Slaughterhouse-Five Whole Novel Chapter Questions:
Name:____________________________________________________ Date:____________________ Period:_________
Chapter I:
1. Vonnegut begins his novel with information that is usually reserved for a preface or an introduction (background
type information). Why does Vonnegut decide to include this information in the novel proper as "Chapter 1"?
How does this affect how you "view" this information?
2. What is the narrator's stated goal for writing the book?
3. Why is it ironic that the narrator refers to the outline on the roll of wallpaper as the best he ever made?
4. Why does Vonnegut include "Yon Yonson" and "The Man From Stambool"? Why does he keep returning to these
poems?
5. Why does Vonnegut include the scene with the two little girls which takes place as the narrator is on the way to
see O'Hare?
6. How Mary O'Hare feel about the narrator, at first? How can you tell? Why does she feel this way? How do her
feelings change?
7. What two books does the narrator mention reading at O'Hare's house? Why are these significant?
8. What is the significance of the Children's Crusade? How does it relate to WWII?
9. What answer does the narrator have to the question about what to say about a massacre? Is it a satisfying
answer in your opinion? How does this explain the structure of the novel?
10. The chapter ends with quotations from Roethke, Celine, and the Bible. Why are these three quotations
included? How is each related to the theme of the novel? Why does the narrator love Lot's wife for looking back
at Sodom and Gomorrah?
11. How is the narrator, himself, experiencing time in Chapter 1?
Chapter 2:
1. How does Billy experience time in Chapter 2?
2. Why include "He says" as a standalone sentence/paragraph? What relationship does this set up between Billy
and he narrator?
3. How is Billy described, physically. How does this relate to the narrator's ('author's') promise to Mary O'Hare?
4. How does the narrator discuss Billy's life in the very first part of Chapter 2? (Consider how this is different from
how time is explained later in the chapter).
5. What wonderful thing about time does Billy reveal that the Tralfamadorians know? How does this relate to the
saying, "So it goes"? How does this relate to the stated purpose of the novel?
6. What did Billy Pilgrim do in the war? How is he described after the Battle of the Bulge? Why would Vonnegut
choose to characterize him this way?
7. How is Roland Weary characterized? What is revealed about his personality (and humanity generally?) through
the discussion of his background/childhood/family/hobbies? How does this relate to nature v nurture? How
does this relate to the romanticism of war?
8. Why is the description of Billy's childhood crucifix included? What is the purpose of this juxtaposition?
9. Why include the description of what Roland Weary is wearing/carrying?
10. What is the significance of the "Three Musketeers"?
11. When Billy comes unstuck in time in the woods in Germany, what does he experience? How does this reveal the
theme of the novel (relating to life and death)?
12. What happens to Weary, Billy, and the Scouts? How does Weary react? From this reaction, what, if you were to
infer, might be Weary's deepest wish?
Chapter 3:
1. Why include the dog, at the beginning of the chapter? How is she ironic?
2. What is the purpose of the biblical allusions? Why is Billy Pilgrim seeing Adam and Eve? What is the connection
in these comparisons?
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3. After Billy and Weary are captured, why don’t any of the POWs have “good stories” to tell? How does this relate
to the theme of the novel?
4. What happens to the scouts? Why is this included?
5. When Billy wakes up in Ilium, why can’t we remember how old he is? What is the significance of this? How
would you describe Billy’s mental state?
6. Why include the section about the “black ghetto” of Ilium? Why compare this to Dresden? What could this be
saying about racism?
7. What is different about the Lion’s Club Major’s view of war? What is the significance of this view (in comparison
to the narrator’s)?
8. How does the serenity prayer relate to war, social unrest, racism, etc? How does this prayer relate to free will? Is
the prayer comforting? Disturbing? Why?
9. Why does Billy weep? What does this reveal about his true psychological state?
10. Why does Vonnegut include the “crippled men”? What does this show about human sympathy?
11. Why are the Germans filming the POWs? How does this relate to US Army and the feeding of former POWs to
create baby fat?
12. Who is Wild Bob? Why is his character significant? Why is his character tragic?
13. What happens with the narrator’s story and Pilgrim’s story in this chapter?
14. What is the significance of repeating “ivory and blue”?
15. How long is Billy’s train still?
16. Why are the trains anthropomorphized (turned into people)?
17. Why does Vonnegut include the fact that the people on the trains shared their food? What is the tone of this
line? How does that relate to Vonnegut’s philosophy and view of humanity?
Chapter 4:
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How is the wedding tent similar to the train (in Chapter 3)? Why would this be important?
What words/phrases are repeated at the beginning of Chapter 4? Why include all this repetition?
