Slaughterhouse - Five Literary Term: Hyperbole

Hyperbole

• Def.- over exaggeration
• Ex.- pg. 178, "Dresden was like the moon now, nothing but minerals."
• C.- The Americans and their guards come out of their shelter to see the devastation of Dresden and Billy remarks that it looked like the surface of the moon.
• C.- The hyperbole that Dresden resembled the moon serves to reveal
• C.-both the theme of the destructiveness of war and that Billy felt isolated from other humans, that he would imagine that he was on the moon, which is also evident in his content life on the planet Tralfamadore.

Slaughterhouse - Five Literary Term: Juxtapose

Juxtapose

• Def.- things placed side by side, usually unexpected combinations to compare and contrast
• Ex.- "roses and mustard gas" pg. 4, pg. 73, pg. 214
• C.-The phrase is used to describe an awful smell, whether it be Vonnegut's breath when he has been drinking or the smell of the "rotted and liquefied" bodies in Dresden.
• C.- The juxtaposition of the beauty and sweetness of roses with the debilitating effects of mustard gas serves to
• C.- emphasize the theme of the destructiveness of war, that war can make even the most beautiful things, such as roses, horrible and disgusting with its contaminating effects.

Slaughterhouse - Five Literary Term: Ambiguity

Ambiguity

• Def.-quality that gives something multiple interpretations
• Ex.- pg. 215, "One bird said to Billy Pilgrim, 'Poo-tee-weet?'"
• C.- Billy and the rest of the Americans were let out of the locked stable they had been staying in because the war in Europe was over. The only sound Billy could hear were the birds "talking."
• C.- The phrase that the bird speaks, "Poo-tee-weet," is ambiguous in its meaning.
• C.- In the aftermath of the destruction of Dresden, the phrase could symbolize the lack of anything intelligent to say about war and that it is as appropriate a thing to say as anything, since no words could really describe the horror of the Dresden firebombing.

Slaughterhouse - Five Literary Term: Parody

Parody

• Def.- specific literary work or style of an author usually to ridicule
• Ex.- pg. 142-143, "The United States of America has been Balkanized, has been divided into twenty petty nations... Chicago has been hydrogen-bombed by angry Chinamen... Billy predicts his own death within an hour... At that moment, Billy's high forehead is in the cross hairs of a high-powered laser gun... In the next moment, Billy Pilgrim is dead. So it goes."
• C.- After hearing Lazzaro tell a story about his revenge on a dog that bit him, Lazzaro tells Billy that he will eventually kill him for Roland Weary's death. Billy then recounts how he will die at Lazzaro's hand.
• C.- Vonnegut's description of Billy's future seems to parody science fiction novels.
• C.- This parody seems to be ironic when most of the book is told through a character that believes he can travel through time and has traveled to and lived on an alien planet.

Slaughterhouse - Five Literary Term: Ellipsis

Ellipsis

• Def.- chronological gap indicating material has been omitted, used to invite readers to fill in the gap
• Ex.- pg. 198, "Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does. I learned that on Tralfamadore."
• C.- In the hospital, Billy is telling Rumfoord about what happened in Dresden.
• C.- The ellipsis between Billy's travel to Tralfamadore and his return to Earth
• C.- presents the reader with multiple interpretations as to how and when Billy got back, or even if his trip was real or rather a coping mechanism to deal either with the tragedies he saw in the war or his own pain from the plane crash and the loss of his wife.

Slaughterhouse - Five Literary Term: Prolepsis

Prolepsis

• Def.- insertion of an image in a narrative scene that suggests that something occurred in the future, or flash forward
• Ex.- pg. 141, "[Lazzaro] pointed to Billy with his one mobile hand. 'I promised [Roland Weary] I'd have this silly cocksucker shot after the war.'... Billy Pilgrim says now that this really is the way he is going to die, too... At the time of his death, he says, he is in Chicago to address a large crowd on the subject of flying saucers and the true nature of time... [Billy] swings back into life again, all the way back to an hour after his life was threatened by Lazzaro"
• C.- Paul Lazzaro was telling Billy that he was going to kill him in revenge for Roland Weary's death, when Billy became "unstuck in time" and told of how Lazzaro really does kill him in 1976, long after the war is over.
• C.- Vonnegut's use of prolepsis serves to
• C.- emphasize the theme of free will versus fatalism and Billy's acceptance of the Tralfamadorian philosophy of death, which shows that through his acceptance of his own death Billy finally became the strong character that he was not throughout the book, when he was rather just a weak-willed and slightly farcical character.

