Dr. Ellis
March 10, 2014
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Children's Crusade
When the narrator declared that he dedicated this book to
Mary O’Hare, I was at first a little confused. I wondered who this woman was to
him; I immediately entertained the idea of a possible love affair. I was even
more confused as to why he believed that Mary disliked him. I sat there
thinking that she was being unreasonably nasty to her guest. All he wanted to
do was catch up with an old war buddy and talk about ideas for his upcoming
book. It wasn’t until Mary finally spoke that she became my favorite character.
I believe what she said was the most powerful part of the book so far: “You
were just babies then!... You were just babies in the war – like the ones
upstairs!... But you’re not going to write it that way, are you… Well, I know…
You’ll pretend you were men instead of babies, and you’ll be played in the
movies by Frank Sinatra and John Wayne or some of those other glamorous,
way-loving, dirty old men. And war will look just wonderful, so we’ll have a
lot more of them. And they’ll be fought by babies like the babies upstairs” (15).
I found this passage so moving because it is so true. When I think of war, I do
not think of all the teenagers or children who die. Every single man and woman
who fight are somebody’s child; they were once innocent children. Later, the
book mentions the Children’s Crusade; every war is a Children’s Crusade.
I also agree that war is sometimes made to seem glamorous.
Yet there is not a single part of war that is glorious. It is death and pain. Like
the play Lysistrata implied, was is
what is truly obscene. I feel as if the narrator stayed true to his word to
Mary that his book would not have a part for Frank Sinatra. He depicts the men
fighting with vivid detail, whether it be good or bad. We hear about Weary the
mean bully and about the hobo who has seen worse; we hear about the nitty-gritty
of war. We are bombarded with both the humorous images, such as the male
Juliet, as well as the horrendous images, such as the soap made of dead men. I
feel as if this is a true account of war, even if the plot is made up of aliens
and time travel. The only book I can relate this to is The Things They Carried. In that novel, the details and actualities
of the story may or may not be true, but the basic underlying ‘truths’ of life
and war are completely true. In Slaughterhouse-Five,
Billy may be a fictional character, but the message is completely true.
The narrator admits to his readers that he had been a
foolish child in the war. He was in no way like the suave Frank Sinatra. He also comes to the conclusion that Mary “didn’t
want her babies or anybody else’s babies killed in wars” (15). This made me
think about the children at Tunbridge. They are so curious and open. Some may
be mean at times, some may be unbelievably sweet, but most importantly, they
are all children. I cannot imagine these kids being sent off to war to witness
the atrocious realities. Just last week, these kids were standing up and
reading stories they had written about a field trip. They would discuss the
gift shop or the bus ride. Afterwards their classmates would complement and
critique both their stories their reading abilities. Every kid was polite and
sometimes what they said was extremely insightful. Yet the format of their
stories made me think of this book. These kids were writing about their life,
just as the narrator does in the first chapter. I hope that these kids never
have the ability to write a story about war. I know they will experience their
own up and downs in life, but I hope that they never experience a Children’s
Crusade.
The
narrator claims Mary believes that “wars were partly encouraged by books and
movies” (15). To a certain extent I agree. When books and movies are censored
to only show good moments or to show a glorified version of the truth, people
will never fully understand. That is why I believe that in novels such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, words
such as the n-word should not be censored. That word is the truth and history
of that time. The cruelties played on Jim also speak to the truth. Literature
and movies are a way for people to learn and understand the truths of history.
As Sidney wrote in his essay, literature does something history cannot, it
teaches the reasons and consequences.
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