SCHLACHTOF FUNF

Still in the boxcar, Billy travels across Germany. The train stops at various prison camps to drop off POWs. On the ninth day of traveling, Roland Weary dies.

Roland Weary yearns to be avenged, and again and again in his delirium, he divulges the name of the person who killed him: Billy Pilgrim.

On the tenth night, the train arrives at a prison camp, and guards force the prisoners out of the boxcars. 

The narrator describes two of the prisoners: Edgar Derby, a former high school teacher in Indianapolis, and Paul Lazzaro, who was in the same boxcar with Weary and promised him that he would make Billy pay for Weary's death.

The orange-and-black tent used for Barbara's wedding ceremony recalls the orange-and-black banners on the train transporting the POWs.

On the trip to Tralfamadore, Billy asks for something to read. After reading the only Earthling novel onboard, he is given some Tralfamadorian books. Unable to read the alien language, he is surprised that the books' tiny text is laid out in brief knots of symbols separated by stars. He is told that the clumps of symbols are like telegrams — short, urgent messages. Tralfamadorians read them all at once, not one after the other; there is no beginning, no middle, no end. There are no causes, no effects.

As the saucer enters a time warp, Billy is hurled back into his childhood: He is twelve years old. With his father and mother, he is visiting the Grand Canyon. 

Suddenly, he finds himself back in 1945 Germany. He and his fellow POWs are marched to a shed, where a one-armed, one-eyed corporal writes their names and serial numbers in a ledger. Now the prisoners are legally alive — moments before, they were missing in action.

That night in the Englishmen's compound, the English officers perform a musical version of Cinderella. Watching it, Billy begins to laugh hysterically, and then he begins to shriek. He continues shrieking until he is carried out of the shed to the hospital, where he is tied down in bed and given a shot of morphine.

The morphine triggers another time trip, this time to spring 1948. Billy finds himself in a New York veterans' hospital.

Billy meets a former infantry captain named Eliot Rosewater who introduces him to Science Fiction Novels by Kilgore Trout.

In a split second, Billy is flung back to 1945 before being hurled ahead once more to the veterans' hospital. Billy's mother is visiting him; when she leaves, Valencia Merble, Billy's fiancée, sits with him. 

Billy time trips again, and this time he travels to the Tralfamadore zoo, where he is confined in a geodesic dome.

The Tralfamadorians furnish Billy with a mate named Montana Wildhack, a pornographic motion picture star on Earth. He makes no attempts to entice her affections, but within a week she asks him to sleep with her. After Billy makes love to Montana, he travels through time and space back to his home in Ilium.

SCHLACHTOF DREI & SCHLACHTOF VEIR

Assigned the duty of rounding up lost or wounded Americans, the German soldiers who capture Billy and Weary include two boys in their early teens, two tattered, old men, and a middle-aged corporal who has been wounded four times and is sick of war.

Billy's attention is drawn to the corporal's boots. Polished and pure looking, they remind Billy of the innocence and purity of Adam and Eve.

The two scouts who abandoned Billy and Weary have been discovered by other German soldiers and are shot. Their blood was the color of raspberry sherbet.

Time traveling once again, Billy finds himself in his Ilium optometry office in 1967. He has trouble treating his patients, and he worries about his mental condition in general.

Billy closes his eyes and briefly returns to 1944 Luxembourg. He is being photographed by a German war correspondent, who will use the snapshot as propaganda, showing how poorly equipped the American army is.

Billy comes unstuck in time and again trips ahead to 1967. On a hot August day, he is driving to a Lions Club luncheon in Ilium. The speaker at the luncheon, a Marine Corps major, implores the audience to keep supporting the war in Vietnam until a victory is won.

now he is again back in Luxembourg, and it is the winter wind that brings tears to his eyes. Billy and his fellow American prisoners are forcibly marched into Germany, a march that Billy unexpectedly finds exciting.

they reach a railroad yard with rows of waiting boxcars; sorted according to rank, they are crammed inside.

On Christmas Eve, the train gets underway at last and begins to creep eastward. That night, Billy comes unstuck in time and travels to the night when he is kidnapped by Tralfamadorians.

Schlachtof Zwei

Chapter 2 active reading notes:

Billy is drafted into the military and becomes a Chaplain's Assistant.

Once Billy gets word that his father had died in a hunting accident, he is able to return home briefly to attend the funeral.

After the funeral Billy is sent overseas to replace a Chaplain's assistant who had been killed in action.

After the confusion of battle, Billy is left wandering behind enemy lines with two scouts and Roland Weary who is an anti-tank gunner.

When Billy becomes unstuck in time and Weary tries to help him. The two scouts leave them behind.

Billy is suddenly the president of the Lions Club in New York.

When time shifts again, Billy and Weary are captured by the Germans.

This is Absurd

Something absurd to me would be something that was just so ridiculous you could not even comprehend it and instead it just makes you laugh. Like this for example:

enjoy.

Gatsby Essay

       In the book "The Great Gatsby" you experience the adventure through the eyes of Nick Carraway. A business man who has just moved to West Egg and through him you learn of Jay Gatsby and many other unique characters that have their own problems and characteristics that separates them from everyone else.

       One of the qualities of Nick Carraway is that he is not very judgmental of the characters in the story, or at least not out in the open about it, so he is able to make friends with everyone so that you can see what they are like through Nick's eyes. The eyes of a friend. He made friends right off the bat with Gatsby and this slowly reveals Gatsby's past and secrets as they become closer friends.

