 comments:
Billy Pilgrim reacts to weird to the song "old gang of mine" obviously because it reminds him of something, or sometime. "He had never had an old gang, old sweetheart and pals, but he missed one anyway"(172). Later in the chapter Billy explains that he heard the gaurds in the basement of a meatlocker singing it on the night that Dresden was bombed. This moment in his life obviously has impacted him tremendously. Billy's strongest memory of the bombing of Dresden was the guards reminding him of a barbershop quartet was emphasized when he had a strange reaction to the barbershop quartet of optometrists at the party singing the same song he heard the guards singing the night that Dresden was bombed.
The substance that Kilgore Trout created is referred to as Napalm today. It was used extensively in many wars due to its ability to stick to structures and people so they could not really escape. Napalm was used heavily in the Vietnam War, and caused casualties for both soldiers and civilians. The significance of the robots creating and using the weapon is that they don’t know what they are really doing, while humans in the real world still used this weapon even though it caused painful causalities for many innocent people. Trout even goes on to describe how the novel’s society wouldn’t accept him because of his bad breath but they were ok with him dropping napalm on people. And once he cleared up his bad breath he was fully accepted into the human race. This is just another way Vonnegut displays how cruel and shallow the human race really is.
Before Derby’s stance against Campbell, no characters in the novel really had the desire to be heroic including Billy. It seems as if most of the characters were sick and tired from war, and did want to cause any more problems for themselves. I feel it was as if war made the characters not act like their true selves. Also, I think Derby is the only one to make a stand because he was the only adult in the situation. Many of the other men were still just young boys.
Derby stood for something. Not many people really take a true stance for something they really care about; however, those who do are those with enemies. This is how to tell a person who can stand for something apart from the rest. Even though Derby wasn’t in the worst part of the war, in the book he still went through a lot. It seemed that all the others acted cowardly, like scolded dogs with their tails between their legs. Even if they are still young men they are considered men in the war. No one can deny what they went through during those times. I guess I see why they didn't speak up. What they didn't do isn't that surprising since they were young, but since they are called men more should be able to be expected from them.
Billy’s daughter wants to kill Kilgore Trout because she thinks her father believes the tings he reads about in his books. Billy is one of Trout’s few fans, but a lot of the material he writes about Billy describes in Tralfamadore. Trout plainly asked Billy if he saw through a time window, seeing the past or the future. Most of Trout’s novels include time warps, extrasensory perception and other weird things Billy describes. Billy’s daughter already thinks he is going crazy, and him hanging out with Kilgore Trout is not helping him at all, she thinks he would be better without him.
The bombing of Dresden occurred on February 13, 1945. Billy died on the same day thirty two years later. It seems ironic that Billy's death occurred on the same day as one of the most important days in his life.
The jellied gasoline that is referred to in the book is called napalm today. It was used extensively in World War II. This substance destroys everything in its path and was used carelessly. The difference between our human race using it and the robots in the novel is the fact that we knew what we were doing. The robots didn't know the affect of it. The human race used it as a cruel punishment. We killed many innocent people just to prove a point.
I think Billy acted the way he did when he heard the song “The old gang of mine” because it was being sung by a quartet. He was reminded of being down in the meat locker while everything above him was being burnt to the ground in Dresden. The guards reminded him of a barbershop quartet, so when he was in the presence of this quartet it reminded him of the guards. It reminded him of the war and how destroyed Dresden was, how nothing was left, how it looked like the moon. The guards seemed to not even be really phased by the destruction of the city and that stayed with Billy.
billy's daughter hates kilgore trout, because in her mind, and possibly in actuality, his writings changed billy from a sort-of normal person to a crazy person, to the point where his daughter feels like the real billy isn't there anymore.
burning jellied gasoline is referred to as napalm, and it was used extensively in the vietnam war. it was used by robots in the book because it is a absolutely horrible substance, and for any human to use it and be able to feel okay with what they are doing was hard for vonnegut to deal with. so he made robots drop the napalm instead.
2/13 is the same date that billy was killed on, and so twice on the same date billy experienced incredible loss that he was somewhat removed from.
Billy's daughter wants to kill Kilgore Trout because she believes he is the cause of Billy's craziness. She believes that his crazy science fiction novels have started the crazy alien delusions that Billy is having. It is a very plausible idea for her to have. She knows her father was mentally sick when he started to read the novels.
Billy sees himself dying, and even has seen the date, which was February 13th, 1976. That date sounds familiar because the bombing of Dresden occurred on February 13th, 1945, exactly thirty-two years before Billy died. It is ironic to think that Billy died on the same day that was so meaningful to him and practically shaped his life.
