Billy Pilgrim's 'Slaughterhouse Five'

Hello, I am Billy Pilgrim. I am a veteran of World War II. I am a survivor of the firebombing of Dresden, an optometrist, a husband, and a father. I am very unpopular and weak, even before I was in the war. I would rather sink than swim. I trained as a chaplain’s assistant, which is a duty that earned me disgust from my peers. I live a life full of indignity and have no great fear of death. My father died in a hunting accident just as I was about to go off to war. And that’s my story.

Slaughterhouse Five is the story of Billy Pilgrim. He travels back and forth in time, visiting his birth, death, all the moments in between repeatedly and out of order. In the story, the author talks about the difficulties of writing the novel and the effects of Dresden on his own life. Billy’s life is given to us out of order, but I will write them to you in order.

Billy is born in 1922 in Ilium, New York. As he grows older, he becomes weak and awkward. He studied at the Ilium school simply before he was drafted for War. He was sent to Europe in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge. Billy was captured behind German lines.

But one night in February of 1945, Dresden is bombed. 130,000 people die. Billy and the others wait out the bombing in a meat cellar. With no food or water, they trek out to the suburbs. When that work is over, Billy and the other men return to the stable to wait out the rest of the war. In May, Russians take the area and Billy was sent back to his own country. After the war, Billy returned to Illium to finish school. He then got engaged to the school’s owner’s daughter. Soon after Billy had gotten engaged he has a mental breakdown and is committed to a veteran's hospital. After he is released, he marries Valencia, the girl he was engaged to. Her father is wealthy, and with a little help from him, Billy grows rich. Billy and Valencia have two