Passage from Slaughter House Five with Commentary
Passage from Slaughterhouse-Five By Kurt Vonnegut
Weary was as new to war as Billy. He was a re- 1 placement, too. As a part of a gun crew, he had helped 2 to fire one shot in anger---from a 57-millimeter antitank 3 gun. The gun made a ripping sound like the opening 4 of the zipper on the fly of God Almighty. The gun 5 lapped up snow and vegetation with blowtorch 6 thirty feet long. The flame left a black arrow on the 7 ground, showing Germans exactly where the gun 8 was hidden. The shot was a miss. 9 What had been missed was a Tiger tank. It swiveled 10 its 88-millimeter snout around sniffingly, saw the arrow 11 on the ground. It fired. It killed everybody on the gun 12 crew but Weary. So it goes. 13
Roland Weary was only eighteen, was at the end 14 of an unhappy childhood spent mostly in Pittsburgh 15
Pennsylvania. He had been unpopular in Pittsburgh. 16
He had been unpopular because he was stupid and 17 fat and mean, and smelled like bacon no matter how 18 much he washed. He was always being ditched in 19
Pittsburgh by the people who did not want him with 22 them. 21 It made Weary sick to be ditched. When Weary was 22 ditched, he would find somebody who was even more 23 unpopular than himself, and he would horse around 24 with that person for a while, pretending to be friendly. 25
And then he would find some pretext for beating the 26 shit out of him. 27 It was a pattern. It was a crazy, sexy, murderous 28 relationship Weary entered into with people he 29 eventually beat up. He told them about his father’s 30 collection of guns and swords and torture instruments 31 and leg irons and so on. Weary’s father, who was a 32 plumber, actually did collect such things, and his col- 33 lection was insured for four thousand dollars. He 34 wasn’t alone. He belonged to a big clud composed of 35 people who collect things like that. 36 Weary’s father once gave
Weary was as new to war as Billy. He was a re- 1 placement, too. As a part of a gun crew, he had helped 2 to fire one shot in anger---from a 57-millimeter antitank 3 gun. The gun made a ripping sound like the opening 4 of the zipper on the fly of God Almighty. The gun 5 lapped up snow and vegetation with blowtorch 6 thirty feet long. The flame left a black arrow on the 7 ground, showing Germans exactly where the gun 8 was hidden. The shot was a miss. 9 What had been missed was a Tiger tank. It swiveled 10 its 88-millimeter snout around sniffingly, saw the arrow 11 on the ground. It fired. It killed everybody on the gun 12 crew but Weary. So it goes. 13
Roland Weary was only eighteen, was at the end 14 of an unhappy childhood spent mostly in Pittsburgh 15
Pennsylvania. He had been unpopular in Pittsburgh. 16
He had been unpopular because he was stupid and 17 fat and mean, and smelled like bacon no matter how 18 much he washed. He was always being ditched in 19
Pittsburgh by the people who did not want him with 22 them. 21 It made Weary sick to be ditched. When Weary was 22 ditched, he would find somebody who was even more 23 unpopular than himself, and he would horse around 24 with that person for a while, pretending to be friendly. 25
And then he would find some pretext for beating the 26 shit out of him. 27 It was a pattern. It was a crazy, sexy, murderous 28 relationship Weary entered into with people he 29 eventually beat up. He told them about his father’s 30 collection of guns and swords and torture instruments 31 and leg irons and so on. Weary’s father, who was a 32 plumber, actually did collect such things, and his col- 33 lection was insured for four thousand dollars. He 34 wasn’t alone. He belonged to a big clud composed of 35 people who collect things like that. 36 Weary’s father once gave