Here, I will be posting and updating with the humorous quotes that I find throughout my reading of Slaughterhouse-Five.
“The main thing now was to find the steering wheel. At first, Billy windmilled his arms, hoping to find it by luck. When that didn’t work, he became methodical, working in such a way that the wheel could not possibly escape him. He placed himself hard against the left-hand door, searched every square inch of the area before him. When he failed to find the wheel, he moved over six inches, and searched again. Amazingly, he was eventually hard against the right-hand door, without having found the wheel. He concluded that somebody had stolen it. This angered him as he passed out.
He was in the back seat of his car, which was why he couldn’t find the steering wheel.” (47)
Just as a sort of explanation here, the context is that Billy is drunk. Very drunk. Vonnegut's description goes into excessive detail, but does so for comedic value rather than to support the story or the setting. I know that Mr. Walsh once said that all of his own jokes follow the format of a big lead up followed by a single, short punch line. That seems to be the case with this scene as well.
"Billy Pilgrim padded downstairs on his blue and ivory feet. He went into the kitchen, where the moonlight called his attention to a half bottle of champagne on the kitchen table, all that was left from the reception in the tent. Somebody had stoppered it again. 'Drink me,' it seemed to say.
So Billy uncorked it with his thumbs. It didn't make a pop. The champagne was dead. So it goes." (73)
As I stated in my previous entry, whenever someone dies in Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut writes the Tralfamadorian saying "So it goes." Therefore, the previous 72 1/2 pages of the book served as a comedic build up to this scene, where the champagne was dead. I feel that this exemplifies not just something funny, but Vonnegut himself, in that it is a particular and uniquely dry joke. I also love how the champagne is personified to add to the ridiculousness of the scene. (Wow, I can't believe ridiculousness is a real word)
"On the eighth day, the forty-year-old hobo said to Billy, 'This ain't so bad. I can be comfortable anywhere.'
'You can?' said Billy.
On the ninth day, the hobo died. So it goes. His last words were, 'You think this is bad? This ain't bad.'" (79)
I'm not sure whether this scene was intended to be funny, or just ironic, but I found it a bit of both. Throughout the long and cramped train ride to the POW camp, this hobo has been explaining to all of the soldiers that the trip wasn't so bad. Well, so it goes.
"Billy coughed when the door was opened, and when he coughed he shit thin gruel. This was in accordance with the Third Law of Motion according to Sir Isaac Newton. This law tells us that for every action there is a reaction which is equal and opposite in direction.
This can be useful in rocketry." (80)
While this quote seems a bit simple and scatological, I'm including it as a representation of Vonnegut's versatility in using humor. Thus far, the humorous passages have ranged from simple jokes (such as this) to more intelligent ones (the irony and juxtaposition of the hobo's death) to nuances (such as the wine). However, even in the case of a "poop joke," Vonnegut displays his understanding for what makes the joke funny by adding in Newton's Third Law of Motion. Even when he is being stupid, he's being smart.
"They were among the wealthiest people in Europe, in terms of food. A clerical mistake early in the war, when food was still getting through to prisoners, had caused the Red Cross to ship them five hundred parcels every month instead of fifty. The Englishmen had hoarded these so cunningly that now, as the war was ending, they had three tons of sugar, one ton of coffee, eleven hundred pounts of chocolate, seven hundred pounds of tobacco, seventeen hundred poinds of tea, two tons of flour, one ton of canned beef, twelve hundred pounds of canned butter, sixteen hundred pounds of canned cheese, eight hundred pounds of powdered milk, and two tons of orange marmalade." (94)
Another case that is more subtle and ironic than laugh-out-loud funny. As a note for my readers (assuming you've actually survived this far into my entry), These Englishmen are prisoners. Billy and the other POWs are sent to this "prison" after the awful train ride, and are greeted with excess supplies and "goodie bags" containing razors, chocolate, cigars, soap, matches, a pencil, and a candle. I just love how rediculous how nice the "prison" is.
"There was a lot that Billy said that was gibberish to the Tralfamadorians, too. They couldn't imagine what time looked like to him. Billy had given up on explaining that. The guide outside had to explain as best he could.
The guide invited the crowd to imagine that they were looking across a desert at a mountain range on a day that was twinkling bright and clear. They could look at a peak or a bird or a cloud, at a stone right in front of them, or even down into a canyon behind them. But among them was this poor Earthling, and his head was encased in a steel sphere which he could never take off. There was only one eyehole through which he could look, and welded to that eyehole were six feet of pipe.
This was only the beginning of Billy's miseries in the metaphor. He was also strapped to a steel lattice which was bolted to a flatcar on rails, and there was no way he could turn his head or touch the pipe. The far end of the pipe rested on a bi-pod which was also bolted to the flatcar. All Billy could see was the little dot at the end of the pipe. he didn't know he was on a flatcar, didn't even know there was anything peculiar about his situation.
