While discussing "Slaughterhouse-Five" in class we have talked about the importance of language several times. For example, we raised the question of the repetition of the phrase "So it goes", but more importantly, we wondered why "slaughterhouse-five" was chosen as a title. Looking over the novel, we observed how the word "slaughter" was used several times, as seen in page 116. Billy Pilgrim is an exhibit at the Tralfamadorian zoo when he tries to explain the ongoing war to his visitors:
"As you know, I am from a planet that has been engaged in senseless slaughter since the beginning of time..."
The Tralfamadorians just find him stupid. But I was reminded of this in Chapter 6 of Vonnegut´s novel, because this is when Billy Pilgrim´s arrival at Dresden was described. As prisoners of war, they were kept in an actual slaughterhouse for pigs that was now abandoned. The number for its slaughterhouse was 5, hence the title of the novel. "Schlachtof-fünf" was the German name for this place. But what striked me as irony was the fact that the place where killings typically took place was where these prisoners actually survived the destruction of Dresden. Even though it was an actual slaughterhouse, it was the only place where deaths did not take place. So perhaps the slaughterhouse was the refuge, and everywhere else in the place, everywhere in a seemingly safe city, was the site for death and destruction. What a cruel trick of fate.
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