1. The Start

In response to Slaughterhouse Five Chapter 1 (page 5-14)
Quote and Response
(Vonnegut's perspective; an introduction before the real story begins)

"When I got home from the Second World War twenty-three years ago, I thought it would be easy for me to write about the destruction of Dresden, since all I would have to do would be to report what I had seen... But not many words about Dresden came from my mind then— not enough of them to make a book, anyway. And not many words come now, either" (Vonnegut, 5).
When Vonnegut first got home from the war, he believed it would have been easy to write a book on war, and maybe it should have been; After all, he was writing about what he had just lived through and experience in Germany for some years. However, this is not what happened. Vonnegut was a prisoner of war, both literally and figuratively. Yes, he had in fact been trapped during the war by the Germans, but it seems as if the war had a much bigger impact on him than he expected in his post-war life, considering it took him twenty-three years to finish the story. Also, his writing that there were not enough words for him to make a book can mean that he somewhat blocked out the memories of war, making him believe he did not remember them. War is something so intense, and it is not hard to believe that someone would want to block those moments out.

"There would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers... And even if wars didn’t keep coming like glaciers, there would still be plain old death" (Vonnegut, 6).
Here, Vonnegut is recalling a conversation with a man talking about the anti-war book he was writing. The man told him that instead of writing an anti-war book he should write an "anti-glacier book," then continues into the quote with what the man meant. The man and Vonnegut both agree that war at the point is almost seemingly inevitable, and they were impossible to stop from happening and impacting people. This plays on the theme of danger in war and humans destroying humans through war. Going to war and being a soldier is an ultimate death for many, and the more wars that happen and continue, the more deaths occur that could have been avoided. However, here this quote is saying that even without war, death is still inevitable, which is true, but people can live longer and fuller lives without needing to be drafted in war. This quote is an interesting way of interpreting that message, but is still able to get these themes across in an almost callous way.

"It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is" (Vonnegut, 13).
Vonnegut, here, is apologizing to his publisher for how jumbled and somewhat incoherent his story is and his reasoning of why it is so disoriented. Vonnegut really is able to show the message of how war is in general completely messed up and not able to be understood. War is senseless and has mass destruction on everything in its path. People die not only physically but mentally as well. War truly does kill a person on the inside and out, which again also shows the theme of human destruction through war. This quote truly is able to set the scene for what is to come in the rest of the novel of a man living and fighting in the war and the impact it has on his mind and sanity.