Rachel+Choi's+Summer+Reading

**Slaughter House - Five by Kurt Vonnegut- approved (on the list)

Essay #1** In literature, baptism is a significant theme. It is a ritual that represents purification or regeneration. It has a procedure of sprinkling water onto a person’s forehead or of immersion in water. In __Slaughterhouse-Five__ by Kurt Vonnegut, the protagonist almost drowns in a swimming pool. This is a significant event in this novel because it symbolizes the boy’s rebirth or new identity. The protagonist, Billy Pilgrim has his first time-traveling experience. He is getting a swimming lesson from his father and the father uses the “method of sink-or-swim.”(Vonnegut 43) When Billy is thrown into the water, he is in the deep-end and feels whole new sensation. He hears beautiful music everywhere and becomes peaceful. Even though he gets unconscious, he becomes soaked into calm underwater until his father rescues him. Thomas C. Foster of __How to Read Literature Like a Professor__ suggests that in a literary work, submersion in water often signifies baptism. Baptism in a literature symbolizes being changed and reborn. As a character becomes “cleaned up and wrapped in a blanket,” (Foster 160) the character becomes naked as the day the character was born. In the scene of Billy’s experience underwater, he claims, “it was like an execution.”(Vonnegut 44) Also, Billy mentions that he when someone rescued him and pulled him back to the surface, he “resented that.”(Vonnegut 44) This shows that he did not want to get out of the water because he was experiencing his baptism, or his rebirth. After his baptism, Billy is able to become a new person. It is not noticeable immediately, but as he grew up, he becomes a person who has a lot of deadly experiences but survives. In World War II, he can be returned home and he survives when his plane crashes. Billy becomes a stronger person than he was when he was little, after his near-death experience underwater.

Author: Rachel Choi Hey, Rachel! I miss you so much, oh well... we'll meet soon :) Anyways, first of all, I loved reading your essay! I thought your introduction was very catchy, and..full of long words (: haha just joking.. It captured my attention from the beginning, and thats what introductions are for! The second paragraph is decent, despite the fact that I never read this book in my life, it was still easy to understand the main idea that you tried to portray. You described your idea very well, and connected it to the "How to Read Literature Like a Professor" very well. One concern that I have is that the conclusion is not strongly wrapping the ideas enough, so even though the main idea of the essay is wonderful, the conclusion is yet too week to summarize the whole. Still, I loved the way you wrote this essay, and I'm looking forward to read more of this. Once again, good work. See you on Tuesday!!

-Jenny Lee



Symbolism is one of the most important factors in literature. In __How to Read Literature Like a Professor__ by Thomas C. Foster, the author mentions that symbols requires “a range of possible meanings and interpretations”(Foster 98) instead of being reduced into a single statement. Kurt Vonnegut’s __Slaughterhouse-Five__ has a symbol that deals with the horses. He uses horses to illustrate the horrors of the war. In chapter 9, Billy takes a in the back of the wagon when two German obstetricians are scold him for not noticing the horses’ poor condition. When Billy comes out of the wagon and sees “the condition of his means of transportation, he burst[s] into tears.” (Vonnegut 197) This is the first time ever during the war Billy has cried and shows his deep inner emotions. At this point, the reader gets to wonder why Billy cries by looking at horses in bad condition. Then the reader will realize that the horses stand for one of the symbols of Slaughterhouse-Five. Often, the main theme of the novel and its symbols are closely related. __Slaughterhouse-Five__ is mainly about World War II and episodes that evolves around Billy Pilgrim. The horses that come out in the novel symbolize the needless suffering that is brought by the war. Thomas C. Foster states that not all symbols have to be “objects and images,”(Foster 105) but can also be “events or actions.”(Foster 105) Billy is not able to notice that his horses are in a terrible condition at first. This action symbolizes how the suffering that is caused by a war is not noticed easily. It has to be reminded by others. In __Slaughterhouse-Five__, German obstetricians are the ones who take notice of it. Moreover, the horses represent the pain that is present in all those who witness horrific events.
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 * Essay #3**

