American Literature books summary

American Literature books summary

preacher. As they looked up to him with greater fervor, he began to hate

himself more. Many a time he stood on his pulpit aching to tell them of

his sin, release it from his heart. However, all he could manage to say

was that he was a terrible sinner, which only inspired his congregation

more because they saw him as virtually flawless. He fasted, prayed, and

kept vigils in order to purge himself, but the sin upon his soul haunted

him without end.

Chapter 12: It was midnight and Reverend Dimmesdale was so tortured by his

sin that he took himself out and stood upon the scaffold that Hester had

stood. He planned to stay there all night suffering from his own shame.

At one point he cried out hoping in his mind to wake the whole town so they

could see him standing there, so his sin could finally be revealed and his

mind eased. However, no one in the town was awakened by his cry. At one

point from his perch, he saw the Pastor John Winston walking towards him,

but the man was wrapped up tightly in his cloak and did not notice the

Reverend on the scaffold.

His mind wandered to what he would look like in the morning when his body

was frozen with cold, and at the image of himself in his mind, he laughed.

His laugh was returned by a sprightly laugh in the darkness that was none

other than Pearl’s. He cried out to her in the night, and to Hester. They

appeared having been out measuring a robe for a man who had died that

evening. At the Reverend’s request, they came to stand upon the scaffold

with him and they joined hands in their sin. Pearl asked the Reverend

repeatedly if he would come stand with them on the scaffold the next day at

noon, but the Dimmesdale refused. Out of the darkness, Mr. Chillingworth

appeared, and the Reverend spoke his fear and hatred of the man. He asked

who he really was, and because of her oath, Hester kept her silence. Pearl

whispered gibberish to him in revenge for him not standing with them the

next day on the scaffold. The Reverend looked up into the sky and saw a

meteor trail that looked like a large red ‘A’ leering at him. Mr.

Chillingworth told him to come home and he left the scaffold with the

evilly happy physician.

Chapter 13: Seven years had passed since little Pearl’s birth. The letter

on Hester’s chest to the village people had become a symbol of her good

deeds. It set her apart from the general population, but many looked on

her as a sister of charity. When someone was in need she was always the

one by his or her side. Many people in town said the A stood for able.

She had changed. She was an empty form, void of the passion and love that

people were able to see in her before.

Her luxurious hair was always hidden from the sight of the people. After

the minister’s vigil, Hester found a new cause for sacrifice, a new

purpose. She decided to talk to the old physician, her former husband, and

try to save his victim from further mental torture. After making her

decision, she came upon him as he was walking the peninsula.

Chapter 14: Hester instructed Pearl to go run and play and she went to a

pool and saw herself there. Hester accosted Mr. Chillingworth and he began

telling her of all the good things the people in the town had said about

her. The leaders in the town at the last council meeting had even thought

about admitting Hester to take the letter off her bosom. Hester told him

that if the Lord meant her to take it off her chest that it would have

fallen off long ago. While they began talking, Hester took a good look at

him. In the past seven years he had aged well, but there was a strikingly

different look about him. He wore a guarded look of an eager angry man who

was out for revenge.

They began talking about the minister and Mr. Chillingworth reveals that

had it not been for his care, the minister would have died long ago.

Hester asks if he has not had enough revenge since he was able to torture

the minister every day by burying into his heart. He answers no, that it

will never be enough. Hester tells him that she plans on revealing his

secret to the minister and he tells her that neither of them are sinful and

evil, they just must lead the lives that they were given because of her

sin. They say farewell, and Hester leaves him to gathering herbs.

Chapter 15: Hester watches him for a while from a distance disgusted at the

evil she sees in him. She turns to find little Pearl who was playing with

all the different things in nature. When Pearl goes back to her mother,

Hester sees that the child has made a letter A out of seaweed and placed it

on her chest. Hester asks the child if she knows what the letter her

mother wears means. Pearl answers that it is the same reason the minister

keeps his hand over his chest.

That is all she knows however, and she asks earnestly why she wears the

scarlet letter, and why the minister places his hand over his heart. Ever

since she was little, Pearl had a certain fascination with the letter that

tortured her mother even more. Hester decided it was better to not

unburden her sin upon her child and told her daughter that it meant

nothing. After that day however, Pearl would ask her mother two or three

times a day what the scarlet letter meant.

Chapter 16: : Hester learned that the Minister had gone into the woods to

visit a friend who lived among the Indians. She learned when he was

expected to return, and when the day came, she and Pearl went into the

forest so she could catch him on his return and speak with him in private.

