Poo-tee-weet?

"The last word in Slaughterhouse Five and a symbol for peace and beauty but also for an unanswerable question parallel to the tragedies of war."

Billy(the main chararcter of Slaughterhouse Five) is reflecting back on his life and seeing the good in an overall bad situation. One of these positive memories of his life he looks back on is the trip to Dresden with O’Hare a few decades after the war.Vonnegut change up Billy’s mindset for once and Billy is thinking positively about his life. I think this is showing what Vonnegut is trying to say in his feelings after war about everything. He believes war is bad and can do all these horrible things shown throughout the entire book, but at the end of the day one must look at the positive side of things too.

  Billy travels back to the time after war has ended. Po-tee-weet, the last word of this book, is a pretty famous one and is a major symbol in this book. Billy has just been freed from the chains of wartime and violence. A huge weight has been lifted off his chest. As he is walking around as a free man, he hears birds singing to him. This could mean absolutely nothing but there is probably some deeper meaning that Vonnegut is trying to say here. In my mind soft, sweet sound of bird chirping could mean Billy has just been freed from after the war was over. It could symbolize all the beauty in this world that is overshadowed by the violence. Although, it also is seen as a symbol of a negative thought. That, nothing about war is even able to be described. The jabbering bird symbolizes the lack of anything intelligent to say about war. Birdsong rings out alone in the silence after a massacre. The author’s point is made by the word "birds." Birds bring to mind innocence, peace, and calm. After the Dresden massacre, there was nothing because everything was destroyed. This brings to mind the image of a deserted wasteland filled with nothingness. The author’s attitude is very sarcastic because he cannot even understand it himself. When Vonnegut writes"and it always is," his words create emphasis on "except for the birds." There is irony in the fact that the author uses a bird tweeting to show the innocence of it after a massacre. There cannot be anything good to say. I think this is a perfect representation of the book overall. It is very negative, but this is how Vonnegut oversees war and everything that comes along with it.