Study Questions

1. What is the name of the fighting group to which Weary imagines he belongs?

2. How does Billy later find one of his army practice maneuvers to provide a Tralfamadorian type of adventure?

3. Why was Billy not missed while he was in the Tralfamadorian zoo?

4. Why does Billy say he did not talk about his adventures before the plane accident?

5. How do Tralfamadorians perceive time?

6. How do Tralfamadorians understand death?

7. What phrase is the Tralfamadorian response to death?

8. How does Billy’s vocation parallel his purpose in propounding Tralfamadorian philosophy?

9. How does Billy’s first time travel experience parallel his condition in real time?

10. Why do Billy and Weary surprise the German soldiers?

Answers

1. The group is called the Three Musketeers.

2. In later life, the experience of having his unit eat lunch after the men in it were pronounced “dead” struck him as a very Tralfamadorian experience.

3. Billy was taken through a time warp, so although he was on Tralfamadore for years, he was only gone from Earth for less than a second.

4. Billy thought the time was not ripe.

5. Tralfamadorians see time all at once, like a mountain range.

6. Tralfamadorians see death as just one bad moment, with plenty of other good moments of life existing alongside it.

7. “So it goes” is what the Tralfamadorians say about the dead.

8. Billy, who as an optometrist, helps people to see clearly, wants to provide vision for people’s souls.

9. In both events, Billy is peacefully waiting for death.

10. They do not understand why one American is trying to kill another. They also do not understand why Billy is laughing.