Chapter 3 Summary

Five ramshackle Germans—two young boys, two old men, and a wounded soldier—capture Billy and Weary and loot the belongings of the two Americans when an obscene photograph is recovered from Weary’s pocket. Billy is lying on the ground and admires the shiny boots of the corporal. He sees a reflection of Adam and Eve on the polished boots. Billy also notices that one of the young boys—who, Billy thinks looks like an angel—is wearing wooden clogs which were exchanged with the boots of Weary. Billy hears three gunshots. The Germans have found the two scouts in hiding and have shot them dead. Billy and Weary are taken to a cottage where other prisoners of war are captured.Billy and Weary and loot the belongings of the two Americans when an obscene photograph is recovered from Weary’s pocket. Billy is lying on the ground and admires the shiny boots of the corporal. He sees a reflection of Adam and Eve on the polished boots. Billy also notices that one of the young boys—who, Billy thinks looks like an angel—is wearing wooden clogs which were exchanged with the boots of Weary. Billy hears three gunshots. The Germans have found the two scouts in hiding and have shot them dead. Billy and Weary are taken to a cottage where other prisoners of war are captured.

Billy falls asleep and wakes up in 1967. He is examining a patient in his office. Lately, he has been falling asleep a lot during work. He tries to engage himself in an optometry article but worries about World War III that might happen soon. He closes his eyes and comes back to Luxembourg in 1944, where a German journalist is photographing his and Weary’s poorly shod feet. The reporter further stages a photograph of Billy being “captured” in a dramatic fashion by the German soldiers.

Billy once again time-travels to 1967, where he is driving to a luncheon at the Lion’s Club. The speaker, a marine officer, believes that the Americans should continue the Vietnam War and advocates bombing of North Vietnam back to the stone age. He tells Billy that he should be proud of Robert who is doing a great job in Vietnam. Billy returns home and decides to take a nap. Recently, he has developed bouts of weeping and the doctor has advised Billy to sleep in the afternoons. When Billy tries to sleep, he ends up weeping again. He closes his eyes and wakes up as a prisoner again, marching with other American soldiers.

A dying, delusional American soldier, who has lost his entire regiment of over four thousand men, talks to Billy. Vonnegut and O’Hare are present when this man introduces himself as Wild Bob. He thinks Billy belongs to his regiment and says, “If you’re ever in Cody, Wyoming, just ask for Wild Bob!” The American soldiers are categorized according to their ranks and are put in a cramped train. The train remains still for two days but the prisoners are not allowed to leave. They take turns while sleeping and excrete in their helmets that are passed to Billy, who is sitting by the ventilator, to dump the contents outside. When the train finally moves on Christmas, Billy time-travels to the night he was kidnapped by the Tralfamadorians in a flying saucer.

Chapter 3 Analysis

The chapter constantly contrasts between Billy’s time at the war and his later life as a successful, wealthy optometrist. The readers are given snippets of the agony and hardship that Billy has undergone during his capture by the Germans. Although, in his later life, Billy establishes himself as a successful optometrist, his past keeps haunting him. There seems to be no escape from the vicious cycle. Billy, who has been an emotionally unavailable, stoic man his entire life, suffers from spells of crying fits. Readers can understand that although he has left behind the war in the past and has somehow suppressed his angst, it is surfacing now.

Interestingly, Vonnegut, in one of the moments in the chapter, juxtaposes reality and fantasy when Wild Bob’s mindless blabber to Billy is overheard by O’Hare and the author himself. Vonnegut constantly blurs lines—in terms of past, present, and future and the difference between reality and fantasy—which signifies the inevitability of what is destined to happen. Through this, Vonnegut mirrors the emotional state of all soldiers, no matter which camp they represent. Through Billy, utter despair is exemplified. Through Weary, the author exemplifies deluded pride and honor.

Due to Billy’s condition of crying spells, the doctor prescribes Billy to sleep for some time in the afternoons. This is pointedly symbolic as Billy is prescribed to not see. He removes his “tri-focals”—spectacles with three-gradation lenses—before taking a nap. The author draws an interesting allusion of human beings having limited vision, both literally and metaphorically. Billy describes in the chapter that the Tralfamadorians are capable of seeing in four dimensions as opposed to human beings who can perceive in only three dimensions. Hence, humans are not farsighted enough to realize the futility of a war and are constantly afraid and anxious of the inevitable, whereas the Tralfamadorians, who understand the nonlinear nature of time, have a “so it goes” attitude about death.