What happens to Billy in Chapter 4? In Germany in 1944? In his home in Ilium after his daughter's wedding?
What is funny about the description of the champagne? Why is this description oh so Tralfamadorian?
Why tell the war movie backwards? What is the war movie's new message? Why mention Adam and Eve?
Why describe the saucer/the Tralfamadorians with such care and detail?
What is the Tralfamadorian's response to Billy's "Why me?" What is the message of this response?
How is the boxcar described?
Why is the narrative (the story) bouncing between these two abductions?
Why can't Billy sleep in the boxcar?
How long are they in the boxcar total?
What happens to the hobo?
What happens to Weary? Do you feel pity for him? Why/why not?
What type of camp are the POWs taken to? How are the German soldiers described?
Where does Billy get his coat? How is it described?
How is the camp described? How big is it, roughly?
Who is Edgar Derby? How is he characterized?
Why is Paul Lazzaro? How is he characterized?
What happens to the POWs once they are in the camp?
What do we learn about Billy's views on religion at the end of Chapter 4?
What seems to cause time travel?
How do the Tralfamadorian's view "free will"? Why include this discussion?
Chapter 5:
1. How is repetition important in this chapter?
2. How do you describe a Tralfamadorian book?
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3. What happens to Billy Pilgrim at the Grand Canyon? At Carlsbad Caverns? Is it "worth it"? Why are these events
mentioned at all?
4. Describe Billy's overcoat.
5. What is the significance of the "big red ledger"? How does it affect the lives of the POWs?
6. How do the English greet the Americans? How do the English react when they realize what the Americans look
like?
7. How are the English officers described? How long have they been POWs? Why are they "rich"? Why is this
absurd (think starving Russians)?
8. How do the Germans in the camp feel about the English POWs?
9. Who is "Jerry"?
10. Where do the candles and soap come from?
11. Describe the feast and entertainment that the English provide for the Americans. Why is Billy kicked out?
12. How do the English describe Billy? What does it mean to be a "broken kite"?
13. Why is Billy in a mental ward for nonviolent patients in 1948? Who does he meet there?
14. Who is Elliot Rosewater's favorite author? What is the issue with this author?
15. How are Rosewater and Billy similar? Why, as it is claimed, are they both going crazy? (101)
16. How does Billy react to his own mother when she comes to visit him in the mental ward? Why? How does Elliot
Rosewater react to Billy's mother? Why?
17. Who is Valencia? How is she described? What type of conversations does Billy have with her?
18. What is The Gospel From Outer Space? Who wrote it? What is it about? What does it teach?
19. Describe Billy's habitat on Tralfamadore. How does Billy feel about being on Tralfamadore?
20. How do the Tralfamadorian's describe Billy's understanding of time?
21. How does Billy feel about war (when talking to the Tralfamadorians)? Why is this stupid, according to the
Tralfamadorians? How do they feel about war? What advice do they give Billy (sounds like a coping
mechanism)?
22. Why can't Billy tell Valencia about the war on their wedding night?
23. What is the significance of the epitaph, "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt"?
24. When does the narrator appear? Why is this scene made to be so disgusting?
25. What is Howard W. Campbell Jr.'s monograph about? Why does Vonnegut include this?
26. Who is Montana Wildhack?
Chapter 6:
1. When does Billy leave the camp for Dresden? Why does the narrator include "he says"?
2. What wakes Billy? What is animal magnetism? What does he feel this towards and why?
3. Who is the "Blue Fairy Godmother"? What happened to Paul Lazzaro? What does Paul Lazzaro threaten to do to
the "Blue Fairy Godmother"? Why?
4. What is the sweetest thing in life, according to Paul Lazzaro? What example does he give? Why is this
included/how could this relate to the bombing of Dresden?
5. What does Paul Lazzaro feel about the bombing of Dresden? Why?
6. What does Paul Lazzaro threaten to do to Billy? Why?
7. How does Billy Pilgrim say he dies?
8. What advice does Billy Pilgrim give the crowd? How does his speech end? Why?
9. What happened to the USA? Why?
10. What is death like, according to Billy Pilgrim?
11. Why do the POWs gather in the "theater"?
12. Why is rabies mentioned in connection with Paul Lazzaro?
13. Why is Billy Pilgrim described as Cinderella? What is the symbolic significance of this?
14. Why does the Englishman give a lecture about personal hygiene? How does this relate to survival? What does
this reveal about the relationship between routine and survival?
15. Why does the Englishman envy the Americans? Why does this make perfect sense? Why is this an example of
dramatic irony?
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Who is elected head America? Describe this process?
Why does Vonnegut include Derby's thoughts (his letters home)?
How is Dresden described? How is the description different depending on who is doing the describing?