As they enter the forest, Pearl says that she can stand in the sunlight,

but the sunlight runs away from Hester. In response, Hester reaches out to

touch the stream of light that flocks around the little elf-child, and it

vanishes when her hand comes near. Pearl then asks her mother for a story

about the black man who inhabits the forest, which she over heard a woman

the previous evening talking about. Pearl said that people went into the

forest and signed the Black man’s book with their blood and that she heard

the scarlet letter was the black man’s mark on her mother. They traveled

into the deep into the forest and stopped next to a little brook that Pearl

began playing around. After a while, they saw the Reverend Dimmesdale come

walking slowly down the path, and Hester tells Pearl to run and play.

Chapter 17: Hester calls out to the Minister and he instantly straightens

up and looks towards her. He finds out it is she and they inquire on how

their lives have been in the last seven years. They sit down together on a

log, and ask each other if they have found peace. The minister expresses

his sadness and how he feels like a hypocrite teaching others to be holy,

when he himself has a terrible hidden sin. Hester tries to help him by

talking with him and caring for him. He thanks her for her friendship.

She then tells him of Roger Chillingsworth, how he is her husband, and out

for revenge. Dimmesdale is horrified but knew that something was wrong

with Roger Chillingworth. Hester could not take the frown that descended

upon his face, and asked him if he forgave her. He has, and she asks if he

remembers what they had. She hints that they once had a great passion and

affection for each other. Hester talks of them leaving together. Arthur

says he has not the strength to travel that far, but with Hester helping

him, they thought they could do it.

Chapter 18: Together they decide to leave the New World together and not

torture themselves further with their sin so that only God will judge them.

To them, they are damned already. Hester unhooks her scarlet letter and

tosses it by the bubbling brook. They make plans together and say that

they will leave for England on the ship that is in the harbor. Talking of

their love and their plans, they call back Pearl, for once happy and with

lifted spirits. Pearl is off in the forest playing and interacting with

the animals. When they call her back, Pearl comes slowly when she sees

them sitting together.

Chapter 19: They sat there looking at Pearl as she approached. She had

adorned herself with wild flowers and looked like a fairy child. They

rejoiced in their child as she came towards him, and Arthur was

exceptionally afraid and anxious for the interview. Pearl stopped at the

brook and stared at them. The child pointed at her mother with a frown.

Hester called out to her harshly to come and Pearl began screaming and

throwing a tantrum. Hester realized that the child was upset that her

scarlet letter was not affixed to her mother’s breast. She walked over to

where it lay on the ground and showed it to the child. She pinned it back

into place, and Pearl was pacified and happy again. They approached the

minister and the three of them held hands, and they tried to explain to her

that they were all going to be a happy family. The minister kissed Pearl’s

forehead and she ran quickly to the brook to try to wash it away.

Chapter 20: Arthur Dimmesdale walked home happily. For the first time in

seven years, there was a bounce in his step and a light in his hurting

heart. On his way, he saw some of his parishioners and he had thoughts of

corruption on his mind. He thought about the reaction he would get if he

whispered corrupting things in their ears. There are three different

people he runs into in which he feels this. He resists the temptation to

do this, and wonders why he is having these thoughts. He wonders if he

signed the black man’s book in the forest with his blood. He runs into a

woman known as the town witch, and she tells him the next time he wants to

go into the forest she would go with him. When he arrives home, Mr.

Chillingworth comes into his room, and the Reverend refuses to take anymore

of his medicine. He sits at his desk and reworks the sermon he had planned

for the following celebration.

Chapter 21: A public holiday because of the election was planned and

everyone from that and the neighboring towns attended in their best

clothing. Hester and little Pearl attended but stayed slightly apart from

the crowd. Though everyone was packed close to see the parade, there was

an empty circle around Hester because of her scarlet letter. She had gone

previously to make plans with the captain of the ship that they were going

to take to England, and she saw the captain of that vessel talking to Roger

Chillingworth. The captain then came over to her and informed her that the

physician would be attending the voyage with them. She looked towards him,

and he smiled at her evilly.

Chapter 22: The parade began and Pearl saw the minister when he reached the

front. She asked if that was the same minister who kissed her in the

woods, and Hester told her to not talk about it in the marketplace.

Mistress Hibbins approached her and began talking to Hester about the

minister. Hester denied any involvement with him, and they began watching

as he preached to the people. Pearl left her mother and wandered around.

The captain of the ship told Pearl to give her mother a message for him.

She told him that her father was the Prince of Air. She threatened him and

ran to her mother. Hester’s mind wandered and thought about how she would

soon be free of he scarlet letter and the pain associated with it.