Billy has such a bad reaction to the "old gang" song because it reminded him of the night that Dresden was bombed. He compared the guards to a barbershop quartet as they saw the city after the bombing. When he hears the actual quartet singing at his anneversary party, he is sent back in his memory to the bombing of Dresden. It causes his reaction to the song.
So I had my dog stand on a mirror on the ground, and she did not freak out. She got excited and worried as she tried to do what I told her to, but that's pretty much it. I also tried with my cat, only because he happened to be walking by, but he just stood there. Pretty uninteresting. Maybe it'd work better with a younger, more gullible dog.
Billy's daughter wants to kill Kilgore Trout because she thinks he is the source of Billy's insanity. But who could blame her? Billy is constantly describing a fictional alien race, time warps, and forced-breeding with Montana Wildhack - things that would come from a Kilgore Trout science fiction novel. Billy's daughter blames Kilgore Trout for his influence on Billy's strange behavior and thinks Billy would be better off away from Trout and all his books.
Billy's daughter wants to kill Kilgore trout because Billy has gotten all his ideas about alien's and anything related to science fiction from Kilgore Trout. She believes that he is the source of Billy's problems; the reasons why he "warps" from place to place through time supposedly.
Billy’s reaction to the Febs singing “Old Gang of Mine” caught me off guard. I didn’t expect him to show as much emotion as he did. Usually when he is under emotional stress he immediately travels to another time, but this time he stays. I did not make the connection right away, but immediately did when Valencia said, “You looked as though you’d seen a ghost.” I realized that the four men singing reminded him of the four Germen guards he saw back when he was in Dresden. He previously mentioned that they reminded him of a barbershop quartet. Seeing the men standing together with their mouths wide open was just too much for him. This moment changes him. For the first time he remembers, without time traveling, a moment in the past.
Billy staying on Tralfamadore with Montana Wildhack while she was pregnant shows that he is loyal to a certain degree. I guess he was a good guy when he was with her and got her ice cream.. Yes. But what about Valencia? Did he completely forget about his wife on Earth? I don't know. That's something to consider, I suppose.
The way Valencia died, and the response, or lack of response Billy gave was very interesting to me. He was not responding very well to any news about the family. When he received the news he was mainly worried about how he was going to tell the world about Tralfamadore. I think Vonnegut killed off Valencia the way he did because he was trying to show how much she cared for her husband, was willing to risk her life for him, even if she was not aware of the danger, and Billy was so caught up in Tralfamadore he did not really respond to her death. I think the purpose was to stress the importance of Tralfamadore and what it meant to him over anything else close to him.
Billy Pilgrim reacts very strange to the song "old gang of mine" obviously because it reminds him of something, or sometime. "He had never had an old gang, old sweetheart and pals, but he missed one anyway"(172). Billy tells us that he heard the guards in the basement of a meatlocker singing it on the night that Dresden was bombed. This moment in his life obviously has impacted him in such an emotional way, probably because it was dealing with Dresden.
Billy's daughter wants to kill Kilgore Trout because she partly blames him for Billy's stories about time travel. His books are science fiction she believes that Billy's stories about Tralfamador were influenced from Trout's books.
Also, just a thought...
The bombing of Dresden was 2/13/45 and 31 years later Billy died. (2/13/76). 13 being the reverse of 31... and in most cultures 13 is considered an unlucky number.
The reason Billy doesn't "know" his son is because Billy really doesn't understand himself. He seems to be more Tralfamadorian than human and even expressing their ideals during terrible events in his life, and maybe he doesn't see the need or purpose in "knowing" him.
Billy doesn't really know his son because he is all wrapped up in his own head. He has so many of his own problems and time travels that he can't get to know his own son. Also, his son had problems before he joined the green berets. It is always difficult for children to have good relationships with their parents if they constantly are getting into trouble.
The date of February 13, 1945, the day before Valentine's Day, sounds familiar because it is exactly 31 years before Billy's death. Although, when it comes to the significance of these two major events falling on the same day of the year, I don't have an explanation. Any ideas?
Billy's fathering a child with Montana Wildhack while living in the Tralfamadorian zoo tells a few things about his character. Most obviously, he isn't particularly loyal to his wife. This is closely related to his morality, which seems to be conditional. It is as if Billy believes that morals only exist on Earth. I think that Billy was excited about his trip to Tralfamadore because he was under the impression that he had just received a free pass from a world of morals. Is it really cheating on your wife if it's on another planet in a zoo? According to Billy, no. It is true, though, that Billy wasn't crazy about his wife in the first place. He never loved her in the way that she loved him. Perhaps this also eased his mind about being with Montana. After all, he had cheated on his wife before.