When they reach Dresden, who guards the POWs? How are they described? Why are the guards relieved when
they see the American POWs? Why is the scene described as a light opera?
Why is the surgeon offended by Billy Pilgrim?
What is in Billy's coat?
Why isn't the slaughterhouse operational as a slaughterhouse anymore?
Why does Paul Lazzaro swear so much? Why is he characterized in this way?
Chapter 7:
1. Why does Billy Pilgrim get into the airplane (which he knows will crash)?
2. What do the Tralfamadorians think all plants and animals (including humans) are?
3. Why are the racist anti-Polish songs included? How do these contribute to the characterization of Billy Pilgrim's
father-in-law?
4. What happens in the plane crash?
5. How is the crash scene described? Why include this surreal imagery?
6. What true things does Billy dream?
7. Who is Werner Gluck? What is the difference and similarity between the three fools and the Three Musketeers?
8. Who is the syrup for? What is spooning syrup? Why is it not allowed? Why is it done anyway? What are the
reactions of Billy and Derby to the syrup? Why?
Chapter 8 Discussion Questions:
1. Who comes to visit the Americans in the slaughterhouse?
2. What are “The Free American Corps”? What does their uniform look like? What do the red, the white, and the
blue each stand for?
3. Why do the American POWs have sores on their bodies?
4. Analyze this quote. Think about the shift in POV and the conceptual importance of it: “Poor old Derby, the
doomed high school teacher, lumbered to his feet for what was probably the finest moment in his life. There are
almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are
so sick and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that
people are discouraged from being characters. But old Derby was a character now” (164).
5. What does Derby do when Campbell is calling for volunteers?
6. Why could Billy’s daughter “just kill” Kilgore Trout?
7. What is Kilgore Trout doing when Billy meets him?
8. Why is Trout referred to as a “cracked messiah”?
9. Explain the money tree.
10. What is the story of the gutless wonder? What is the significance of this story?
11. Why doesn’t Kilgore Trout think of himself as a writer?
12. Who wrote the one letter that Trout has received?
13. What happens at Billy’s 18th wedding anniversary party?
14. What does Billy realize he has hidden from himself on the inside?
15. Why would the quartet going from sweetness to sourness to sweetness both Billy?
16. What is a time window?
17. How is Robert, Billy’s son, described?
18. What is the difference between time travel and memory (think about how these passages are written)?
19. How is the bombing of Dresden described?
20. How is the relationship between Montana and Billy described?
21. Why does Dresden look like the moon?
22. Where do the POWs stay after the bombing?
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Chapter 9:
How does Valencia die? How is this ironic?
Who does Billy room with after the plane crash? How is this person described?
What is Rumfoord researching?
What is Billy babbling about and what is Rumfoord's reaction to Billy's babbling?
Describe Rumfoord's wife. Why did Rumfoord mary Lily?
Why cut off/end Truman's speech on "it was to spare--" ?
Why include the two forwards to The Destruction of Dresden? What is the message of these two excerpts?
Describe Billy's son.
Why is Billy listless after the plane crash? Why does everyone around him think he is listless?
What does Rumfoord want the people at the hospital to do to/for Billy?
Why has Rumfoord "got to put something about Dresden" in his book?
Why is the success that was the bombing of Dresden kept a secret? From whom?
What causes Billy to speak intelligently?
How is Rumfoord thinking in a "military manner" when he insists that Billy has echolalia?
How do the hospital staff feel about Rumfoord?
What are Billy and the other POWs doing after World War II ends?
Why is Billy happy in the coffin-shaped wagon?
Why are the German obstetricians angry with Billy? What happens when they scold him?
Why is the epigraph "Away in a Manger"? How is Billy Christ-like?
What is Rumfoord's reaction to the bombing of Dresden? What is he trying to persuade Billy of and why?
After the plane crash, why is Billy under observation (it does not directly say; you have to infer)?
Why does Billy go to New York City?
What is The Big Board about? What significance does this story have? (Hint: When did Billy read it?)
What does the magazine say happened to Montana Wildhack?
How does Billy get on the radio? What does he talk about?
Why does Vonnegut include the discussion of the state of the novel?
What is on Montana's locket? Significance?
Chapter 10:
1. How does the narration in Chapter 10 compare to the narration of the rest of the book? Why does Vonnegut do
this?
2. Why are the Tralfamadorians interested in Darwin?
3. What do Billy, the narrator, O'Hare, and all the POWs start doing 2 days after the bombing of Dresden?
4. What happens to the Maori man?
5. What is a corpse mine?
6. How is Edgar Derby's death described? Was this what you were expecting, why or why not?
7. Do you find the novel's ending satisfactory? Why or why not?
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