Cultural Context 

How does war inflict trauma to those who have survived?
​Who are the victims and sacrifices of war? 
Is it possible to justify violence and destruction? Can the victor's violence be justified? 

                                                                                               Chapter 1
What do you think of the tone of Vonnegut’s letter to his family? Is it different than you imagined a letter like that would be? Why or why not? 

Why do you think it took Vonnegut so long to write his “famous Dresden book”? How does the author's trauma and survivor's guilt affect his relationship with this "lousy little book" (2)? 

Why do you think Vonnegut tells the story about working for the Chicago City News Bureau?

Why do you think the details of the bombing of Dresden were still secret when Vonnegut inquired? 

The author unceremoniously observes: "the yellow line stopped because the character represented by the yellow line was dead. And so on. The destruction of Dresden was represented by a vertical band of orange cross-hatching, and all the lines that were still alive passed through it, came out the other side" (7).  What is the author's tone and attitude toward the events of 1945? 
​
For what specific purpose does the author employ the biblical analogy of Lot's wife? And why does he call himself the pillar of salt? 

Why was O'Hare's wife Mary so antagonistic to the author the first time they met? 

In what ways and to what extent was World War II another Children's Crusade? 

                                                                          Chapter 2
In what context does the author iterate "so it goes"? And how does this phraseology establish the author' tone and attitude? 

What do you think Mary O'Hare might say to Roland Weary--who is still a child but a bully boy who grandstands in his heroic fantasy? 
Note: Roland Weary shares his first name with the protagonist of The Song of Roland, the oldest French heroic epic about a crusader. Nephew of Charlemagne, Roland leads the French forces against the Spanish Muslims and dies from the wounds he sustained when he burst his temples by blowing his olifant-horn too hard. 

A female colleague of the author munches on a bar of Three Musketeers Candy Bar in Chapter 1, and Weary fancies himself as a Musketeer. Why do you think the author repeats this allusion to the Three Musketeers? In what ways is this reference related to the glorification of crusaders and Arthurian knights? 

Chapter 3
Parallel time:
​1944-1945 (during WWII) and 1967-1968 (during the Vietnam War)

✏Billy Pilgrim and Roland Weary are antithetic in appearance and personality, but in this chapter, they share much similarity. In what ways are they similar and different? 
✏How does war make a thief out of an angel?
✏How does war make a mad man out of a commander?
✏How does war produce "cripples" (excuse me for the blunt usage of this word) ? 
✏Which symptoms that Billy Pilgrim exhibits are indicative of post-traumatic stress disorder? 

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

"Facing It" (1986, Yusef Komunyakaa)  

My black face fades,   
hiding inside the black granite.   
I said I wouldn't  
dammit: No tears.   
I'm stone. I'm flesh.   
My clouded reflection eyes me   
like a bird of prey, the profile of night   
slanted against morning. I turn   
this way—the stone lets me go.   
I turn that way—I'm inside   
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light   
to make a difference.   
I go down the 58,022 names,   
half-expecting to find   
my own in letters like smoke.   
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;   
I see the booby trap's white flash.   
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse   
but when she walks away   
the names stay on the wall.   
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's   
wings cutting across my stare.   
The sky. A plane in the sky.   
A white vet's image floats   
closer to me, then his pale eyes   
look through mine. I'm a window.   
He's lost his right arm   
inside the stone. In the black mirror   
a woman’s trying to erase names:   
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

"Death Fugue" (1945?, Paul Celan)​

Black milk of morning we drink you at dusktime
we drink you at noontime and dawntime we drink you at night
we drink and drink
we scoop out a grave in the sky where it’s roomy to lie
There’s a man in this house who cultivates snakes and who writes
who writes when it’s nightfall nach Deutschland your golden hair Margareta
he writes it and walks from the house and the stars all start flashing he whistles his dogs to draw near
whistles his Jews to appear starts us scooping a grave out of sand
he commands us to play for the dance

Black milk of morning we drink you at night
we drink you at dawntime and noontime we drink you at dusktime
we drink and drink
There’s a man in this house who cultivates snakes and who writes
who writes when it’s nightfall nach Deutschland your golden hair Margareta
your ashen hair Shulamite we scoop out a grave in the sky where it’s roomy to lie
He calls jab it deep in the soil you lot there you other men sing and play
he tugs at the sword in his belt he swings it his eyes are blue
jab your spades deeper you men you other men you others play up again for the dance

Black milk of morning we drink you at night
we drink you at noontime and dawntime we drink you at dusktime
we drink and drink
there’s a man in this house your golden hair Margareta
your ashen hair Shulamite he cultivates snakes

He calls play that death thing more sweetly Death is a gang-boss aus Deutschland
he calls scrape that fiddle more darkly then hover like smoke in the air
then scoop out a grave in the clouds where it’s roomy to lie

Black milk of morning we drink you at night
we drink you at noontime Death is a gang-boss aus Deutschland
we drink you at dusktime and dawntime we drink and drink
Death is a gang-boss aus Deutschland his eye is blue
he shoots you with leaden bullets his aim is true
there’s a man in this house your golden hair Margareta
he sets his dogs on our trail he gives us a grave in the sky
he cultivates snakes and he dreams Death is a gang-boss aus Deutschland

​your golden hair Margareta
your ashen hair Shulamite