And then this one American foot soldier is arrested in the ruins for taking a teapot he's shot by a firing squad (4-5). .
Meeter writes, "Billy Pilgrim's mother gave him a crucifix but no religion because, "like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things found in gift shops" (Vonnegut 38-39)" (213). He continues, "Satirical passages like that [the quoted material above] are rare in Vonnegut's works" (213). Rare they may be, but the overall use of these passages reaffirm the message Vonnegut is trying to send us. Possibly leading to the message Vonnegut is sending us, Conrad Festa adds, " the central object of the satire is man's inclination to avoid painful reality" (146). .
Vonnegut uses Billy Pilgrim to portray the damaging effects war can have on humans. Glenn Meeter states that the character Billy Pilgrim does not find meaning or purpose in life. As a result of the attack on Dresden, hunger, shock and exhaustion, one source explains that Billy does not have the will to live, and has no concern for the lives of the men around him (Keogh and Kislastis 174). "One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters" (Vonnegut 140-141). According to Festa, " the proper response to a meaningless, cruel, and apparently doomed world is total resignation. That is Billy Pilgrim's response- (145). Another critic, Jerome Klintowitz adds "Atrocities are simply too large for the human imagination to grasp. As a result, people shrink away from such happenings or excuse them with nervous giggles" (29). Billy's character goes right along with Klintowitz's theory and chooses "total resignation" (Festa 145), rather than facing the horrors he had witnessed. Richard Giannone adds to the argument that war drastically affects humans by stating "In the course of testifying to Billy's heartsickness and deadened spirit, the witness moves from a sense of personal responsibility to a sense of his own personal helplessness and disconnectedness" (96-97).