Slaughterhouse Five Summary

Vonnegut, the narrator, introduces his experience of the firebombing of Dresden, in eastern Germany, during World War II while he was a prisoner of war and his attempt for many years to complete a book on the subject. He assures his readers that the book they are about to read is true, more or less. Vonnegut and his wartime friend, Bernhard V. O’Hare, return to Dresden in 1967 with funding from the Guggenheim Foundation. They ride a taxi on the way to the Dresden slaughterhouse that served as their prison. Vonnegut and O’Hare converse with the cab driver about life under communism while on their way. It is to Gerhard Müller, and O’Hare’s wife, Mary, that Vonnegut dedicates Slaughterhouse-Five. Müller later sends O’Hare a Christmas card with
This includes his stints as a student of anthropology at the University of Chicago, as a police reporter, and a public relations man for General Electric in Schenectady, New York. In the years following the war, he contacts the U.S. Air Force for information about the magnitude of Dresden’s destruction, which reveals his ignorance regarding the matter. He discovers that the event is still classified as top secret. Vonnegut takes his young daughter and her friend with him to visit Bernhard V. O’Hare in Pennsylvania around 1964. He meets Mary O’Hare, who is disgusted by the likelihood that Vonnegut will portray himself and Bernard as tough men, glorifying war and turning scared babies into heroes. With his right hand raised, Vonnegut promises that it will not be that kind of book for he will not to glorify. He also promises to call his book The Children’s Crusade. Later that night he reads about the Children’s Crusade and the earlier bombing of Dresden in 1760. While he was teaching at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Vonnegut lands a contract to write three books, of which Slaughterhouse-Five is to be the first. He explains that the book is so short and jumbled because there is nothing intelligent to say about a