Chapter 23: The minister ended his incredible speech and it was one of the

best of his life. The people were inspired and as the parade turned

therefor, everyone would exit. The minister looked exceptionally sick and

called to Hester and Pearl to come to him. Roger Chillingworth ran towards

and tried to get Hester back from the minister. He is dying and with his

last breaths he shouts his sin to the audience around and blesses Hester

and Pearl. He tells the people to take another better look at Hester and

at himself so they see the truth in them. He ripped off the ministerial

band from his chest, and the people stood shocked. The people are struck

with awe and sympathy. The doctor came over the minister, awestruck

because he will lose him and his revenge. Dimmesdale asks Pearl for a kiss

and she finally places one on his lips. Hester kneels over him and asks

him if they will not see each other again, and spend eternity together.

The reverend tells her that their sin was too large, and that is all she

should be concerned. He shouted farewell to the audience and breathed his

last breath.

Chapter 24: People swore after that day that when they saw the minister rip

off the band on his breast that a scarlet ‘A’ resided there. Many thought

that he made the revelation in the dying hour so everyone would know that

one who appeared so pure, was as much a sinner as the rest of them. Roger

Chillingworth died within the year and bequeathed large amounts of property

both in New England and in England to Pearl. This made Pearl the richest

heiress in the New World. Soon after his death, Hester Prynne and her

little Pearl disappeared. Years later Hester came back alone to live with

her sin in her cottage. Pearl was thought to be happily married elsewhere

and mindful of her mother. After her return, many people of the town went

to Hester for advice and help when they were in need. After many years she

died, and was placed next to the saintly minister. They shared a tombstone

and they would be together forever.

Character Profiles

Hester Prynne: A beautiful puritan woman full of strong passions, Hester

Prynne is the main character in the story. Employed as the village

seamstress, she is strong and caring, helping anyone she can when he or she

are in need. With a penitent heart, Hester travels through the story

becoming only a shadow of her former passionate loving self. Other than

the scarlet letter, she was a very moral woman whose only joy in life was

her daughter Pearl. Roger Chillingsworth: The missing husband of Hester

Prynne. He shows up the day that Hester is put on public display and does

not show himself as her husband. A scholar and a man of medicine, his soul

purpose in his life becomes revenge against the man who helped his wife

sin. By the end of the story, he is shown to be an evil character.

Pearl: Looked on as the devil’s child, Pearl is the only one in the story

that is purely innocent. She is passionate, intelligent, and energetic.

Pearl is in touch with nature and with her mother’s feelings. Ever since

she was born, Pearl had a fascination with the scarlet letter that is a

constant reminder for Hester of her sin.

Arthur Dimmesdale: The minister of the town that the people adore, Arthur

was the secret lover of Hester Prynne. He was a sickly man who took his

sin very seriously. He spent the seven years since his indiscretion with

Mistress Prynne trying to repent. He wore down his body with his penitence

and his sin ate away his soul. In the end, he frees himself from his guilt

by admitting to everyone his sin.

Metaphor Analysis

The Rose Bush: A rose bush that grew outside the prison was a symbol of

survival, that there is life after the prison where Hester spent he

beginning of the story.

The Scarlet Letter ‘A’: The letter that Hester was forced to wear upon her

bosom, the scarlet letter was not only a symbol of her adulterous sin, but

of the women herself. The letter masks her beauty and passion as the story

goes until it is what she is known.

The Black Man in the Woods: the peoples symbol for the devil. The woods in

those times were a very scary place, and they thought that people that went

into it came out evil and corrupted.

Theme Analysis

The Scarlet Letter is a story that illustrates intricate pieces of the

Puritan lifestyle. Centered first on a sin committed by Hester Prynne and

her secret lover before the story ever begins, the novel details how sin

affects the lives of the people involved. For Hester, the sin forces her

into isolation from society and even from herself. Her qualities that

Hawthorne describes at the opening of the book, i.e. her beauty, womanly

qualities, and passion are, after a time, eclipsed by the ‘A’ she is forced

to wear. An example of this is her hair. Long hair is something in this

time period that is a symbol of a woman. At the beginning of the story,

Hawthorne tells of Hester’s long flowing hair. After she wears the scarlet

letter for a time, he paints a picture of her with her hair out of site

under a cap, and all the wanton womanliness gone from her.

Yet, even with her true eclipsed behind the letter, of the three main

characters affected, Hester has the easiest time because her sin is out in

the open. More than a tale of sin, the Scarlet Letter is also an intense

love story that shows itself in the forest scene between Hester and the

minister Arthur Dimmesdale. With plans to run away with each, Arthur and

Hester show that their love has surpassed distance and time away from each

other. This love also explains why Hester would not reveal the identity of

her fellow sinner when asked on the scaffolding. Roger Chillingworth is

the most affected by the sin, though he was not around when the sin took

place. Demented by his thoughts of revenge and hate, Hawthorne shows Mr.

Chillingworth to be a devil or as a man with an evil nature. He himself

commits one of the seven deadly sins with his wrath.

