Chapter 10

"Somewhere in there the poor old high school teacher, Edgar Derby, was caught with a teapot he had taken from the catacombs. He was arrested for plundering. He was tried and shot. So it goes" (Vonnegut 214).

The image I used in this blog is that of a fancy teapot, similar to the teapot Edgar Derby takes from the catacombs. The quote I chose focuses on this teapot, and the consequences Derby faced for taking it.

When I read this quote, I was shocked by the extremity of the punishment Derby receives (death). After all of the death that everyone (including the German soldiers) had witnessed with the bombing of Dresden, I have difficulty imagining how they could possibly stomach even more death, even if Derby's manner of death was not quite as gruesome as the deaths of all the others. It was amazing that Derby got such an extreme punishment for such a small act of "plundering," especially when Derby only took one item, and it was not something of excessive value. There were so many other punishments that the Germans could have easily decided to use on Derby that excluded death, yet they chose to shoot and kill him. The fact that they were willing to see another person die indicates just how involved in the war they truly were, even if most of the German soldiers that Billy encountered were old men or young boys, neither of which had not seen much action throughout the war.