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One example of Vonnegut's black humor concerns the British officers who welcome the American prisoners to the POW camp. These British officers, functioning in what would ordinarily be considered a demoralizing environment, manage to make the war experience seem less horrific than it really is.

They treat the American POWs to a musical version of Cinderella during the first night in camp, an entertaining fare one would not typically expect in a German POW camp. With their incredible morale and elevated esprit, the British officers delight even the Germans who hold them captive.

However, juxtaposed to this fantastical way of life is the fact that the Englishmen readily use objects of inhumanity without remorse. For example, their candles and soap, made from human fat rendered from Nazi war victims, are accepted without question. Slaughterhouse-Five is replete with such horrible compromise, yet the severity of these events is masked by Vonnegut's black humor.

On an individual level, the best examples of the novel's ironic black humor concern the hobo and Edgar Derby. Previous Next. Campbell, Jr. Bertram Copeland Rumfoord Bernard V. What's Up With the Ending? But Billy likely is delusional about his experiences with Montana, whose presence may have been imaginatively triggered by a visit to an adult bookstore in Times Square, where he sees her videos and a headline claiming to reveal her fate.

Barbara represents the follow-up generation to the one ravaged by World War II. A Harvard history professor and the official U. Air Force historian who is laid up by a skiing accident in the same Vermont hospital as Billy after his plane crash. Lily Rumfoord is frightened of Billy, but she lies silent in the next bed as a symbol of the scope of powerlessness and lack of free will. She visits Billy in the mental hospital, and her presence embarrasses him because he feels like an ungrateful son for being indifferent to life.

Billy prefers the bottom of the pool, but he is rescued unwillingly from drowning after he loses consciousness. Jekyll and Mr. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Who is the narrator of Slaughterhouse-Five? What does the epigraph mean? From the creators of SparkNotes, something better. Literature Poetry Lit Terms Shakescleare.

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