... 't even walk right-kept bobbing up-and-down, up-and-down, driving everybody crazy, giving their position away. He was pitiful"" (Vonnegut 53). Billy Pilgrim does not get much love from the other, more experienced soldiers. A fight breaks loose when Billy and Roland Weary, the soldier who is looking after him ... killed. "He was down in the meat locker the night that Dresden was destroyed. There were sounds like giant footsteps above. Those were sticks of high-explosive bombs. The giants walked and walked. The rest of the guards had, before the raid began, gone to the comforts of their own...

• Word Count: 1265
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... narrator, the author, is a very passive individual. This characteristic is brought even more to the forefront later in the novel. Chapter Two "Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time." He wanders from moment to moment in his life, experiencing chronologically jumbled events one right after another. He sees his ... and again about the Three Musketeers. He also asks that someone get revenge for him on the man who caused his death. He blames Billy Pilgrim, of course. The train finally arrives at a camp, and Billy and the other men are pushed and prodded along. The camp is full of ... By 2...

• Word Count: 7795
• Approx Pages: 31
• Grade Level: High School

... , he is taught that all time happens simultaneously, and therefore, nobody ever truly dies. At first this seems like a good thing, but to Billy Pilgrim, who cannot chose which aspects of his live to relive, brutal acts of war also live on forever. Billy repeatedly relives his time in Dresden, though ... uses dark irony in a very effective way, which not only disturbs the reader, but connects various events throughout the story. For example, a 44 year old high school teacher named Edgar Derby wanted to be able to fight in the war. He had some connections, and was able to get in. He survive...

• Word Count: 1466
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... double pneumonia in a German railroad yard. He was slightly delusional. Valencia Merble - Billy's wife, daughter of Lionel Merble, the founder and owner of the Iliad School of Optometry where Billy studies to become an optometrist. She's a very fat and unattractive woman, but with a kind personality. She dies of carbon monoxide poisoning ... idea of being able to perceive the past, present, and future all at once has Billy fascinated. They are little men, with an arm raised up high with one eyeball in the palm of its hand. Roland Weary - An eighteen year old recruit anti-tank gunner. He s...

• Word Count: 1657
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... argues that the loss of free will is affected by a parallel of controllable and uncontrollable events that occur in the life of the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim. Vonnegut argues that Billy's loss of free will results from his experiences in life, specifically, his childhood, marriage, and participation in war. The ... initiator. Through war, Vonnegut shows how free will is lost in several ways. One example is through death. While finishing high school and taking night classes at the Ilium School of Optometry, Billy is drafted into World War II and sent overseas where he is thrown into the B...

• Word Count: 971
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School