By the end of the tale that surpasses seven years, Hester is respected and

revered by the community as a doer of good works, and the minister is

worshipped for his service in the church. Only Mr. Chillingworth is looked

upon badly by the townspeople although no one knows why. Through it all,

Hawthorne illustrates that even sin can produce purity, and that purity

came in the form of the sprightly Pearl. Though she is isolated with her

mother, Pearl finds her company and joy in the nature that surrounds her.

She alone knows that her mother must keep the scarlet letter on her at all

times, and that to take it off is wrong.

Through the book the child is also constantly asking the minister to

confess his sin to the people of the town inherently knowing that it will

ease his pain. Hawthorne’s metaphor of the rose growing next to the prison

is a good metaphor for Pearl’s life that began in that very place. The

reader sees this connection when Pearl tells the minister that her mother

plucked her from the rose bush outside of the prison. Finally, for all the

characters, Hawthorne’s novel illustrates how one sin can escalate to

encompass one’s self so that the true humans behind the sin are lost. This

is what makes Hawthorne’s novel not only a story of love vs. hate, sin vs.

purity, good vs. evil, but all of these combined to make a strikingly

historical tragedy as well.

Top Ten Quotes

1) «It may serve, let us hope, to symbolize some sweet moral blossom that

may be found along the track, or relieve the darkening close of a tale of

human frailty and sorrow.» 2) « ‘People say,’ said another, ‘that the

Reverend Master Dimmesdale, her godly pastor, takes it very grievously to

his heart that such a scandal has come upon his congregation.’» 3) « ‘If

thou feelest to be for thy soul’s peace, and that they earthly punishment

will there by be made more effectual to salvation, I charge thee to speak

out the name of thy fellow-sinner and fellow-sufferer.’» 4) «But she named

the infant ‘Pearl,’ as being of great price- purchased with all she had-

her mother’s only pleasure.» 5) «After putting her fingers in her mouth,

with many ungrateful refusals to answer Mr. Wilson’s question, the child

finally announced that she had not been made at all, but had been plucked

by her mother off the bush of wild roses that grew by the prison door» 6) «

‘He hath done a wild thing ere now, this pious Mr. Dimmesdale, in the hot

passion of his heart!’» 7) «Such helpfulness was found in her- so much

power to do and power to sympathize- that many people refused to interpret

the scarlet ‘A’ by it’s original signification. They said that it meant

‘Able’; so strong was Hester Prynne, with a women’s strength.» 8) «‘That

old man!- the physician!- the one whom they call Roger Chillingworth!-he

was my husband!’» 9) «Pacify her, if thou lovest me!» 10) « ‘Hester

Prynne’ cried he, with a piercing earnestness ‘in the name of Him, so

terrible and so merciful, who gives me grace, at this last moment, to do

what- for my own heavy sin and miserable agony- I withheld myself from

doing seven years ago, come hither now, and twine thy strength about me!»

Slaughterhouse Five

Chapter One. Summary:

The narrator assures us that the book we are about to read is true, more or

less. The parts dealing with World War II are most faithful to actual

events. Twenty-three years have passed since the end of the war, and for

much of that time the narrator has been trying to write about the bombing

of Dresden. He was never able to bring make the project work. When he

thinks about Dresden's place in his memory, he always recalls two things:

an obscene limerick about a man whose penis has let him down, and "My Name

is Yon Yonson," a song which has no ending.

Late some nights, the narrator gets drunk and begins to track down old

friends with the telephone. Some years ago he tracked down Bernard O'Hare,

an old war buddy of his, using Bell Atlantic phone operators. When he

tracked his old friend down, he asked if Bernard would help him remember

things about the war. Bernard seemed unenthusiastic. When the narrator

suggests the execution of Edgar Derby, an American who stole a teapot from

the ruins, as the climax of the novel, Bernard still seems unenthusiastic.

The best outline the narrator ever made for his Dresden book was on a roll

of toilet paper, using crayon. Colors represented different people, and the

lines crisscrossed when people met, and ended when they died. The outline

ended with the exchange of prisoners who had been liberated by Americans

and Russians.

After the war, the narrator went home, married, and had kids, all of whom

are grown now. He studied anthropology at the University of Chicago, and in

anthropology he learned that "there was absolutely no difference between

anybody," and that "nobody was ridiculous or bad or disgusting." He's

worked various jobs, and tried to keep up work on his Dresden novel all

this time.

