Saturday, July 28, 2012

Chapter Four: Explication


Chapter four has an interesting moment where one could use explication. While rummaging through his daughter's former room, her phone rings. "Billy answered. There was a drunk on the other end. Billy could almost smell his breath—mustard gas and roses. It was a wrong number. Billy hung up." After finishing the chapter, I realized that the drunk was actually Kurt Vonnegut himself. Vonnegut mentioned that he had a habit of becoming inebriated and calling former girlfriends.



In addition, the use of roses, symbolic of romance, and mustard gas, a deadly chemical weapon, seems strange. However, I think it shows how deeply the war affected Vonnegut, and that he can no longer appreciate normal things (roses) without remembering the horrors of war (mustard gas).

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