Kurt Vonnegut - Author and his Time One of the most significant science fiction writers of the 20th century was Kurt Vonnegut, who was born on November 11, 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana to two German-American parents and died on April 11, 2007. Because of wide-spread anti-German attitudes in the United States after World War I, Vonnegut and his sister were never truly exposed to their heritage. Vonnegut’s passion for writing was developed while he was the editor for his school’s daily newspaper at Shortridge High School. Following his graduation from high school, Vonnegut enrolled at Cornell University to study chemistry before enlisting in the United States Army in 1943. “Slaughterhouse Five” dramatizes many of Vonnegut’s experiences in the military. Having trained as a medical engineer, he was sent off to European front lines to fight as an infantry battalion scout. There, he was captured by Germans in the Battle of the Bulge and sent to the Prisoners of War (POW) camp where the horrific World War II bombing of Dresden occurred. Being locked in the basement of a meat locker of a slaughterhouse for two days, Vonnegut and his fellow prisoners of war escaped the firebombing that killed some 35,000-135,000 civilians. This novel outlines Vonnegut’s experiences in Dresden through the life of Billy Pilgrim, the novel’s protagonist.
FORM, STRUCTURE, and PLOT
PLOT OUTLINE:
-Exposition : Kurt Vonnegut speaks of his choice to write a book about his experiences during World War II in the firebombing in Dresden, Germany.
-Conflict: The novel’s protagonist Billy Pilgrim tries to make sense out of life through his experiences at the war in an unchronologically structured narrative of a prisoner in Dresden, Germany during World War II.
- Rising Action: Billy gets sent to a slaughterhouse prison in Germany and works in the city of Dresden.
-Crisis/Climax: The horrific firebombing of the city of Dresden, Germany occurs while Billy escapes death while locked in a meat locker.
-Falling Actiion: Billy get abducted by Aliens once more and enters a relaxed mental state.
FORM, STRUCTURE, and PLOT
This novel has a complex plot since it recounts the events in Billy Pilgrims entire life from childhood to death in an unchronological order. Except for the first and last chapters, the entire novel is in the form of flashbacks because Billy is traveling through time and space. The prayer “ God grant me…difference,” foreshadows the power of faith he must have later on in the book to get through the war alive. The quote “so it goes” relates to form and structure because it is always strategically placed by Vonnegut at the end of a section when any mention of death is said and terminates the section reflecting the ended life.
SETTING
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut details the events in Billy Pilgrim’s life in a randomized unchronological order. The novel refers to events in his life as early as his childhood in the 1920’s when his mother and father took him to Bright Angel Point at the rim of the Grand Canyon (ch 5 pg 89) to February 13, 1976, the day of his death. The main bulk of the novel however occurs around 1944 and 1945 when he describes his war experiences in extreme detail. The novel’s protagonist Billy also travels between time and space to the planet Tralfamadore where he was first taken to when he was kidnapped by a flying saucer in 1967. The planet Tralfamadore is described as being “446,120,-000,000,000,000 miles away” from Earth. This distance reflects how different the two planets truly are. Even the “mint green bathroom fixtures” provide no place for Billy to hide since as opposed to the green tinted skin of the aliens from the planet his skin is of human color. This setting can be viewed as public because it is an entire planet where Billy is displayed in a sort of human zoo. Different atmospheres are created by the various settings in the novel. A foreign yet strangely familiar atmosphere is molded within the author’s description of the furnishing of the zoo as being “a simulated Earthling habitat.”
Ilium, New York, is also a highly significant setting in the novel. The illustration of Illium as a setting reflects Billy as a character and the plot. For example, the author states that “Billy had an extremely gruesome crucifix hanging on the wall of his little bedroom in Ilium” (ch 2 pg 38). This symbolically illuminates the horrific effects of war on the human body. Although Billy is not highly religious, Christ’s wounds in the crucifix reflect the wounds that Billy would experience both mentally and physically while at war. Billy and his wife’s bedroom in Ilium, reveals the relationship Billy had with his wife. This private setting presents the idea that Billy does not truly love and is not sexually satisfied with his wife through the depiction of the vibrating mattress referred to as “Magic Fingers.” The fact that “the vibrator was the doctor’s idea” shows how the couple’s relationship was now only privately failing, but also publically recognized because they now need to be stimulated through the use of a vibrating mattress. Billy also graduates from the Ilium School of Optometry and becomes an optometrist in Ilium. This is ironic because although he is supposed to aid others in seeing better as an optometrist, he is in fact, blind to reality because he imagines the planet Tralfamadore and recounts the events in his life in an unorganized and unchronological order. He lives in a life of fantasy where he travels in time and space.