He actually did go to see Bernard O'Hare just a few weeks after finding him

over the telephone. He brought his young daughters, who were sent upstairs

to play with O'Hare's kids. The men could not think of any particularly

good memories or stories, and the narrator noticed that Mary, Bernard's

wife (to whom Slaughterhouse Five is dedicated), seemed very angry about

something. Finally, she confronted him: the narrator and Bernard were just

babies when they fought. Mary was angry because if the narrator wrote a

book, he would make himself and Bernard tough men, glorifying war and

turning scared babies into heroes. The movie adaptation would then star

"Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous, war-loving,

dirty old men" (14). Wars would look good, and we would be sure to have

more of them. The narrator promised that it won't be that kind of book, and

that he'd call it The Children's Crusade. He and Mary were friends starting

at that moment. That night, he and Bernard looked through Bernard's library

for information on the real Children's Crusade, a war slightly more sordid

than the other crusades. The scheme was cooked up by two monks who planned

to raise an army of European children and then sell them into slavery in

North Africa. Sleepless later that night, the narrator looked at a history

of Dresden published in 1908. The book described a Prussian siege of the

city in the eighteenth century.

In 1967, the narrator and O'Hare returned to Dresden. On the flight over,

the narrator got stuck in Boston due to delays. In a hotel in Boston, he

felt that someone had played with all the clocks. With every twitch of a

clock, it seemed that years passed. That night, he read a book by Roethke

and another book by Erika Ostrovsky. The Ostrovsky book, Cйline and His

Vision, is a story of a French soldier whose skull gets cracked during

World War I. He hears noises and suffers from insomnia forever afterward,

and at night he writes grotesque, macabre novels. Cйline sees death and the

passage of time as the same process.

The narrator also read about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in the

hotel room's Gideon Bible. He calls attention to the moment when Lot's wife

looks back and is turned into a pillar of salt. He loves her for that act,

because it was such a human thing to do.

Now, he presents us with his war book. He will strive to look back no more.

This book, he says, is a failure. It was bound to be a failure because it

was written by a pillar of salt. He gives us the first line and the last,

and the central story of the novel is ready to begin.

Chapter Two. Summary:

"Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time." He wanders from moment to moment

in his life, experiencing chronologically disparate events right after one

another. He sees his birth and death and everything in between, all out of

order, with no pattern to predict what will come next. Or so he believes.

Billy was born in 1922 in Ilium, New York. Tall, thin, and embarrassingly

weak, he made an unlikely soldier. He was going to night school in

optometry when he got drafted to fight in World War II. His father died in

a hunting accident before Billy left for Europe. The Germans captured Billy

during the Battle of the Bulge. In 1945 he returned to the States, finished

optometry school, and married the daughter of the school's owner. During

the engagement, he was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown. After his

release, he finished school, married the girl, got his own practice with

help from his father-in-law, became quite rich, and had two kids. In 1968

he was the sole survivor of a plane crash. While he was in the hospital,

his wife died of carbon monoxide poisoning. He returned home for rest, but

without warning one day he went to New York and claimed on the radio that

he had been kidnapped by aliens called Trafalmadorians. Billy's daughter,

Barbara, retrieved him from New York. A month later, Billy wrote a letter

to Ilium's newspaper describing the aliens. The Trafalmadorians are shaped

like two-foot tall toilet plungers, suction cup down.

We now see Billy working on a second letter describing the Trafalmadorian

conception of time. All time happens simultaneously, so a man who dies is

actually still alive, since all moments exist at all times. Billy works on

his letter, oblivious to the increasingly frantic shouts of his daughter,

who has stopped by to check on him. The burden of caring for Billy has made

Barbara difficult and unforgiving.

We move to the first time Billy gets unstuck in time. Billy receives

minimal training as a chaplain's assistant before being shipped to Europe.

He arrives in September of 1944, right in the middle of the Battle of the

Bulge. He never meets his chaplain or gets a proper helmet or boots.

Although he survives the onslaught, he wanders behind German lines, tagging

along with two scouts and an anti-tank gunner named Roland Weary. Weary

repeatedly saves Billy's life, mostly by not allowing him to lie down in

the snow and die. Although the scouts are experienced, Weary is as new to

the war as Billy is; he just fancies himself as having more of a taste for

it. By firing the anti-tank gun incorrectly, his gun crew put scorch marks

into the ground. Because of those marks, the position of the gun crew was

revealed to a Tiger tank that fired back. Everyone but Weary was killed. He

is stupid, fat, cruel, and violent. Back in Pittsburgh he was friendless,

and constantly getting ditched. His father collects torture devices. He

carries a cruel trench knife, various pieces of equipment that have been

issued to him, and a pornographic photo of a woman with a horse. He plagues

Billy with macho, aggressive conversation. In his own mind, Weary narrates

the war stories he will one day tell. Although he is almost as clumsy and

slow as Billy, he imagines himself and the two scouts as fast friends. In

his head he dubs them and himself the Three Musketeers, and tells himself

the story of how the Three Musketeers saved the life of a dumb, incompetent

college kid.