       Nick's presence allows for Gatsby to set up meetings with Daisy because he would ask Nick to invite Daisy over for tea and surprise, Gatsby happened to show up too. Nick becomes a character that Gatsby and others are able to confide their secrets too without exposing themselves to the other characters in the story. To Gatsby I believe that Nick is just a way of meeting Daisy on a regular basis because she knows him.

       Throughout the book you meet so many interesting and diverse characters that I feel as though Nick is the medium point or considered "normal" so that you can base all of the other characters off of, kind of using him as contrast too see the differences between each person. An example of this could be that Nick is a business man who is not very wealthy and then you have Gatsby who fought in the war as a decorated officer and is currently very wealthy. The book would have been much different if you took Carraway out of it because it would just be taking out a character that had made an impact of bringing all of the characters together as a link.

       In the end although Nick had his own way of being important to everybody. He did not really accomplish any major feats or deeply affect too many of the characters. Although if Nick never would have showed up to link Gatsby and Daisy, Myrtle and Gatsby might have never been killed in the end of the book. Things were definitely changed by Carraway's presence but not much was accomplished in the time span of the story itself.

The Great Gatsby weekend project

For my weekend project I decided to do a poem since I think it would fit best with the book. Some of this poem was made already but I added in my own parts too:

Daisy and Tom look at each other for a moment in silence.
They say Tom's got some woman in New YorkBut you shouldn't believe everything you hear.She smiles slowly andwalking through her husband as if he is a ghostshakes hands with Tomlooking him flush in the eye.Wilson thinks she goes to see her sister in New York.Tom's the first sweetie she ever had.They stand face to faceDiscussing in impassioned voicesWhether Mrs. Wilson has any rightTo mention Daisy's name.Daisy!Daisy!Daisy!Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan breaks her nose with his open hand.Daisy glances up and holds out her handHer eyes fasten with an awed expression on her little finger;The knuckle is black and blue.A brute of a manA greatBigHulkingPhysical specimen of a—You must know Gatsby.The officer looked at DaisyIn a way that every young girl wants to be looked at some time.His name was Jay Gatsby.It's a strange coincidence.But it's not a coincidence at all.He wants her to see his house.He's afraid, he's waited so long.He's waited five years.The exhilarating ripple of her voice is a wild tonic in the rain.We haven't met for many years.Five years.You can't repeat the past.He kissed her.She blossomed for him like a flowerOne autumn nightFive years ago.You can't repeat the past.Daisy and Tom sit opposite each other at the kitchen table.They're not happyAnd yet they're not unhappy.No telephone message arrivedGatsby didn't believe it would come.He no longer cares.He has paid a high priceFor living too long with a single dream.Five years next November.Mr. Gatsby is dead.

The End of Gatsby

In the end of the book I was a little stunned at how Gatsby does end up dying. Although I still don't really understand the book, I think I will have to reread it to understand the real meaning but I still have trouble with it.

It was an interesting book but it feels like it had ended too abruptly, almost like I was missing something that I couldn't quite find.

Chapter 8 Active Reading Notes

So far, everyone, especially Wilson are in shock that his wife had died but nobody except Nick, Gatsby, and Daisy know how she died.

Nick meets with Gatsby and Gatsby tells him how he and Daisy met a while back while he was still and Officer in the Army. Nick learns about how Daisy found Gatsby interesting because he new different things than her because of the difference between their lifestyles.

Meanwhile, Wilson admits that he has a way of finding things out and he goes looking for the owner of the yellow car that didn't stop for Myrtle and asks directions to Gatsby's house.

Gatsby tells his staff that the car is not to be brought out under any circumstances and although it was Daisy's fault for killing Myrtle he would take the blame.

The ending of the chapter really confused me: Nick and Gatsby's staff go looking for Gatsby and they talk about a red ring in the pool as well as a mattress in the pool and then suddenly they are talking about Wilson's body and the ending of the holocaust?

Chapter 7 Active Reading Notes

Daisy, Tom, Nick, and Gatsby are all having tea at Gatsby's house during the hot weather.

Daisy starts asking everyone if they want to go into town for a drink so after a little more talking they all decide to go.

As they are all about to leave for town, Daisy says that she wants to ride in the coupe with Gatsby instead of the other car with Tom.

Tom stops for gas on the way down into town and feels a little guilty for ruining the gas station owner's life by having an affair with his wife.

At the end of the chapter all of the guests are in a room that they rented and are about to make mint juleps when everything explodes and Gatsby argues with Tom that he loves Daisy and that Daisy never loved Tom.

Chapter 6 Active Reading Notes

Gatsby had invited Daisy and Tom over for a party and Nick arrives as well. This is the first time Tom meets Gatsby face to face.

Eventually Gatsby and Daisy begin dancing while Tom walks around the party and talks to other women.

During this time Nick is sitting at a table with some guests that are "tipsy" as he calls them and he listens to their conversation.

Later on in the party Gatsby asks Nick to stay and he tells him about how it used to be with Daisy and that he wants it to be that way again.

Chapter 5 active reading notes

I couldn't find the outline on how to do these so I am going to just go with the flow.

When Daisy comes over to the house to have tea with Nick and Gatsby, I don't really understand why Gatsby says that it was a bad idea to set up the meeting, that is what he wanted wasn't it?

It seems as though Gatsby is trying to impress Daisy by showing off his house and all of his nice clothes along with his swimming pool and hydroplane.

Lastly, I hope we can discuss the ending of this chapter, it seems that Gatsby and Daisy forgot that Nick was there yet Daisy knew but Nick left them alone in the house together and walked back out into the rain alone.

April 8th homework

I think that I was able to do decently on my essay today, although it would not have hurt to study the end of the book more to really get a grasp on how it ended. I hope that we can have a discussion in class on how Brave New World ended so I can better understand it.