The most prominent setting in the novel however, is Dresden, Germany during World War II. This is the bulk of the narrator/author’s life that drives him to write the novel Slaughterhouse Five. Here, one of the most reoccurring settings is the hospital at the POW camp. Through the authors description of “ghostly candles” that had gone out and the only light streaming through “pin-prick holes in the walls, and from a sketchy rectangle that outlined the imperfectly fitted door” (pg 136), Vonnegut creates an eerie atmosphere reflecting Dresden during the war. He also describes this setting as “cold”, highlighting the gruesome aspect of war that was the cause of his trip to the hospital. Dresden is where Billy is sent to perform hard labor during the war. During his time there, the Billy escaped the bombing of Dresden unharmed, by hiding in the basement of Slaughterhouse Five.
POINT OF VIEW
Kurt Vonnegut recounts the events in Billy Pilgrim’s life in both first and third person omniscient. First person point of view is most prevalent in the first and last chapter of the novel where the author prefaces the subject of his book and where he states that he is still grateful for all the pleasant moments he has experienced. First person however, also pops up randomly in some other points in the novel. For example, when Billy is looking into the latrine in chapter five, and observes an American who “wailed that he had excreted everything but his brains”, the author interjects and states “That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book.” In first person, the author is the protagonist at the beginning and end because the first and last chapters consist of the author merely talking about his life and his experience in writing the novel. The remainder of the book is told in third person omniscient, mainly unveiling the thoughts and motives of Billy Pilgrim the protagonist of the novel as well as highlighting the point of view of other minor characters. In third person, the narrative is told from a reminiscence perspective.
RHETORICAL DEVICES
Slaughterhouse Five is a highly figurative piece of literature by Kurt Vonnegut. The most prominent rhetorical devices within the text are repetition, simile’s and personification. Repetition is used each time the author states “so it goes.” This motif is constantly repeated in this novel following any mention of death. A clear example of this is in chapter five (pg 106) when Vonnegut claims “A lot of people were being wounded or killed. So it goes”, when speaking of the “Children’s Crusade.” The infinite amount of times this phrase is presented in the novel reflects the large amount of death Billy experienced throughout his life illuminating the gruesome destructiveness of war. Repetition is also molded to reveal the relationship between Billy and his wife Valencia. The phrase “um” (pg 120) is repeated throughout their conversation as the response Billy continuously gives Valencia. This shows his lack of interest in her and their distant relationship. Similes richly populate this novel’s text. For example, statements such as “bellies were like washboards” (pg 94) and muscles were “like cannonballs” are similes used to describe the Englishmen that Billy encounters. Their appearance reveals their difference in social class and how the Englishmen were “among the wealthiest people in Europe.” Similes are used to further emphasize certain details within the story, such as the social class of the Englishmen. Another example of this is on page 118 when Vonnegut states that “Billy made a noise like a small, rusty hinge.” By creating an auditory image, the simile provides the reader with a familiar sound to help the reader envision how small the noise truly is.
Personification is used in slightly the same manner as similes in” Slaughterhouse Five.” Personification is meant to reflect Billy’s experiences throughout the novel. For example, “air was trying to get out of that dead water. Bubbles were clinging to the walls of the glass, too weak to climb out” portrays the struggles of the Prisoners of War to free themselves from war. A sexual encounter is also highlighted through personification by providing the idea that the “honeymooners’ headboard sang too.”
SYNTAX
“Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut predominately uses simple sentences to describe gruesome events in Billy Pilgrim’s life. These sentences are straightforward and short because the events he describes are soo impactful and if the sentence is further elongated, the impact is lost. Writing mostly in simple sentences such as “He was up. He was reading” (ch 1 pg 4), Vonnegut’s descriptions do not go into much detail as Billy briefly visits moments in time then quickly time travels into other moments through time travel.
