Tralfamadorians
Billy Pilgrim at War
Chapter 1
Billy Pilgrim's Life
Supporting Characters
100
The Tralfamadorians are shaped like this common household item.
What is a plunger?
100
Billy is taken prisoner by soldiers from this country.
What is Germany?
100
Kurt Vonnegut does this late at night when his wife is asleep.
What is drunk-dialing?
100
She is Billy's daughter, who takes care of him but treats him like a crazy old man.
Who is Barbara?
100

She is Billy's wife, the bespectacled daughter of a wealthy Ilium optometrist.

Who is Valencia Merble?

200
Tralfamadorians do not believe in this and claim that Earth is the only planet where this concept exists.
What is free will?
200

This soldier blames Billy for getting captured and dies on the train on the way to the POW camp.

Who is Roland Weary?

200
Vonnegut really experienced this tragic World War II event that is the climax of this book.
What is the bombing of Dresden?
200

Billy expresses emotion through this action only when he is alone, in secret, and at unexpected times. 

What is crying?

200
She becomes angry with Vonnegut for writing a book about war because she is worried he will glamorize it and deny the fact that they were just babies in the war.
Who is Mary O'Hare?
300
The Tralfamadorians think that this is simply a bad moment in someone's life.
What is death?
300
This happens to Billy for the first time when he is wandering through the forest after a battle and leans against a tree, hoping to die.
What is coming unstuck in time?
300
Vonnegut promises Mary O'Hare that this will be the title of his book.
What is The Children's Crusade
300
Billy Pilgrim gets abducted by the Tralfamadorians immediately after this event.
What is his daughter's wedding?
300
He saves Billy's life during the war, but he also abuses and bullies him and tells everyone that Billy is to blame for his death.
Who is Roland Weary?
400
The Tralfamadorians keep Billy here when they abduct him.
What is a zoo?
400

Billy notices how young and angelic the German soldiers look who capture him and compares them with these characters from the Bible. 

Who is Adam and Eve?

400
Harrison Starr tells Vonnegut that he might as well be writing a book against these because it is so useless to write a book against war.
What are glaciers?
400

This is how Billy reacts when confronted with realities such as "urban renewal" and its harmful impacts on Black Americans and the bombing of civilians during the Vietnam war.

What is closes his eyes/looks away?
400
He has the best body of the American prisoners of war, and he dies after the bombing of Dresden for stealing a teapot.
Who is Edgar Derby?
500
This is the metaphor the Tralfamadorians use to explain to Billy that "there is no why," that every moment "simply is."
What is bugs trapped in amber?
500
Where Billy is when he and his comrades have to take turns sleeping on the floor and pass their waste out in a bucket.
What are the trains used to transport the prisoners of war?
500

Vonnegut warns his sons not to participate in war or to work for what kind of companies?

What are companies that profit from war?

500

These are the two traumatic events (that happened within the same day) in Billy's older years that precede Billy's public disclosure of his alien abduction. 

What are a) the plane crash, and b) the death of his wife?

500
He has the worst body of the American prisoners and promised Roland Weary he would make Billy Pilgrim pay for his death.
Who is Paul Lazzaro?
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