Andrew+Nogamoto's+Summer+Reading

=Andrew Nogamoto's Summer Reading Assignment = = = = Slaughter-House-Five by Kurt Vonnegut =

**Baptism**
The author, who was an American prisoner-of-war (POW) in Germany during World War II, uses these symbols to show that those who fought on the Allies’ side in World War II were not necessarily “heroes.” One of the symbols that he uses to get his point across is baptism. After reading the “Baptism” chapter in Thomas C. Foster’s //How to Read Literature Like a Professor//, we notice that there is an instance of baptism in //Slaughter House-Five// when the main character comes back up from the slaughterhouse.

In the novel, the main character gets caught by the German soldiers and gets sent to Dresden, a city in Germany where it is agreed that no bombings should be al  lowed to be committed by other countries. In the city as a POW, Billy is kept in an underground “prison” that used to be a meat slaughterhouse. A few days later, he comes out and realizes that he and the other prisoners are the only survivors around because the city had been bombed. He goes underground and comes back up into a new and very different world. Is this a form of baptism?

“It wasn’t safe to come out of the shelter until noon…Everybody else in the neighborhood was dead…”(p178) This quote is very important to prove that baptism exists because it’s the scene where Billy comes up from the slaughterhouse and sees that he survived. He came back up from the earth, while others died.

In the book, //How to Read Literature Like a Professor,// Thomas Foster, talks about how instances of baptism are found in literature when a character is submerged in water an  d brought back up. However, in this novel, the character Billy goes underground instead of being submerged in water. Baptism, according to Thomas Foster is considered being purified or //reborn.// In //The Slaughter House-Five,// Billy is the only one who survives the firebombing: in other words, he survived the water that he drowned in. He came up to a new and different world. He was reborn. He was baptized.

**Violence**
In an anti-war book such as //Slaughterhouse-Five,// written by Kurt Vonnegut, there is violence beyond the physical acts of war violence that readers expect. The main character, Billy, is mentally abused rather than physically, and through this, the author shows that wars can damage not only one’s health, but also one’s psychological status.

Thomas Foster’s //How to Read Like a Professor,// includes a chapter called //…More than it’s Gonna Hurt you: Concerning Violence,// The author tells us that there is a form of violence in almost every type of literature and that it is not only physical violence, but it also can be mental violence.

In an earlier section of the book where Billy’s plane crashes and survives, his daughter, later on in the book, refers back to the plane crash as if it had to do with the mental health of Billy. “…Barbara was only twenty-five years old. But she thought her father was senile…because of the damage to his brain…plane crash” (28). This quote clearly represents what and how the people, even his daughter thinks of Billy as, which is some kind of a mental patient. Billy keeps on talking about how the aliens kidnapped him, which made the others think that he was mentally ill, but as a reader, perhaps that can be considered as one of the prime factors to consider when asking whether or not if Billy was mentally ill or not.

Billy could have been mentally ill from the war: that means that he was wounded not only physically, but also mentally because of the pressure under the circumstances of war. Being mentally ill can also be as violent as being physically ill because of the pressures and the criticism from the people around. This means that violence is portrayed in the novel and that the book //How to Read Like a Professor// was right about the fact that most novels include violence in some form.

**Communion**
In the novel, //Slaughterhouse-Five//, written by Kurt Vonnegut, the author conveys an anti-war message throughout the book and includes acts of communions throughout the story.

Communions are mentioned in //How to Read Literature Like a Professor// by Thomas Foster. The book says that a communion is basically a meeting that is held in a novel by the characters in it. Going to church is considered being in a communion as well as eating or drinking with another.

There is a section where the author himself is talking about how he went back to Dresden with his old buddy O’Hare. In chapter ten, the author talks about how they ate while they were on a journey to Dresden. //How to Read Literature like a Professor// clearly stated that even eating together is a communion so the scene where the author and O’Hare are on the plane also represented a form of communion. This is a notable scene involving communion because Vonnegut also describes it as one of his nicest, most pleasurable experiences in his recent memory.

