Thou will die, have died, and always will die

As I continue reading about Billy Pilgrim’s life, I get more and more surprised and Billy travels more and more. As I asked myself in one of my previous blogs, which other curious characters where coming, a new character has surprised me in chapter six. I also asked when would Billy’s death come, and it came, will come and always will come. Paul Lazzaro is another POW, and the one who promised Ronald Wary to avenge him. This man is an extremely violent man, angry and revengeful. For example he says to Billy “If the President of the United States fucked around with me, I’d fix him good. You should have seen what I did to a dog one time.” Billy, Lazzaro and Derby had this conversation when Lazarro said he was going to have his revenge with one German and he then told his story with the dog. He was horrible, ruthless, wrath full. Lazarro reminds me a lot to Brian De Palma’s Scarface main character, Antonio Montana. “Tony” was a Cuban immigrant in Miami that accomplished “The American Dream” and became the head of the drug cartel. Lazzaro reminds me of Tony because he was a revengeful, dirty talking criminal, but mostly because of their way of talking. “Anybody touches me, he better kill me, or I’m gonna have him killed” said Lazzaro to a German whom he wanted to kill. “Go ahead! I take your fucking bullets! You think you kill me with bullets? I take your fucking bullets! Go ahead!” Tony would say as he was being killed.

In chapter six we get to know Billy is aware of how, when, and why he will be killed. It’s going to be 1976, Billy will be giving a speech about flying saucers to a crowd of people, and he will be assassinated. Pilgrim’s assassin will be Paul Lazzaro, the man who promised to avenge his war friend (Ronald Weary). It’s remarkable how Billy has accepted his fate. He would perfectly fit to be a Tralfamadorian since he acts just like them regarding his death, and how the Tralfamadorians cause the destruction of the world. As Billy said they will be “dead for a little while-and then live again.”

The prisoners of war go to Dresden, a beautiful city, which has not been affected much by the war, where they are kept at “Schlachthol-funf” which traduces to Slaughterhouse-five. I feel Kurt Vonnegut is somewhat ironic in this chapter when Edgar Derby writes a letter to his wife. “We are leaving for Dresden today. Don’t worry. It will never be bombed.” Wrote Derby in his letter. Since the beginning of the book we know Dresden was bombed, but Vonnegut doesn’t interfere with this. He doesn’t even state how he feels about the bombing (he did in chapter 1, which talks about how the book came to be), so this makes me think the story is more Billy Pilgrim centered, rather than Kurt Vonnegut centered or maybe Billy represents him in many ways because they are alike in many ways. In the last five chapters I have read both Vonnegut and Billy have showed no emotion and no patriotism, which I feel are also ironic. War is full of these, even though it may be best if soldiers are emotionless. All of these inferences and deductions make me eager to keep on reading because I want to know how all these POW survived the bombing of Dresden, and how Billy Pilgrim came to be.