SYMBOLISM
This novel is not highly symbolic because the diction is literal enough, meaning there is no need for deep symbolic thought. For example, “There used to be a dog named spot, but he died so it goes. Billy had liked”, the dog is not a symbol of anything pertaining to the plot of the story, the dog is simply just a dog.
Some symbols however do exist in the novel:
-Clogs (page 70)
“Then he made Weary sit down in the snow and take off his combat boots, which he gave to the beautiful bot. He gave Weary the boy’s clogs”
Snow stands as a universal symbol for death when mentioned within literature. This reflects the death occurring all around Weary during the war. Taking off his combat boots was a form of death for Weary, because his feet would never be metaphorically alive in clogs since clogs are unfit for fighting in the war. The clogs are a textural symbol and the reoccurring mention of Weary’s clogs shows a progression towards his death.
-Jade Green Mechanical Owl (page 71)
“Billy traveled in time, opened his eyes, found himself staring into glass eyes of a jade green mechanical owl”
The owl is a universal symbol for wisdom and intelligence, both qualities that Billy has gained from the war. Birds universally symbolize freedom and a link between humanity and spirituality. Although both owls and birds are universal symbols, within Slaughterhouse Five, their symbolism lies within the text. The birds symbolize freedom and hope to escape the gruesome events of war. The birds “twittering outside” (pg 100), show life despite the death experienced at war. Jade green is a universal symbol for love.
-Optometrist (page 73)
‘’Billy turned his attention to his desk. There was an open copy of The Review of Optometry “
In “Slaughterhouse Five”, optometry stands as a textual symbol. The reoccurring mention of Billy’s career in optometry is prominent because it creates a form of irony within the text. Billy, as an optometrist is supposed to make others see better when instead, he is the one who is blind to reality.
IMAGERY
-Hobo (page 87)
“But crammed into the corner with Billy was a former hobo who was forty years old”
The image of the hobo involves dark lighting, in a corner, repeating the same phrase
I have been in worse places than this”
In this form of visual imagery, the Hobo stands as an optimistic portrayal of the human race that believes that no matter what happens in the span of our lives, life keeps going on. The fact that he is repeating “I have been in worse places than this” is an auditory image since he is speaking out loud that reveals the character’s optimism.
-German Soldiers (pg84)
“A squad of full colonels was halted near Billy”
The visual image of the German Soldiers involves dark lighting with “Flashing beams”, usually doing something physical, with sound of “A siren”, and at night time. The German Soldiers are used as a symbol of the cruelty of war in the harsh way that Vonnegut describes them.
-Y.M.C.A (pg 55)
“He was a little boy taking a shower with his hairy father at Ilium Y.M.C.A”
The image of the Y.M.C.A. takes shape with the olfactory image of the odor or “chlorine”, the visual image of wearing swimming trunks, the auditory image of the sounds of “spring boom” and “beautiful music”, and the tactile “numb” feeling. This intense detail presents Billy’s childhood as joyful and carefree since it differs soo highly from the description of other, more depressing, settings within the novel. The Y.M.C.A. is used as a symbol of how Billy had to either “sink -or- swim” in the war.
THEMES
-Destiny is Inevitable:
Billy is traumatized by the war, so by constantly time traveling to war in Dresden, the author reveals how much Billy wants to go back in time and change his destiny. As the novel progresses, Billy slowly discovers that the past and future is his ultimate fate that cannot be changed. He “has seen his birth and death many times, he says, and pays random visits to all the events in between.” This left him unfazed seeing as he cannot change what has or will happen.
-Accept life as it is:
Whenever anyone dies in the novel, the words “So it goes” are repeated, commenting on how people need to become more accepting towards facing life, therefore making the novel anti-war. “The Germans carried the corpse out. The corpse was Wild Bob. So it goes.” This shows how life continues, even after the death of one person.