I think that Vonnegut included the seemingly unlikely scene of Billy and the Americans coming out of the slaughterhouse in Dresden and making their way through the destruction to find an open inn as a way to satirize the biblical Christmas story. Vonnegut made the scene seem almost magical in the way that, in the outskirts of mass destruction, there was a little inn waiting with its lights on. I can't help but think that this ties into the quote at the beginning of the book, stating, "The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes. But the little Lord Jesus no crying he makes." This quote being a part of a Christmas carol couldn't be a coincidence.
Billy's mental capacity is questioned with how he doesn't really know his son. This had to come to be by Billy's mind not really being there while around his son. A random conection came to mind with the movie Click. When the protagonist is on "auto-pilot" he brain only functions on the basis of getting by. In the novel Billy's mind could be doing a similair thing. The bond between child and parent should be a very strong one considering the fact that without you they couldn't be. In a way Billy is to lost within himself to make relationships with those around him, he didn't even love his wife but still married her.
Billy's stay with Montana through her pregnancy reveals that when Billy wants, he can control his time travel. A strong enough focus can change his condition so he can stay at a certain time he is at.
Such a small world, Billy meets his favorite author Kilgore Trout, in an alley in Ilium. This should shake Billy's perspective of people. He assumes Trout was a die hard writer, with many fans and much support, but really he only has 2 fans, and is living off money from another job. But Billy just offers him some help and invites Trout to his party. Billy normally knows reality well, but not in this incident.
Kilgore Trout is a character that I enjoy. He's an undiscovered author (who probably writes to vent out his craziness) who isn't dependent on the popularity of his books. When Billy describes what he writes about, they sound interesting and very entertaining. Also, when Billy has an odd reaction to the "old gang of mine" song, Trout says something about it reminding him of a past event, then contiues to follow him around for the night.
ignore my previous comment.
Kilgore Trout is a character that I enjoy. He's an undiscovered author (who probably writes to vent out his craziness) who isn't dependent on the popularity of his books. When Billy describes what he writes about, they sound interesting and very entertaining. Also, when Billy has an odd reaction to the "old gang of mine" song, Trout says something about it reminding him of a past event, then continues to follow him around for the night. He knows that something is up with him.
Billy’s daughter wants to kill Kilgore Trout because she thinks that his books are the reason why Billy has been talking about aliens and time traveling. She thinks that Billy has turned into a crazy man from reading Trout’s books. I don’t blame her at all. If someone I knew started acting like Billy, I’d probably blame Trout too.
Billy reacted to the “Old Gang of Mine” song as the barbershop quartet sang it because he suddenly was reminded of the guards at the slaughterhouse in Dresden. Billy had previously stated that they looked like a barbershop quartet. As they sang that song, Billy remembered the horrible event in Dresden that still haunts him.
February 13th, 1945 sounds so familiar because thirty-two years later Billy dies on February 13th, 1976. This is ironic that he died on the exact same day the Dresden was bombed. Dresden being bombed was a huge event in Billy’s life that changed him.
Billy’s daughter hates Kilgore Trout because she thinks that Trout’s books are the cause of Billy’s craziness. She believes that Billy has become crazy with alien ideas because of Trout’s science fiction novels.
Billy's daughter does not like Kilgore Trout mainly because of the ideas he puts in his books. She believes that her father is going crazy because of the things he is reading from the writings of Trout. The stuff Billy claims to have gone through with the Tralfamadorians relates back to everything Trout has written about. This is what leads Billy's daughter into wanting to kill Trout. It's also interesting that in the meeting of Billy and Trout, Trout claims that he recognizes that Billy has had a time travel.
Febuary 13, 1945 sounds familar because 32 years later Billy Pilgrim dies.
I think maybe the scene of Billy and the Americans coming out of the slaughter house was just sad. The part about the inn open and ready for business lightned the mood. It also shows that after you fall down you pick up the pieces and keep moving on.
I don't believe that Billy Pilgrim has ever actually become unstuck in time nor do I believe that he has ever encountered any form of alien life. I believe that his delusions stem, at least partly, from his head trauma in the plane crash. This being said, I think this is why Billy's daughter strongly objects to his continued association with Kilgore Trout. I do not think that if Billy had never encountered him or any of his works, he would not believe in this "time travel." I think Kilgore Trout and his works planted the concept into Billy's head, and then his traumatic experiences in the war and in his life.
