1. 1 paragraph + RF
1. What was your reaction to the Dresden video clip? During the interview, the historian claimed that the bombing of Dresden was an unnecessary military action performed as a show of strength. He made similar claims about Hiroshima etc. Do you think such tactics are necessary in war? Explain.
2. If you were to write a novel about war, what would you call it? Why

2. Paragraph + RF
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘G– d*&% it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”
--Kurt Vonnegut
What does this quotation mean to you?
If you could rewrite the last sentence, what would it be? What rule would you give to future generations?

3. Kurt Vonnegut Born November 1922, Indianapolis, IN Cornell University
Majored in Chemistry and Biology
Enlists in U.S. Army
Served in World War II
Studied Anthropology
University of Chicago
Died April 2007, New York, NY

4. Family Life Vonnegut's father Fell into severe depression
Vonnegut's mother
Overdosed on sleeping pills
Night before Mother's Day 1944.
Themes in Writing
Attainment
Loss of the "American Dream"
Fourth-generation German
Children = Never exposed to heritage
Anti-German attitudes spread throughout the United States after World War I
The Great Depression
Vonnegut’s lost most of their wealth

5. World War II Experiences as POW in Germany While a POW
Profound influence of his writing
(Slaughterhouse Five)
While a POW
Witnessed the firebombing of Dresden, Germany,
by Allied forces in 1945.
Experience in Dresden
Basis for Slaughterhouse-Five
Published in 1969

6. Vonnegut on what he saw in Dresden
“The firebombing of Dresden,” Vonnegut wrote, “was a work of art.” It was, he added, “a tower of smoke and flame to commemorate the rage and heartbreak of so many who had had their lives warped or ruined by the indescribable greed and vanity and cruelty of Germany.”
How would you describe the tone he uses to describe this event?

7. Dresden - Cultural hub of Northern Germany
- Called the Florence of the North
- A commercial/ transportation center
- Railway junction
- 110 factories
- Many evacuees and refugees from the East and Berlin

8. Timeline
October 31st 1940
The Battle of Britain ends, British lose major casualties in London
February 13th -15th
1945
British bomb Dresden on the night of February 13th (first wave)
Americans bomb Dresden on the days of February 14th (second wave) and 15th (third wave)
May 8th, 1945
End of World War II, Nazis are defeated by the Allies
End of the Holocaust
November 20, 1945
Nuremberg Trials begin, mass conviction of Nazis for war crimes

9. Reasons for the Battle Revenge
Show Red Army the might and strength of the British and Americans
Crush the spirit of the German People
Destroy main railway junctions, factories producing war machines, the strategic meeting place of the Nazis

10. Destruction
- Mainly older, more densely populated part bombed
- 85% of the fully built up city destroyed
- Large number of industrial facilities destroyed
- 50% of homes demolished
- 80% of city housing damaged to some extent
acres of land destroyed
- 35, ,000 deaths

11. Importance - Frightened the German people
- Was an unexpected attack by the Allies, usually defensive
- First use of Napalm war
- If the Allies had lost the war, they would have been tried for war crimes for this event
- Showed the might of the Allies, as well as the hypocrisy.

12. “So it goes.”
One of many repeated, mantra-like words and phrases that run through Vonnegut’s books
“so it goes”
Became a catchphrase for opponents of the Vietnam war.
Why might this phrase resonate with an anti-war audience?

13. Life in Tableaux Definition: A vivid or graphic description
Central Character (Billy Pilgrim)
Knows every event which has ever happened or will happen to him
Each scene in Billy Pilgrim's life
A tableau/scene/moment with an impact on totality of his existence
NOT how it relates to the moments immediately preceding and succeeding it.
The worldview of the Tralfamadorians (Aliens who kidnap Billy during the book)
Expresses how Vonnegut would like the reader to experience the novel.

14. Narrative Flow, or Time's Arrow
Slaughterhouse-Five = a nonlinear work
Flash-backs
Flash-forwards
Changes in setting
Chapter Two starts non-linear structure
Non-linear structure
Holistic rather than Mechanistic:
Conveys experience as a continuous whole
Vonnegut always alerts the reader to the shift in time and space
As the flow of the novel were a tow rope which pulls the reader safely through a series of tableaux.

15. Diagram for Structure The structure of Slaughterhouse-Five
Each box = a tableau
Numbers = physical chronology
The line = narrative flow

16. Motifs: Definition
Recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Look for and trace the motifs listed on the side.
“So it goes”
“If the accident will”
“an old fart with his memories and Pall Malls”
“My name is Jon Jonson”
“And so on”
the smell of mustard gas and roses
The Children's Crusade
a dance with death

17. ("Or The Children's Crusade | A Duty-Dance with Death")
CHAPTER ONE
Key to the novel is the opening section
Apparently, the author speaks in his own voice about a visit he made to talk with an old war buddy, Barnard V. O'Hare, as he was completing the manuscript for the novel.
It explains how the novel came to be outfitted with its subtitle
("Or The Children's Crusade | A Duty-Dance with Death")
How it came to be dedicated to O'Hare's wife.
Skepticism about whether there is any hope it might contribute to its intended effect

18. Postmodernism

36. Techniques of Metafiction
addressing the reader
a story within a story
a story about someone reading or writing a book
Characters that are aware they are taking part in a story
Commenting on a story while telling it (either in footnotes or within the text)
A story where the narrator exposes himself as both a narrator and a character

39. “ I been silent so long now it’s gonna roar out of me like floodwaters and you think the guy telling this is ranting and raving my God; you think
this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! But, please. It’s still hard for me to have a clear mind thinking
on it. But it’s the truth even if it didn’t happen.”