DICTION
Kurt Vonnegut’s style of diction stays neutral throughout the entire novel displaying a parallel sense of the Tralfamadorian perspective of time taking place in four dimensions in a neutral stand point. For the Tralfamodorian’s each point in time has always, and will always be exactly the same, comforting Billy Pilgrim with his time traveling dilemma. This explains Vonnegut’s neutrality in writing style, and the repeated and appalling phrase “So it goes”. Compacted with images, Vonnegut spreads to the use of kintheistic, auditory, visual, and gustatory imagery with the repeated images of "Mustard Gas and Roses," "Nestled like Spoons," and "Blue and Ivory", inscribed with a highly figurative purpose. For the "Mustard Gas and Roses” occurs randomly expressing the connection between Billy Pilgrim’s portion of the novel and the narrator’s experience and memories, for he uses this piece of imagery to illustrate the paradoxical foulness of his breath, of the odor of the corpses in Dresden, and the anti-thesis of not carrying the foul stench when describing his dog. The diction throughout “Slaughterhouse Five” reveals the education of several characters as well. For example, Kilgore Trout, the famous science fiction writer announced that the boy or girl who sells the most subscriptions will win a trip to "Martha's fucking Vineyard" all expenses paid for a week, if they got up and go sell something for once. A little girl asks Kilgore Trout if she could bring her sister, too. He replies, "Hell no, you think money grows on trees?" Explicit and harsh language used to reply to a child asking sincere questions, demonstrates the characters education weaved through diction. Vonnegut’s diction also possesses the common use of cacophonous sounds such as “Engaged in senseless slaughter since the beginning of time” with verbs who strike out, and the unique adjectives of “Blue and Ivory” describing the claw clinging to the vent in his boxcar on the way to a German POW center as well as the feet of the dead hobo lying outside the train that will take Billy to Dresden, in order to accurately portray life in Dresden, Germany during World War II.
CHARACTER
Name: Billy Pilgrim
-Age: Varies- due to the effects of time traveling (Born in 1922, died on Feb 13, 1976)
-Three Descriptive Adjectives: wise (He has witnessed soo much death at war that it has made him reflect on death way more- he knows his destiny is inevitable), unprepared (for war- “had no helmet, no overcoat, no weapon, and no boots”, and Weak (“Billy wouldn’t do anything to save himself. Billy wanted to quit.”)
-Appearance: (Page 30) “Funny-looking child who became a funny looking youth-tall and weak, and shaped like a bottle of Coca-Cola.” At 21 years old, he looked like a “filthy flamingo” at war “wearing a thin field jacket, a shirt and trousers of scratchy wool, and long underwear that were soaked with sweat.” He was also the only one who had a beard. “Billy and the scouts were skinny people.”
-Personality: Not assertive, and lets others boss him around. “He asked Billy what he thought the worst form of execution was. Billy had no opinion.”
-Function in the Novel: Billy serves as a symbol of post-war effects.
-Billy Pilgrim, being the protagonist, changes in the story, with the plane crash serving as the shift. Billy is a round/simple character.
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Name: Roland Weary
-Age: 18
-Three Descriptive Adjectives: Lonely (“He was always being ditched in Pittsburg by people who did not want him with them”- Also has a constant desire to be a part of the “Three Musketeers”), Rude (“Saved your life again you dumb bastard”), and Violent (“then he would find some pretext for beating the shit out of him”)
-Appearance: Lots of weapons, boots, and wears “layers of wool and straps and canvas.” He was also “stupid and fat and mean and smelled like bacon no matter how much he washed.” “Weary had fat to burn.” “Baby Face”
-Personality: Glorifies himself as a hero, and part of the “Three Musketeers”, with a rude and violent outlook on life.
-Function in the Novel: To show how personal problems don’t come in compare to the worlds major problems such as war. Example: When Weary was fighting with Billy in the midst of being captured by German Soldiers, in the middle of war.
-Roland Weary, being the antagonist, does not change in the story. He is a round/complex character .
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Name: Edgar Derby
-Age: 44
-Three Descriptive Adjectives: Nice, Idealistic, and Sane
-Appearance: One of the oldest Americans with the best bodies. Only he and Billy remained with beards.
-Personality: Understands war, and is mature compared to the other soldiers
-Function in the Novel: The only character who truly understands the effects of the war.
-Edgar Derby, being the antagonist, does not change within the story. He is therefore, a flat/simple character.
CLOSE READING OF DICTION AND SYNTAX
“The Tralfamadorians tried to give Billy clues that would help him imagine sex in the invisible dimension. They told him that there could be no Earthling babies without male homosexuals. There could be babies without female homosexuals. There couldn’t be babies without woman over sixty-five years old. There could be babies without men over sixty-five. There couldn’t be babies without other babies who had loved an hour or less after birth. And so on.
