Chapter 6

"As they neared the theater, they came upon an Englishman who was hacking a groove in the Earth with the heel of his boot. He was marking the boundary between the American and English sections of the compound. Billy and Lazzaro and Derby didn't have to ask what the line meant. It was a familiar symbol, from childhood" (Vonnegut 144).

In the quotation I chose, Vonnegut describes a line drawn in the Earth to divide the American and English sections of the compound. My image also shows a line drawn rather unevenly in the Earth.

In my picture, there is literally a line drawn in the dirt, just like in the beginning of the passage. But at the end of the passage, when Vonnegut writes "It was a familiar symbol, from childhood," I was drawn away from the the literal idea of a line in the dirt and towards the idea that everywhere in life there are boundaries. Whether they are literal boundaries such as fences or walls, or they are personal boundaries, such as knowing what not to say at certain times, people are constantly encountering lines that they cannot or will not cross. The real challenges arrive when one must decide whether to cross the line and take a risk, or to respect the boundary and walk away. In the case of the Englishmen and Americans, they chose to respect the line in the dirt. But it does lead any readers of Slaughterhouse-Five such as myself to wonder if and how Billy might cross the line in the future, and what those consequences will be. Hopefully, later chapters of the novel will explore such a possibility as this.