Chapter 2: Slaughterhouse-Five

The second chapter of "Slaughterhouse-Five" begins as a descriptive narrative about this new character, Billy Pilgrim. This chapter doesn't seem to have any relation to the previous one but instead is describing the two newest main characters in vivid detail. The chapter beings with the narrator saying, "listen, Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time" this introductory sentance seems very irrelevent but is later explained. This chapter starts in a very choronological order through big events in Billy's life. The event most discussed in chapter two is the second world war which is also where Billy became unstuck from time.

I think that the reason why Billy became unstuck from time was because he was completely hopeless and didn't even want to continue living. This reminded me of Dante's Inferno because Dante is at a point in his life where he is lost and confused just like Billy and so some extreme event happens because of his loss of hope. In the poem Dante's Inferno, Dante gets taken through hell while Billy navigates through time. In two very different ways i think that Dante and Billy are seeing into the future, one more literally than the other. Both Dante and Billy know what will happen to them atleast at the end of their life times.

Later on in the chapter the chronological order disappears and we are no longer reading a description of Billy's life but we're in it. We are following billy through the war and even when he moves through time. Even though we don't know what is happening in each scene when the time changes, I think it is a very obvious way of doing foreshadowing. I also found it very interesting how the author chose to add dialogue to the narration. Another thing that I discovered was that whenever death is mentioned in the chapter the author adds, "so it goes" which he said was what Tralfamadorians say when someone dies. I think that by adding that the author is always bringing up the fourth dimension and doing a small comparison of "Earthling" thinking versus Tralfamadorian thinking.

I think that the structure of the chapter near the end becomes very random, confusing and even repetitive. The repetition is to empasize certain events like the war. The randomness may be telling the reader that they have to remeber each event and may be foreshadowing how the story goes on. I think that the skipping of scenes makes the book more interesting since now we are expecting to learn more about each event. So far I think the book is rather interesting and eventhough at times I have to go back and read over certain scenes it is written in a very captivating way. I got a very clear introduction of Billy Pilgrim, not only what happens to him during his life put his personality and background. Also the other character that is mentioned alot, Weary, is very vividly portrayed as a young, fearsom teenager with a very twisted mind. I'm still not quite sure if Weary is of much importance to the story but he did save Billy's life so he may move through the book along with Billy. I think that the second chapter was a "hook" chapter to get the reader interested and I'm curious to know what happens next in Billy's jumbled life.