“…a young steward served us rye bread and salami and butter and cheese and white wine.”(p211) This quote proves that the two men on the plane were eating together, which means that on the plane to Dresden, O’Hare and the narrator represented a form of a communion because the author said that it was his most pleasurable memory.

=**Quest**=

In the novel //Slaughterhouse-Five,// the author, Kurt Vonnegut portrays a form of a quest that Billy goes through throughout the book.

A quest, which Billy goes through, is his long journey through life towards his predetermined end: death. This is a quest in which Billy goes through. There are all the elements that are required for it to be considered as a quest as stated by Thomas C. Foster in his book, //How to Read Literature Like a Professor.//

The section that is portrayed in the book that matches with the element in Thomas’ book is the part about Billy's death. Billy found out how he was going to die years ago when he was young (some wise aliens told him about his future). He's been waiting for the moment of his death for several years now. He's been moving on a journey towards death. Right before he actually dies (someone shoots him), he's making a speech before a crowd in Chicago. He says "Many years ago, a certain man promised to have me killed... tonight he will keep his promise" (142).

As mentioned earlier in the essay, Billy’s life is like a quest. The quester is Billy Pilgrim, the main character. The place to go is not a literal “place to go,” but its actually Billy's predetermined end: his death. When he is captured by the aliens, or in other words the Tralfamadorians, he is clearly told when he will die. A quest also usually has a lot of challenges and trials along the way that test the quester while he is on his quest towards the end. Challenges and trials are pretty directly given to the readers: the plane crash, his wife’s death, the fact that he was captured by the Germans and became a POW, and pretty much almost everything else that happened to him through the book. For these reasons, it can be said that Billy's slow journey through life towards his certain death is like

**Symbols**
Authors of all around the globe, including Kurt Vonnegut in the anti-war novel //Slaughterhouse-Five//, use symbols to make the story progress forward without literally mentioning them.

Symbols are laid out through the story of //Slaughter House-Five// in very interesting ways. For example, the Tralfamorians were a symbol put in by the author to imply a meaning into the book. Tralfamorians are aliens that capture Billy and can travel in time to any time period they want. When Billy goes back and forward in time, he realizes that aliens have captured him. Billy observed and analyzed these time traveling aliens as very nice green things that seem to be very friendly and peaceful. Billy was scared to be in the aliens’ presence at first, but later, got used to them and became pretty fond of them.

A symbol, based on the book //How to Real Literature Like a Professor// by Thomas C. Foster, is something that can mean something else. Maybe the aliens weren’t literally aliens: perhaps the author, Kurt, put the aliens there to show what type of people Kurt wants more in this world. In this book, perhaps alien doesn’t literally mean aliens, but enlightened “foreigners” that can’t be found in this world: that’s why they’re portrayed as aliens.

“The letter said that they were two feet high, and green, and shaped like plumber’s friends…The creatures were friendly…”(p26) This quote is where the book describes the aliens. The narrator (Kurt Vonnegut) seems like he wants more of these aliens to exist or want the population of the earth to be like these aliens. He is portraying his “ideal” human being. 



I think the way you interpreted violence in the novel was very interesting and very understandable. In my essay, I interpreted violence in Slaughterhouse-Five as something mental that only people in the war would know, but you brought up a whole new idea of violence that can only be told by the ones who has been in a war and has experienced that form of violence. I also thought it was really interesting how you related violence to a form of which is not shared between opposite sides, but the same, to portray how violence can be used in various ways. I can clearly tell that you have read the book thoroughly and very good job on your "violence" essay! -Andrew Nogamoto
 * Comment #1**

Sarah Cho's Essay on Violence (Essay #4) 
 * Comment #2**

Sup Jin! Your essay was very well written. It hooked me as reader and made me interested the whole way through. Not just because of the way you write, but also because the contents of your essays were very interesting too. I really liked how you interpreted and correlated the Novel Ordinary people and How to Read Literature Like a Professor with each other. Everything you have mentioned about the book you have chosen had a relation to baptism mentioned in How to Read Literature Like a Professor so it was really interesting to see how that worked out. By the way, I also liked how you how you wrapped the essay up with a very clear conclusion. Well Done! -Andrew Nogamoto

Jin Kwon's Essay on Baptism (Essay #5)