ENGLISH IIISlaughterhouse Five—VonnegutDiscussion Points for chapter two

***Please, do not write on this sheet. Write all answers on your own notebook paper. ***

1. Be able to explain Billy Pilgrim’s concept of coming “unstuck in time”: what he claims it means, what is REALLY happening to him when he comes “unstuck,” and what might have caused this phenomenon.

2. What Billy has in common with the writer Celine, who was mentioned in chapter one

3. Know everything you can about the Tralfamadorians: who they are, what they look like, how they perceive time differently than humans do, and reason why Billy Pilgrim might have created these creatures.

4. Why the Tralfamadorians (and Vonnegut) use the phrase “so it goes” so excessively

5. How as an optometrist, Billy is trying to help other people truly “see” (p. 29)

6. The irony of Billy’s father’s death

7. What is really happening when Billy claims he first came unstuck in time during the war in 1944? What event(s) might have prompted him to “time travel”? Is he really projecting into the future? If not, what is really happening?

8. The point that Vonnegut is possibly trying to make about the true meaning of the word obscene within the context of war

9. Billy’s thoughts on life and death (cite details to support your answers)

10. Be sure you know the definition of the word Pilgrim and be able to explain how Billy is a Pilgrim.