I think that anyone who doesn’t spend enough time with their family, or with anyone in that matter, doesn’t get to know them very well. I think this perfectly explains the situation with Billy and his son. Billy has been off on different planets and time traveling that he hasn’t spent time in his real life to get to know his son. I feel as though Billy completely ignores his Earth family and spends more time in fantasy worlds and years past. I think Billy’s son has learned to move on and to just call him dad and stop at that. It’s sad that Billy and his son don’t have a typical father son relationship, but Billy was just never there to be the father.
I think Derby was the only one to make a stand because he was the only one that really knew what they were fighting for. Derby wanted to join the army; at his age it wasnt expected for him to join. He joined because he wanted to fight for what he believed, while many of the younger soldiers just wanted to go on an adventure or kill someone. Most of the younger soldiers probably thought being a soldier would make them a hero and that it would be something out of a novel.
Burning jellied gasoline is now called Napalm and was used extensively in both the firebombing of German Cities and the Vietnam War.
“Odd thing to say about one's son: "Billy liked him, but didn't know him very well." How do you think this came to be?”
Perhaps Billy’s mind was too jumbled from all of his supposed time travel that he didn’t pay enough attention to his son to really know him, or maybe Billy just didn’t care to learn anything about him. After all, Billy did say that he “couldn’t help suspecting that there wasn’t much to know about Robert.”
“Odd that after the bombing of Dresden, one of Billy's strongest memories is that the guards reminded him of a barbershop quartet...”
It does seem odd...but maybe it’s not. With all of the chaos and destruction going on as Dresden was being bombed, a bit of distraction (and humor) must have been a great relief. Does it not make sense that, in times of darkness, the best way to ride out the storm is to imagine the sun?
“Bombing of Dresden: 2/13/45. Why does this date sound familiar?”
Billy died on the same day and month thirty-one years later. Kind of ironic...
Burning jelly is now know as napalm, napalm was used extensively in the Vietnam conflict due to its ability to destroy whatever it touched. I think that its notable that the robots created and used it on humans because of how deadly it is to humans, even if a person is not hit with the fire they will suffocate.
While Billy was entertaining Montana, he talked about how the guards looked like a barbershop quartet. When he spaced out at the little party, he might have been imagining the zoo, and that he put the soldiers and singers together. I think that Montana Wildhack might be another version of his wife. He might see her as a different side, or just see someone else in her.
The substance that Kilgore Trout describes is known as napalm and was used heavily during in Vietnam. It is significant that a robot deploys the napalm, because it was incredibly dangerous. When it was used, it was still experimental, and nobody knew the destruction that it could create. Even years after napalm was used, its effects are still taking their toll. The robot had no conscience and did not feel remorse for the mayhem it had caused. Furthermore, the inclusion of its bad breath being the only aspect preventing him from being accepted into society shows that humans are shallow and foolish.
I'm really confused about "The Free American Corps." I looked it up and I got two different answers. One website telling me that it never existed, but there were American soldiers that fought for the Germans. The other website said that it was real and was mostly prisoners of war and few volunteers, Martin James Monti. Either way I think it is interesting that an American soldier would volunteer to switch sides of the war. I can understand a prisoner of war, because they were forced, but a volunteer is just mind blowing to me.
I think the inn scene in the chapter is a brilliant example of our favorite, "So it goes" refrain. Yes, Dresden was just completely annihilated only a few miles away. But what could the innkeepers do to prevent that? So it goes. The ragged and downtrodden get a place to stay as they struggle to piece together everything that just happened and life goes on.
I think Derby has a lot of stuff bottled up and the comments that Campbell was making and the way that he carried and expressed himself towards the American POWs really bothered him. He knew nobody else would say anything so I think he just figured he had nothing to lose. (Especially since he's in the war fighting for his country and Campbell is now a Nazi)
Barbara seems extremely bothered by the fact that Billy keeps on bringing up this thing about Tralfamadorians and she seems to think that Trout is to blame. His stories have never been appreciated by anyone else besides Billy, pretty much. Barbara thinks that that may be what is contributing to Billy's "insanity" as she considers it.
When he heard the song "old gang of mine" it obviously reminded him of back in the war and must have had a flashback because of the guards all standing around when Dresden had just been destroyed, not a good memory. PTSD? And I thought the Febs died in a plane crash, because they were singing to Billy's father-in-law, and the book did say everyone died but Billy.. hmmmm..
Billy has a hard time connecting with people it seems, probably why he "didnt know his son very well". He didn't have any sort of positive connection with his daughter so he probably appreciated the fact his son didn't seem to look down on him for his "crazy" thoughts.
Billy died on that date. He was killed by Lazzaro who also happened to be in the war with him, ironic. He seemed to have such strong memories of this date that made him emotional and he dies years later, but on the same date?
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