Straggling behind the others, Billy becomes unstuck in time. He goes back

to the red light of pre-birth and then forward again to a day in his

childhood with his father at the YMCA. His father tries to teach him how to

swim by the sink-or-swim method. Billy sinks, and someone has to rescue

him. He jumps forward to 1965, when he is a middle-aged man visiting his

mother in a nursing home. Then he jumps to 1958, and Billy is attending his

son's Little League banquet. Leap to 1961: Billy is at a party, totally

drunk and cheating on his wife for the first and only time. Then, he is

back in 1944, being shaken awake by Weary. Weary and Billy catch up to the

scouts. Dogs are barking in the distance, and the Germans are searching for

them. Billy is in bad shape: he looks like hell, can barely walk, and is

having vivid (but pleasant) hallucinations. Weary tries to be chummy with

his supposed buddies, the scouts, grouping himself with them as "the Three

Musketeers." The scouts coldly tell him that he and Billy are on their own.

Billy goes to 1957, when he gives a speech as the newly elected president

of the Lion's Club. Although he has a momentary bout of stage fright, his

speech is beautiful. He has taken a public speaking course.

He leaps back to 1944. Ditched again, Weary starts to beat Billy up,

furious that this weak college kid has cost him his membership in "the

Three Musketeers." He cruelly beats Billy, who is in such a state that he

can only laugh. Suddenly, Weary realizes that they are being watched by

five German soldiers and a police dog. They have been captured.

Chapter Three. Summary:

The troops who capture Billy and Weary are irregulars, newly enlisted men

using the equipment of newly dead soldiers. Their commander is a tough

German corporal, whose beautiful boots are a trophy from a battle long ago.

Once, while waxing the boots, he told a soldier that if you stared into

their shine you could see Adam and Eve. Though Billy has never heard the

corporal's claim, looking into the boots now he sees Adam and Eve and loves

them for their innocence, vulnerability, and beauty. A blond fifteen-year-

old boy helps Billy to his feet; he looks as beautiful and innocent as Eve.

In the distance, shots sound out as the two scouts are killed. Waiting in

ambush, they were found and shot in the backs of their heads.

The Germans take Weary's things, including the pornographic picture, which

the two old men grin about, and Weary's boots. The fifteen-year old gets

Weary's boots, and Weary gets the boy's clogs. Weary and Billy are made to

march a long distance to a cottage where American POWs are being detained.

The soldiers there say nothing. Billy falls asleep, his head on the

shoulder of a Jewish chaplain.

Billy leaps in time to 1967, although it takes him a while to figure out

the date. He is giving an eye exam in his office in Ilium. His car, visible

outside his window, has conservative stickers on the bumper; the stickers

were gifts from his father-in-law.

He leaps back to the war. A German is kicking his feet, telling him to wake

up. The Americans are assembled outside for photographs. The photographer

takes pictures of Billy's and Weary's feet as evidence of how poorly

equipped the American troops are. They stage photos of Billy being

captured. Billy then returns to 1967, driving to the Lion's club. He drives

through a black ghetto, an area recovering from recent riots and fires. He

largely ignores what he sees there. At the Lion's club, a marine major

talks about the need to continue the fight in Vietnam. He advocates bombing

North Vietnam into the Stone Age, if necessary, and Billy does not think of

the horror of bombing, which he has witnessed himself. He is simply having

lunch. The narrator mentions that he has a prayer on the wall of his

office: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the

difference."

The narrator tells us that Billy cannot change past, present, or future.

After lunch, Billy goes home. He is a wealthy man now, with a son in the

Green Berets and a daughter about to get married; he also is seized

occasionally by sudden and inexplicable bouts of weeping. During one of

these spells, he closes his eyes and finds himself back in World War II. He

is marching with an ever-growing line of Americans making their way through

Luxembourg. They cross into Germany, being filmed by the Germans who want a

record of their great victory. Weary's feet are sore and bloody from

marching on the German boy's clogs. The Americans are sorted by rank, and a

colonel tries to talk with Billy. The colonel is dying; he tries to be

chummy with Billy. He has always wanted to be called "Wild Bob" by his men.

He dreams of having a reunion of his men in his hometown of Cody, Wyoming.

He invites Billy and the other men to come. Vonnegut mentions that he and

Bernard O'Hare were there when the colonel gave his invitation. All of the

POWs are put into train cars. The train does not leave for two days; during

that time Wild Bob dies. The boxcars are so crowded that to sleep the men

have to take turns lying down. When the train finally begins its trek

deeper into Germany, Billy jumps through time again. It is 1967, and he is

about to be kidnapped for the first time by the Trafalmadorians.

Chapter Four. Summary:

In 1967, on his daughter's wedding night, Billy cannot sleep. Because he is

unstuck in time, he knows that he will soon be kidnapped by a

Trafalmadorian flying saucer. He kills time unproductively in the meantime.

