Slaughterhouse-Five Summary: Plot, Characters and Ending
Slaughterhouse-Five follows Billy Pilgrim, an American soldier who survives the firebombing of Dresden as a prisoner of war and later believes he has come unstuck in time, jumping between moments of his life. He also says aliens from the planet Tralfamadore once kidnapped him.
Vonnegut himself was a prisoner in Dresden during the bombing, and he appears briefly as a character.
| Character | Who they are |
|---|---|
| Billy Pilgrim | Gentle army assistant turned optometrist |
| Roland Weary | Bully who drags Billy through the snow |
| Paul Lazzaro | Vengeful soldier who swears to kill Billy |
| Edgar Derby | Kindly middle-aged soldier and teacher |
| Valencia | Billy's wife |
| Montana Wildhack | Film actress Billy lives with on Tralfamadore |
| Kilgore Trout | Unsuccessful science fiction writer |
| Tralfamadorians | Aliens who see all of time at once |
How is the story told?
The book opens with the narrator describing his years of failing to write about Dresden. Then the story begins: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. The novel jumps back and forth between his wartime experience, his comfortable life as an optometrist in Ilium, New York, and his time in an alien zoo. Each death is followed by the same short phrase of acceptance.
↑ Back to the topWhat happens to Billy in the war?
Billy is a weak, gentle assistant in the army caught behind enemy lines during the Battle of the Bulge. Roland Weary, who imagines himself and two scouts as a heroic team, drags Billy along and then blames him when they are captured. Weary dies in a prison train of gangrene, and Paul Lazzaro promises to avenge him by killing Billy one day.
The prisoners are sent to Dresden, a beautiful city with no military value, and housed in a concrete meat locker under a slaughterhouse. When Allied planes firebomb the city, they survive underground and emerge into a landscape that looks like the moon. While cleaning up the dead, Edgar Derby is shot for taking a teapot.
↑ Back to the topWhat is Billy's life like afterward?
Billy marries Valencia, the daughter of an optometry school owner, and grows rich. He survives a plane crash in which everyone else dies. Rushing to see him in the hospital, Valencia dies of carbon monoxide poisoning. Billy goes on the radio to tell the world about Tralfamadore.
↑ Back to the topWho are the Tralfamadorians?
Billy says that on the night of his daughter's wedding he was kidnapped by a flying saucer and displayed in a zoo on Tralfamadore, alongside the actress Montana Wildhack, with whom he has a child. The aliens see all moments of time at once, so for them no one really dies; they simply look at the good moments. Billy adopts their calm view of life, including his own death: he knows Lazzaro will shoot him in Chicago in 1976.
↑ Back to the topHow does Slaughterhouse-Five end?
The novel returns to Dresden in spring, just after the war ends in Europe. Billy and the other prisoners leave their shelter and find a wagon in the street. The trees are leafing out, and a bird asks Billy a wordless question, which is how the book ends.
↑ Back to the topMore about Slaughterhouse-Five
This summary reveals the whole plot, including the ending.