It was gibberish to Billy.”
Syntax- Constant simple sentences, repletion of words, seven sentences reflecting the seven sexes, Parallelism
The use of diction and syntax in this particular passage varies, for the syntax presents itself rather complex and the diction further complicates the complex sentence. The point of the complexity used to explain a rather new and complicated process to an individual (or a completely different species in this case) correlates with other paradox aspects of the book. The complications arise in the diction when the multiple words of “Could”, “Homosexual”, “Without”, “Couldn’t”, “Babies” continually repeat. With the images scattered with similar sounding words such as “female” and “male” and “could” and “couldn’t” and the inclusion of the continual repeated words cause the mental complicity in such simple fragments. Thus not only illustrated in this small section, but the entire novels syntax implements a plethora of complex sentences, and like the diction the novel is completely jumping around from time to time causing complications and confusion. Revealing the tone with the clever use of italics of the simple word “could” in a complex sentence and incorporated in the diction itself “It was gibberish to Billy” illuminating, confusion.
“All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking teapot that wasn’t his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on. I’ve changed all the names.
I really did go back to Dresden with Guggenheim money (God love it) in 1976. It looked a lot like Dayton, Ohio, more open spaces than Dayton has. There must be tons of human bone meal in the ground. “
Syntax- Appositive phrases, Parallelism, Repetition,
The use of diction and syntax in this particular passage resonates with simplicity. The diction portrayed takes a common form of someone speaking towards another of equal, not high or low style wise, the repetition of the word “really”, three times, reveals the narrator’s insecurity of the readers trust in the narrator. The syntax takes bouts of complex and simple sentences to demonstrate the constant and insane persona of the narrator’s trauma. With the long stop using periods displaying the words “And so on” reveals the neutral nostalgia the author reflects in the tone.
IRONY
Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughter House Five is a highly ironic piece work, action packed with situational irony galore. Of the four soldiers wandering behind enemy lines after the Battle of the Bulge, Billy Pilgrim, the least soldierly and the least likely to survive unexpectedly survives and left the last man standing. Another piece of irony; the men stay safe in a slaughterhouse, which usually seen as a place of violent death. As well, in his thoughts, Roland Weary consistently saves Billy from death, when in fact Weary takes delight in beating Billy. The only time Weary saved Billy when the Germans capture the two, plus the “good” soldiers die, not Billy or Weary: "The two scouts who had ditched Billy and Weary had just been shot". "One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn't his", on the other hand, Billy gets away with keeping a diamond. "I think the climax of the book will be the execution of poor old Edgar Derby...The irony is so great. A whole city gets burned down, and thousands of people are killed. And then this one American foot soldier is arrested in the ruins for taking a teapot. And he s given a regular trial, and then he's shot by a firing squad." Also illumes to the irony of man not caring over the death of thousands but only after an American soldier who stole a teapot and sentence to death.
RESEARCH ARTICLES
ARTICLE #1
LINK:http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=LitRG&userGroupName=miamidade&tabID=T001&searchId=R4&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=BasicSearchForm¤tPosition=3&contentSet=GALE%7CH1420007476&&docId=GALE|H1420007476&docType=GALE&role=LitRC
LINK:http://go.galegroup.com/ps/retrieve.do?sgHitCountType=None&sort=RELEVANCE&inPS=true&prodId=LitRG&userGroupName=miamidade&tabID=T001&searchId=R4&resultListType=RESULT_LIST&contentSegment=&searchType=BasicSearchForm¤tPosition=3&contentSet=GALE%7CH1420007476&&docId=GALE|H1420007476&docType=GALE&role=LitRC
Thesis: “Slaughterhouse-Five is, then, not an answer to the tragedy of war, but a response. The novel's innovative structure, distinctive prose style, and skilled use of humor and satire have all been much commented upon by critics. But it is the horror of war, as represented by the Dresden firebombing, and the attempts of decent people to come to terms with those horrors, that lie at the heart of the book and provide its most memorable scenes.”