He watches a war movie, and because he is unstuck in time the movie goes

forward and then backward. He goes out to meet the ship, and he is taken as

planned. As the ship shoots out into space, Billy is jarred back to 1944.

In the boxcar, none of the men want Billy to sleep next to them because he

yells and thrashes in his sleep. He is forced to sleep while standing. In

another car, Weary dies of gangrene in his feet. As he slowly dies over the

course of days, he tells people again and again about the Three Musketeers.

He also asks that someone get revenge for him on the man who caused his

death. He blames Billy Pilgrim, of course.

The train finally arrives at a camp, and Billy and the other men are pushed

and prodded along. The camp is full of dying Russian POWs. At points,

Vonnegut likens the Russians' faces to radium dials. The Americans are all

given coats; Billy's is too small. They go into a delousing station, where

all of the men strip naked. Billy has one of the worst bodies there; he is

skinny and weak, and a German soldier comments on that fact. We are

introduced briefly to Edgar Derby and Paul Lazarro. Derby is the oldest POW

there, a man who pulled strings to get into the army. He is a high school

teacher from Indianapolis, and he is physically sturdy despite his forty-

four years of age. He will be shot after the Dresden bombing for trying to

steal a teapot.

Paul Lazarro is a car thief from Illinois. His body is even weaker and

less healthy than Billy's. He was in Roland Weary's boxcar, and he vowed

solemnly to Weary that he would find and kill Billy Pilgrim. When the

scalding water turns on, Billy leaps back to his infancy. His mother has

just finished giving him a bath. He then leaps forward to a Sunday game of

golf, played with three other optometrists. Then, he leaps in time to the

space ship, on his first trip to Trafalmadore. He talks with one of his

captors about time, and he says that the Trafalmadorians sound like they do

not believe in free will. The alien replies that in all of the inhabited

planets of the galaxy, Earth is the only one whose people believe in the

concept of free will.

Chapter Five. Summary:

En route to Trafalmadore, Billy asks for something to read. The only human

novel is Valley of the Dolls, and when Billy asks for a Trafalmadorian

novel, he learns that the aliens' novels are slim, sleek volumes. Because

they have a different concept of time, Trafalmadorians have novels arranged

by juxtaposition of marvelous moments. The books have no cause or effect or

chronology; their beauty is in the arrangement of events meant to be read

simultaneously. Billy jumps in time to a visit to the Grand Canyon taken

when he was twelve years old. He is terrified of the canyon. His mother

touches him and he wets his pants. He jumps forward in time just ten days,

to later in the same vacation. He is visiting Carlsbad Caverns. The ranger

turns the lights off, so that the tourists can experience total darkness.

But Billy sees a light nearby: the radium dial of his father's watch.

Billy jumps back to the war. The Germans think Billy is one of the funniest

creatures they've seen in all of the war. His coat is preposterously small,

and on his already awkward body it looks ridiculous. The Americans give

their names and serial numbers so that they can be reported to the Red

Cross, and then they are marched to sheds occupied by middle-aged British

POWs. The British welcome them with singing. These British POWs are

officers, some of the first Brits taken prisoner in the war. They have been

prisoners for four years. Due to a clerical error early in the war, the Red

Cross shipped them an incredible surplus of food, which they have hoarded

cleverly. Consequently, they are some of the best-fed people in Europe.

Their German captors adore them.

To prepare for their American guests, the Brits have cleaned and set out

party favors. Candles and soap, supplied by the Germans, are plentiful: the

British do not know that these items are made from the bodies of Holocaust

victims. They have prepared a huge dinner and a dramatic adaptation of

Cinderella. Billy is so unhinged that his laughter at the performance

becomes hysterical shrieking, and he is taken to the hospital and doped up

on morphine. Edgar Derby watches over him, reading The Red Badge of

Courage. He leaps in time to the mental ward where he recovered in 1948.

In the mental ward, Billy's bed is next to the bed of Elliot Rosewater.

Like Billy, he has little love for life, in part because of things he saw

and did in the war. He is the man who introduces Billy to the science

fiction of Kilgore Trout. Billy is enduring one of his mother's dreaded

visits. She is a simple, religious woman. She makes Billy feel worse just

by being there. Billy leaps back in time to the POW camp. A British colonel

talks to Derby; after the newly arrived Americans shaved, the British were

shocked by how young they all were. Derby tells of how he was captured: the

Americans were pushed back into a forest, and the Germans rained shells on

them until they surrendered.

Billy leaps back to the hospital. He is being visited by his ugly,

overweight fiancйe Valencia. He knew he was going crazy when he proposed to

her. He does not want to marry her. She is visiting now, eating a Three

Musketeers bar and wearing a diamond engagement ring that Billy found while

in Germany. Elliot tells her about The Gospel from Outer Space, a Kilgore

Trout book.

