Repetition of certain words and phrases has been important to pay attention to so far in the book. Specifically, the phrase "mustard gas and roses" has come up multiple times.
In the first chapter of the book, the author Kurt Vonnegut describes himself when he was younger, "...I get drunk, and I drive my wife away with a breath like mustard gas and roses." (4) The way that the author describes his breath is contradictory. Mustard gas is an color-less liquid whose vapor is used in chemical weapons as an irritant and vesicant. Roses are flowers that are typically thought of a symbols of love, and beautiful. Kurt Vonnegut ties war into his everyday life, which in turn shows how being around the smells of war permanently changed his lifestyle. Later in the book, while Billy Pilgrim is waiting for his Tralfamadorian abduction, the phone rings. It is a drunk who had gotten the wrong number, "Billy could almost smell his breath-- mustard gas and roses." (73) Repeating the phrase, once in the first chapter and once in the fourth chapter makes me wonder why Vonnegut would have used a phrase like this.
I wonder if the mustard gas represents Billy/ Vonnegut's time at war and the rose represents the way that flowers grow even though they have sharp thorns. How do you think the contradiction in phrases (this phrase, or others like it) could relate to any contradiction in Billy's life?
I feel that the mustard gas does represent his time at war, but specifically the foul, despicable times in which he went through. While the flowers are a sweet scent representing the few good moments that came out of it. This depiction of something incredibly foul mixed in with good things is a close connection to the real life that Kurt Vonnegut lived. A life with chronic depression, divorce, his child's mental breakdown, suicide, and mixed in, adopted children, book popularity, and relative wealth.
ReplyDeleteI feel that the mustard gas does represent his time at war, but specifically the foul, despicable times in which he went through. While the flowers are a sweet scent representing the few good moments that came out of it. This depiction of something incredibly foul mixed in with good things is a close connection to the real life that Kurt Vonnegut lived. A life with chronic depression, divorce, his child's mental breakdown, suicide, and mixed in, adopted children, book popularity, and relative wealth.
ReplyDelete