In __How to Read literature Like a Professor__, the author mentions that there is more meaning for snow than many people actually think. Thomas C. Foster claims, “Snow is clean, stark, severe, warm (as an insulating blanket, paradoxically), inhospitable, inviting, playful, suffocating, filthy (after enough time has elapsed).”(Foster 80) Snow comes up in __Slaughterhouse-Five__ by Kurt Vonnegut, as well, as one of the themes of the novel. Snow shows purity and death in the novel. As Billy takes off his possessions such as his boots and guns in front of the German soldiers, he sees “Adam and Eve”(Vonnegut 53) on golden boots. Billy is still on the snow when he sees those figures. Discovery of Adam and Eve in snow represents some sort of purity in humans because finding biblical factors in the snow must mean important to Billy. It must have been calmed Billy down in front of the German soldiers. Also, when the two scouts who traveled with Billy Pilgrim and Roland Weary ditch them, German soldiers shoot the scouts. As they die, Billy examines the scouts’ blood in the snow, which were “turning the snow to the color of raspberry sherbet.” This unification of warm blood and cold snow represents death. Through this, Vonnegut shows how snow can be horrible. Thomas C. Foster says that snow can symbolize something “clean”(Foster 80) and at the same time something as horrid as inhospitality and suffocation because in __How to Read Literature Like a Professor__, he mentions that snow can be “just about anything you want.” (Foster 80) That is why in Vonnegut’s __Slaughterhouse-Five__, both totally different interpretation of the snow is presented. When Billy sees dead scouts and Adam and Eve on German soldier’s boots, snow was there both times. Like this, snow is a representation of both peace and death.

Thomas C. Foster explains that eating is communion. He mentions that “eating with another is a way of saying, “I’m with you, I like you, we form a community together.””(Foster 8) If there is an eating scene in literature, it “has to do with how characters are getting along. Or not getting along.”(Foster 8) Kurt Vonnegut uses this theme of eating in one of his chapters in __Slaughterhouse-Five__. Billy Pilgrim has a big feast with Englishmen and American soldiers. The British soldiers present a delicious feast to American soldiers, which make a connection between the two. It was a good scene at first because the British soldiers brought food. They had “three tons of sugar, one ton of coffee, eleven hundred pounds of chocolate, seven hundred pounds of tobacco, seventeen hundred pounds of tea, two tons of flour, one ton of canned beef, twelve hundred pounds of canned butter, sixteen hundred pounds of caned cheese, eight hundred pounds of powdered milk, and two tons of orange marmalade.”(Vonnegut 94) This clearly shows how wealthy the British soldiers are during the World War II. However, after the meal, Billy’s coat catches on fire and during the Cinderella play, he gets sent to the mental ward. This shows how the communion that was supposed to be a good event became a bitter experience in the end. In __How to Read Literature Like a Professor__, the author mentions that eating together creates a close bond between characters. He says that in one of the examples, the character “discovers he has something in common with this stranger – eating as a fundamental element of life- that there is a bond between them.”(Foster 10) Also, Thomas C. Foster says that a “well run mean or snack portends good things” and vice versa. In that chapter from __Slaughterhouse-Five__, the feast led to a close bond between Englishmen and Americans, but Billy ends up in a mental ward, which is a bad sign of communion.
 * Essay #4**

__Slaughterhouse-Five__ by Kurt Vonnegut is an excellent novel that deals with World War II. Due to the main setting of the novel, it deals with a lot of violence. Thomas C. Foster claims that “violence is everywhere in literature.”(Foster 89) Also, he mentions that accidents that take place in the novel have their own purposes. Billy Pilgrim goes through a lot of accidents, which, in __Slaughterhouse-Five__, is World War II. Vonnegut uses violence as one of the main themes of the novel. Billy Pilgrim experiences others’ deaths in front of him quite often during World War II. When he was abandoned from the scouts, he gets captured by German soldiers and hears “three inoffensive bangs [that] came from far away. … The two scouts who had ditched Billy and Weary had just been shot. … Now they were dying in the snow, feeling nothing, turning the snow to the color of raspberry sherbet.”(Vonnegut 54) Vonnegut shows the violence in the novel as an uncontrolled catastrophe. In __Slaughterhouse-Five__, people who try to seek glory die. German soldiers kill the scouts who abandoned Billy and Weary for their own benefit. Also, Weary bullies Billy often and he also dies of gangrene. As stated by Thomas C. Foster, there are two types of violence in literature. It first seems as if __Slaughterhouse-Five__ deals with a type of violence between a character and the society because the novel is about World War II, but it turns out that the violence in this novel is a relationship between characters. The scouts who abandon Billy and Weary are killed and Weary dies, as well. Violence, especially in __Slaughterhouse-Five__ leads the plot and conflicts on. Vonnegut utilizes this tool well as a main tool in his novel. Vonnegut also views World War II on the side of all victims, including both German soldiers and American soldiers. Through these unbiased points of view, Vonnegut is able to explore depths of violence in his novel.
 * Essay #5**

1. Select and read two of your peers' essays. 2. Underneath each essay, thoughtfully comment on the ideas put forth. 3. This comment should be no more than one succinct paragraph. 4. Post and label the comment on //the writer's page// with your name at the bottom of your comment. 5. Copy and paste the comment onto //your// summer reading page in the comments section. 6. Write the writer's name and essay # underneath the comments on your own page.
 * Comment #1**


 * Comment #2**