Slaughterhouse-Five characters
He is an unconventional protagonist for a war novel, Billy is weak, passive, and often ridiculous. He is totally unsuited for war, and he nearly dies wandering behind German lines during the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he becomes an optometrist, marries a rich girl, and comes to believe...
This character is controversial. Author tries (and successfully did) to show us a man who was so deep lonely that becomes even cruel in this loneliness. We don’t know much about his childhood, just that he was there alone too. Also, later he was captured by Billy. When the war comes, he was...
Edgar is another soul who was suffering from the war. He is the unfortunate high school teacher and slightly older-than-average soldier who ends up getting shot at the end of the war for stealing a teapot from the rubble of Dresden. He is tried and executed by a German firing squad, and Billy is...
Robert is Billy's son. He is a wild kid in high school, but then he joins the Marines and straightens out. In 1968 Robert was deployed in Vietnam, but he flies home when he receives the news of Billy's plane crash and Valencia's death by carbon monoxide. Robert doesn't have much of...
Valencia is the daughter of the owner of Billy's optometry school. Also, she is Billy's extremely large and extremely good-natured wife. She never thought anyone would marry her because of her size, so she bursts into tears with gratitude the night of their honeymoon. She loves Billy so...
Barbara is Billy's daughter. She is responsible for him after his injuries and Valencia's death, and the burden makes her resentful and picky. In 1968, when Billy writes his letters about Tralfamadore to the local newspaper, she is only 21, and her mother has just died of carbon monoxide...
Well, we know a lot about this character, as he is one of the main heroes in this awesome novel. For many years, Vonnegut tried to write a book about Dresden but found himself unable to complete the project. He appears within the Billy Pilgrim story very briefly, in the literary equivalent of a...
Bernards has a key role in forming Kurt as a personality. He is dynamic, as he changed after all years. Bernard is showing us as a calm, wise, good-hearted and strong man. He is Vonnegut's old war buddy, captured with him and held in Dresden. Vonnegut finds him some years later, after the war...
After reading the novel, we find ourselves in love with this woman. She doesn’t have any special characteristics, but her simpleness probably is the one thing that makes us feel something good about her. By the way, Kurt’s novel is dedicated exactly to her. She is Bernard’s wife...
Paul Lazzaro is a key character with hard and complicated destiny too. Unfortunately, he is described in the story as an evil. In his life, he is a fellow American POW with a grudge against Billy. He believes that Billy is the one who is responsible for Roland Weary death of gangrene. His...