Thursday, May 2, 2013

Chapter 3


"He took a picture of Billy's and Roland Weary's feet.The picture was widely published two days later as heartening evidence of how miserably equipped the American Army often was, despite its reputation for being rich" (Vonnegut 58).

This picture connects with the quotation I chose as they both pertain to ill-equipped footwear, and the situations that lead people to have such footwear. In the image above, the figure simply wore the socks a lot, so they got very worn out, with large holes. Whereas, in Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy and Weary's feet are in poor condition because they both had to walk a long way with poor footwear.

 I found the portion of this quote describing how the American Army was poorly equipped, even though they had a reputation as being rich rather fascinating, because it makes quite a statement about the way wealth is perceived. The person in this photograph has enough money to purchase new socks, yet they have not done so, possibly because they do not want to waste a pair of socks that can still be worn. But in the novel, Billy and Weary could not get new footwear even though they want to, and the wealth of the American Army is unavailable to them in their current state. Both the picture and the quote show that even if one has access to wealth, that does not necessarily mean that they will use it. Likewise, those in need of wealth, who would gladly take advantage of it if they were able to, often do not have access to it. Therefore, even if someone or something has a reputation for being rich, the way they will use this wealth is up to them.

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