“The Americans arrived in Dresden at five in the afternoon. The boxcar doors were opened, and the doorways framed the loveliest city that most of the Americans had ever seen. The skyline was intricate and voluptuous and enchanted and absurd. It looked like a Sunday school picture of Heaven to Billy Pilgrim.” (93)
In this quote, Billy Pilgrim and his fellow soldiers lay eyes on Dresden for the first time. This appears to be one of the few moments throughout the novel in which Billy shows an emotion other than apathy; his awestruck description of the “enchanted” skyline contrasts starkly with his usual passive, “so it goes” outlook on life. Billy's description of Dresden as “a Sunday school picture of Heaven” is laced with irony, as we know that the bombing will soon turn the city into a fiery hell on Earth. The beauty and liveliness of Dresden and its inhabitants prior to the firebombing makes its destruction even more tragic, especially when Billy casually notes that "most of the people watching him would soon be dead" (95). Vonnegut makes the cold inhumanity of war strikingly evident through its horrible ability to transform a "voluptuous," vibrant image of paradise into what Billy calls “the surface of the moon” – a lifeless, barren wasteland (43).
Q: Why does Vonnegut choose such a passive, detached character as his protagonist?
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