Slaughter-HouseFive Chapters 9-10

In these last chapters of the novel many interesting things happen, but they are written in a way that you feel them as if they were very common things. One interesting thing was the way Billy’s wife Valencia died, she was driving to the hospital where he was and she was slammed by a Mercedes. Vonnegut writes a very interesting line "Nobody was hurt, thank God, because both drivers were wearing seat belts, thank God, thank God."(Pg 182) He repeats thank God three times like in Inferno where everything that is very religious is written three times and the whole book is written in tercets. This is interesting because Vonnegut is not a religious man and he uses very religious terms and ideas. The way Valencia died is also very interesting, her car had lot the exhaust system and when she got to the hospital where Billy was the doctors found her totally overcome by carbon monoxide. "Poor Valencia was unconscious, overcome by carbon monoxide."(Pg 183) This is a very funny way to die as if Vonnegut was playing with her death to make the reader laugh. Vonnegut shows her death and Derby’s death very different to all other deaths in the book. Billy shows no sadness when Valencia dies, he doesn’t even show sadness when he sees that he is going to get killed.

Vonnegut shows very clearly his lack of faith in cristian religion close to the end of the book. He narrates how Jesus and his father do a job for the roman soldiers in which they create an object used to cause death and suffering. “It was a cross to be used in the execution of a rebel rouser. Jesus and his father had built it. They were glad to have the work. And the rabble-rouser was executed on it. So it goes.” (Pg 202) In this quote we see how not only Jesus created an artifact destined to kill but he was glad to do it and it didn’t hurt that a man had just been killed because of this.

The ending of the book was very normal and calm, nothing different from the rest of the book. Nothing exciting happened. Vonnegut could have done this to show the reader that the end of the book is just one more thing, which is meant to happen. A very extravagant ending could have reduced the importance of other events in the book and change the effect on the reader.

This book is related to Gulliver’s travels in the way that it makes fun of things humanity has created. In Slaughter-House Five Vonnegut makes fun of war and death, while in Gulliver´s travels Jonathan Swift makes fun of humanity and government.