Valencia tries to talk to Billy about plans for their wedding and

marriage, but he is not too involved. He leaps forward in time to the zoo

on Trafalmadore, where he was on display when he was forty-four years old.

The habitat is furnished with Sears and Roebuck furniture. He is naked. He

answers questions posed by the Trafalmadorian tourists. He learns that

there are five sexes among the Trafalmadorians, but the sex difference is

only visible in the fourth dimension. On earth there are actually seven

sexes, all necessary to the production of children; earthlings just do not

notice the sex difference between themselves because many of the sex acts

occur in the fourth dimension. These ideas baffle Billy, and they in turn

are baffled by his linear concept of time. Billy expects the

Trafalmadorians to be concerned about or horrified by the wars on earth. He

worries that earthlings will eventually threaten all the other races in the

galaxy, causing the eventual destruction of the universe. The

Trafalmadorians put their hands over their eyes, which lets Billy know that

he is being stupid.

The Trafalmadorians already know how the universe will end: during

experiments with a new fuel, one of their test pilots pushes a button and

the entire universe will disappear. They cannot prevent it. It has always

happened that way. Billy correctly concludes that trying to prevent wars on

Earth is futile. The Trafalmadorians also have wars, but they choose to

ignore them. They spend their time looking at the pleasant moments rather

than the unpleasant ones; they suggest that humans learn to do the same.

Billy leaps back in time to his wedding night. It is six months after his

release from the mental ward. The narrator reminds us that Valencia and her

father are very rich, and Billy will benefit greatly from his marriage to

her. After they have sex, Valencia tries to ask Billy questions about the

war. She wants a heroic war story, but Billy does not really respond to

her. He has a crazy thought about the war, which Vonnegut says would make a

good epitaph for Billy, and for the author, too: "Everything was beautiful,

and nothing hurt." He jumps in time to that night in the prison camp. Edgar

Derby has fallen asleep. Billy, doped up still from the morphine, wanders

out of the hospital shed. He snags himself on a barbed wire fence, and

cannot extract himself until a Russian helps him.

Billy never really says a word to the Russian. He wanders to the latrine,

where the Americans are sick from the feasting. A long period without food

followed by a feast almost always results in violent sickness. Among the

sick Americans is a soldier complaining that he has shit his brains out. It

is Vonnegut. Billy leaves, passing by three Englishmen who watch the

Americans' sickness with disgust. Billy jumps in time again, back to his

wedding night. He and his wife are cozy in bed. He jumps in time again, to

1944. It is before he left for Europe; he is riding the train from South

Carolina, where he was receiving his training, all the way back to Ilium

for his father's funeral.

We return to Billy's morphine night in the POW camp. Paul Lazarro is

carried into the hospital; while attempting to steal cigarettes from a

sleeping British officer, he was beaten up. The officer is the one carrying

him. Seeing now how puny Lazarro is, the officer feels guilty for hitting

him so hard. But he is disgusted by the American POWs. A German soldier who

adores the British officers comes in and apologizes for the inconvenience

of hosting the Americans. He assures the Brits in the room that the

Americans will soon be shipped off for forced labor in Dresden. The German

officer reads propaganda materials written by Howard Campbell, Jr., a

captured American who is now a Nazi. Campbell condemns the self-loathing of

the American poor, the inequalities of America's economic system, and the

miserable behavior of American POWs. Billy falls asleep and wakes up in

1968, where his daughter Barbara is scolding him. Barbara notices the house

is icy cold and goes to call the oil-burner man.

Billy leaps in time to the Trafalmadorian zoo, where Montana Wildhack, a

motion picture star, has been brought in to mate with him. Initially

unconscious, she wakes to find naked Billy and thousands of Trafalmadorians

outside their habitat. They're clapping. She screams. Eventually, though,

she comes to love and trust Billy. After a week they're sleeping together.

He travels in time back to his bed in 1968. The oil-burner man has fixed

the problem with the heater. Billy has just had a wet dream about Montana

Wildhack. The next day, he returns to work. His assistants are surprised to

see him, because they thought that he would never practice again. He has

the first patient sent in, a boy whose father died in Vietnam. Billy tries

to comfort the boy by telling him about the Trafalmadorian concept of time.

The boy's mother informs the receptionist that Billy is going crazy.

Barbara comes to take him home, sick with worry about what how to deal with

him.

Chapter Six. Summary:

Billy wakes after his morphine night in POW camp irresistibly drawn to two

tiny treasures. They draw him like magnets; they are hidden in the lining

of his coat. It will be revealed later on exactly what they are. He goes

back to sleep, and wakes up to the sounds of the British building a new

latrine. They have abandoned their old latrine and their meeting hall to

the Americans. The man who beat up Lazarro stops by to make sure he is all

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