The flatcar sometimes crept, sometimes went extremely fast, often stopped - went uphill, downhill, around curves, along straightaways. Whatever poor Billy saw through the pipe, he had no choice but to say to himself, 'That's life.'" (115)
I think the best part of this is the excessive detail that the Tralfamadorian goes into. Vonnegut even acknowledges it with the first sentence of the third paragraph. It's also interesting, because I personally find it difficult to imagine how anyone would be able to discern anything when seeing in the fourth dimension. Perhaps this outlook represents the natural impulses of people to feel better than those who they do not understand. This has been proven in the past, and was a significant factor in the start of World War II, in fact. When I think of the 4th dimension, while I'd be able to look at a single pebble on the ground, or a bird in the sky, a Tralfamadorian would only be able to see a blurry line of the entire bird's life: everywhere it's ever been, everything it has ever done. I feel like my way of seeing things would be much better.
"Somebody in the zoo crowd asked him through the lecturer what the most valuable thing he had learned on Tralfamadore was so far, and Billy replied, 'How the inhabitants of a whole planet can live in peace! As you know, I am from a planet that has been engaged in senseless slaughter since the beginning of time. I myself have seen the bodies of schoolgirls who were boiled alive in a water tower by my own countrymen, who were proud of fighting pur evel at the time.' This was true. Billy saw the boiled bodies in Dresden. 'And I have lit my own way in a prison at night with candles from the fat of human beings who were butchered by the brothers and fathers of those schoolgirls who are boiled. Earthlings must be the terrors of the Universe! If other planets aren't now in danger from earth, they soon will be. So tell me the secret so I can take it back to Earth and save us all: How can a planet live in peace?'
Billy felt that he had spoken soaringly. He was baffled when he saw the Tralfamadorians close their little hands on their eyes. He knew from past experience what this meant: He was being stupid.
'Would - would you mind telling me -' he said to the guide, much deflated, 'what was so stupid about that?'
'We know how the Universe ends -' said the guide, 'and Earth has nothing to do with it, except that it gets wiped out, too.'
'How - how does the Universe end?' said Billy.
'We blow it up, experimenting with new fuels for our flying saucers. A Tralfamadorian test pilot presses a starter button, and the whole Universe disappears.' So it goes." (116-117)
An interesting thought to consider, indeed, for someone who can see all of time. what I find so fascinating about the Tralfamadorians is that questions about the Universe itself aren't even worth answering for them, while a simple human is enlightening to observe. Perhaps this scene (and the zoo as a whole) are trying to say that it's important to focus on and appreciate the present because:
1. You don't know what life will have in store for you, and
2. Even if you do, what good will it do looking to the future when you're in the present?
"A crazy thought now occurred to Billy. The truth of it startled him. It would make a good epitath for Billy Pilgrim - and for me, too.The random insertion of the idea in the first place is rather entertaining, but the real killer is having the entire thing written out on the picture of the tombstone. In all honesty, I feared that I would neer find out what the epitath would be. Unfortunately, there is no explination of why the epitath is amazing and perfect, and I'm personally having trouble figuring it out myself. I can tell that it's one of Vonnegut's signature humorous shots at a political or human idea, but I can't really discern what that is.
[On the following page]
"Billy, curled in his azure nest, found himself staring at Cinderella's silver boots under a throne. And then he remembered that his shoes were ruined, that he needed boots. He hated to get out of his nest, but he forced himself to do it. He crawled to the boots on all fours, sat, tried them on.
The boots fit perfectly. Billy Pilgrim was Cinderella, and Cinderella was Billy Pilgrim." (145)
The last sentence is quite amusing, but thi scene leads to a later scene in which the Americans look like the most pathetic and uselss bunch of men ever. One of them has a broken arm, another is far older than any traditional soldier, and Billy Pilgrim is wearing silver boots, is draped in an azure curtain, and has his hands wrapped in a fluffy, furry coat.
"You lads are leaving this afternoon for Dresden - a beautiful city, I'm told. You won't be cooped up like us. You'll be out where the life is, and the food is ceartain to be more plentiful than here. If I may inject a personal note: It has been five years now since I have seen a tree or flower or woman or child - or a dog or a cat or a place of entertainment, or a human being doing useful work of any kind.
"You needn't worry about bombs, by the way. Dresden is an open city. it is undefended, and contains no war industries or troop concentratiosn of any importance." (146)
The dramatic irony of this scene just kills the reader. Firstly, I already know that Dresden will be firebombed, everyone does. But the last paragraph is the icing on the cake. It's the line in a movie that, if it went unsaid, would mean Dresden would be perfectly fine. But saying "Something terrible and unlikely will definately not happen, by the way." almost assures the reader/viewer that it will. The excessive detail exaggerates the idea to the point that any reader should be able to pick up on it. Fun, smart, and entertaining.
DONE FOR NOW.