1)-“The novel's “short and jumbled and jangled” structure”= a representation of Billy
2)“Many critics and scholars have suggested that Vonnegut's breakthrough in Slaughterhouse-Five occurred because here, for the first time, he addressed directly the pivotal event of his own life.” = the reason why he made SlaughterHouse Five a completely different book form all the other he wrote, so it would stand out
3)“Vonnegut himself appears onstage as a character several times later in the book.”= Vonnegut was so effected by the war he couldn’t stop from adding himself in the story= The novel is expressing his personal emotions
4)” Billy's condition is, on one level, a symbol of the shock, confusion, dislocation, and desire for escape that result from the horrible experiences of war”=Billy is character with not a lot of deep thought.
5)” The most overtly science-fictional element in Slaughterhouse-Five is, of course, Billy's abduction by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore on his daughter's wedding night many years after the war.” = Billy got abducted by the aliens on his daughter’s wedding night because he was nervous and felt like he was giving the only thing he had left, which was his daughter.
6)” In 1969, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., had already published five novels and two short story collections, but he was not especially well known or commercially successful.”= Because none of the novels where as personal as Slaughterhouse-five
7)” Other critics have noted the novel as a summation of many of the themes of Vonnegut's work: the dangers of unchecked technology, the limitations of human action in a seemingly random and meaningless universe, and the need for people, adrift in an indifferent world, to treat one another with kindness and decency” = All of the themes seem to have a negative outlook on humans
ARTICLE #2
THESIS: “As honorary president of the American Humanist Association, Vonnegut was a proponent of humanism as a tool for building a better world.”
1.” Saw organized religions that attempted to do so as creating needless division in the world” = If he is labeling himself as a humanist, he is in a way dividing himself from society anyways.
2. “With wit and sarcasm as his trademarks”= The tone of Slaughterhouse Five
3.” He would routinely make metaphorical religious references” = Very hypocritical. As the “ceremonial leader” of humanists, he should take their views very seriously instead of making secular humanists “cringe.”
4.” It troubled him that nations could annihilate one another” = Because of his experiences in the war, Vonnegut experienced death soo much and truly got to observe the grotesque nature of war.
5.” Including even innocent children”= Referring to the Children’s Crusade mentioned in Slaughterhouse Five. Young adults sent of to war unprepared in place for lost soldiers.
6.”And so it goes.”= Reflects the constantly repeated phrase from Vonnegut’s famous book “Slaughterhouse Five”. The author of this article structured the phrase in the same way Vonneget does in the novel. He wrote the statement after he said that Vonnegut was dead and “in heaven now.”
7. “That’s my favorite joke.”= Vonnegut should not joke around with religious subjects. If he is leader of the humanists, he must strongly believe in that humans must see themselves as what they are.
Article #3
Thesis: For the chapter contains passages that suggest three important facts crucial to a proper understanding of Vonnegut's novel: (1) the novel is less about Dresden than about the psychological impact of time, death, and uncertainty on its main character; (2) the novel's main character is not Billy Pilgrim, but Vonnegut; and (3) the novel is not a conventional anti-war novel at all, but an experimental novel of considerable complexity.
1+2+3=A
Note #1- First sentence gives visual imagery with the word “Illuminating”
Note #2- Parallelisms with “Impact of time, death and uncertainty”
Note #3- Most examples come in pairs of twos “twice to describe the frozen feet of corpses, five times to describe the feet of Billy Pilgrim, who, though still in the land of the flowing, is marked as mortal.”, placing the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King only a month apart,
Note #4- Emphasis of a point using parenthesis “Vonnegut-as-character removes himself as much as possible from the scene he narrates, cushioning it with multiple perspectives, constructing what is finally a story within a memory within a novel. (Vonnegut the author removes himself yet one step further, achieving a story within a memory within a novel within a novel.)”
Note #5- Examples become shorter to express clarity and keep readers attention “He reminisces about his days as a university student and police reporter in Chicago, as a public relations man in Schenectady, and as a soldier in Germany.”
Note #6- Clever and creative use of quotations- who “always has to know the time,” what time it is. “Search me,” he answers. His forgetfulness seems a shield, a defense against a medium that oppresses him.
Note #7- Rhyme with obsessed and oppressed , and assonance and repletion with past and particularly and death. “The Vonnegut of Chapter One appears simultaneously obsessed with and oppressed by time, the past, and death—particularly death.”
