boekverslag engels slaughterhouse five

Lisanne den Hertog V4C


Slaughterhouse five written by Kurt Vonnegut. 175 pages

1 What is the connection between the title and the book? Explain in detail with examples from the
book. How does the title relate to the main character/s?
- the title of the book is Slaughterhouse five. Slaughterhouse five is the addres of a building in
Dresden, Germany. The main character in this building is Kurt Vonnegut, who survived the bombing
of Dresden, because he was in a meat locker during the bombing. The book is about life in the war,
after the war and especially after the bombing in Dresden. The bombing made Dresden a
slaughterhouse. There were about 1500.000 people killed in the bombing. But the war itself was of
course also a slaughterhouse. that's why the book is called `Slaughterhouse five’.

2 Characterization: What kind of person is/are the main character/s? In what ways does that
become clear to you as a reader? Explain with examples from the book.
- the most important characters are Kurt Vonnegut, Billy Pilgrim, Roland Weary, Edgar Derby,
Barbare Pilgrim, Robert Pilgrim and Valencia Pilgrim. Billy Pilgrim was a friend of Kurt, who he
experienced the bombing in Dresden with. His wife is Valencia and their children are Barbara and
Robert. Roland Weary is a man Billy met in the war. And he saved Billy a few times. Edgar Derby, is
captured together with Billy but gets shot after the Dresden bombing for stealing a teapot.

3 Who is your favourite character in the book and why? Explain with details of what he/she is
saying / doing in the book.
- My favorite character from the book is Billy pilgrim. Because you get to know the most about him,
he goes through a lot in the book. He can time travel, he is captured by the Trafalmadorians, he had
a plane crash and he was the only one who survived, he experienced the bombing in Dresden, he is
captured in the war by the Germans and he is threatened with death and accused of Weary's death.
He was a weak person but it was very cool that he survived all of this.

4 Development: In what ways does the main character change or develop during the story? How do
you notice that as a reader? Give detailed examples from the book.
- The main character, Billy Pilgrim, goes through many things in the book. The main things he
experiences are: all his time travel, being the only one who survived, being captured by the
Trafalmadorians and by the Germans in World War II, having a plane crash and experiencing the
bombing of Dresden and surviving all this. After all these things, he hasn't changed and he hasn't
really developed. He is still a little weak.

5 Conflict: What is the most important emotional conflict that the main character becomes involved
in? How does the writer end the conflict? Explain.
- For me the most emotional conflict is that Billy had a plane crash and while he was in the hospital
his wife wanted to visit him. But she had a car accident on her way to the hospital and died as a
result of carbon monoxide poisoning. I thought this was sad because the woman wanted to go to the
hospital especially for her husband because she was very shocked. But the book doesn't say much
about this. It was quite short. It could be because Billy had already seen the plane crash with the
time travel he had done.

6 Ending: Is there an open or closed ending to the book? How did that make you feel as a reader?
- There was an open ending. The book ended a little weird the last line was “one bird said to Billy
Pilgrim, ‘poo-tee-weet?’”. I didn't really understand what that meant. Also in the last chapter things
were told that happened, after that the sentence was repeated: “so it goes”. This has been said
many times in the book, especially in the last chapter it had been repeated a lot. I thought it was a
bit of a weird ending.