Slaughterhouse - Five Literary Term: Analepsis

Analepsis

• Def.- insertion of an image in a narrative scene that suggests that something occured in the past, or a flashback
• Ex.- pg. 59, "He was stopped by a signal in the middle of Ilium's black ghetto. The people who lived here hated it so much that they burned down a lot of it a month before. It was all they had, and they'd wrecked it. The neighborhood reminded Billy of some of the towns he had seen in the war... It looked like Dresden after it was fire-bombed- like the surface of the moon."
• C.- Billy is driving through a part of the town that was destroyed by a black race riot, and is reminded of the devastation in Dresden.
• C.- The analepsis of Billy's experience in Dresden and his glimpse of the results of the race riot combined with his comparison of the two events
• C.- reveal both the theme of the destructiveness of war, whether it be a declared war like WWII or riots, and Vonnegut's distaste for the unnecessary violence of humankind.

Slaughterhouse - Five Literary Term: Anachrony

Anachrony

• Def.- discrepancy between the chronological order of events and the order in which they are related in a plot
• Ex.- pg. 74-75, "It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War... Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this:... German fighter planes... sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen... German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new... factories were dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals... It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so that they would never hurt anybody ever again."
• C.- On the night of his daughter's wedding, Billy has come downstairs to await the Tralfamadorians who were going to kidnap him. He knows that there is time to spare before they arrive and turns the television on to a movie about World War II.
• C.- The anachrony of the movie moving backwards reveals
• C.- that Billy does not truly believe in the Tralfamadorian view of death and time because he seems to project his wish that the war and the death and destruction that came with it had not happened which conflicts with the idea that time is fixed and cannot be changed and that death is inevitable. He is merely using their philosophy to cope with the pain he feels regarding the horrors of the war.

Slaughterhouse - Five Literary Term: Anti-Hero

Anti-Hero

• Def.- protagonist that is not a hero
• Ex.- pg. 159, "[The war widow] asked Billy Pilgrim what he was supposed to be. Billy said he didn't know. He was just trying to keep warm. 'All the real soldiers are dead,' she said. It was true."
• C.- In the kitchen, the woman that had been waiting for them asked Gluck if he was too young to be a soldier, Edgar Derby if he was too old to be a soldier, and then asks Billy what he was.
• C.- This scene serves to emphasize Billy's role as an anti-hero.
• C.- Billy's response to the woman's question shows that he is merely drifting through his life and that he does not fit any of the characteristics of a "tragic hero", which is emphasized by the woman's response that there were no more 'real soldiers.'

Slaughterhouse - Five Literary Term: Satire

Satire

• Def.- human vice or folly attacked by irony or wit
• Ex.- pg. 168, "nobody held it against him [the robot] that he dropped jellied gasoline on people. But they found his halitosis unforgivable. But then he cleared that up, and he was welcomed to the human race"
• Context- Billy just saw Kilgore Trout talking to a young boy who worked for him that wanted to quit, and he called him a "gutless wonder" which reminded Billy of Trout's book of the same title.
• Concept- Vonnegut uses this satire to
• Connection- criticize human shallowness and the destruction that was being caused by the use of napalm during the Vietnam War.

Slaughterhouse - Five Discussion Questions

1. Why does Vonnegut choose to write a "jumbled and jangled" war book?

• to represent the confused and disastrous nature of war
• to represent the disruptiveness of the war on the lives of the soldiers that fought in it

2. What is the significance of the phrase "so it goes"?

• reflects a kind of comfort in the Tralfamadorian idea that although a person may be dead in a particular moment, he or she is alive in all the other moments of their life
• the repetition of the phrase points out the tragic inevitability of death

3. What is significant of the bird cry "poo-tee-weet"?

• symbolizes the lack of anything intelligent to say about war
• is as appropriate a thing to say as anything, since no words can really describe the horror of the Dresden firebombing

4. List the major themes of Slaughterhouse-Five.

• the destructiveness of war
• the illusion of free will, or free will versus fatalism
• the importance of sight
• for elaboration, see sparknotes

5. How does Vonnegut use time to communicate his themes?

• the absence of order of time might represent the disruptive nature of war or the state of mind of the soldiers after they witness the horrors of war
• represents the illogical nature of human beings thinking that they are confined to the rules of time, which is shown in the Tralfamadorian philosophy

Slaughterhouse - Five Chapter 10 Focus Questions

1. What does the author describe as one of his nicest moments?

• his trip back to Dresden with O'Hare, he imagined dropping bombs on the places they were flying over

2. Who/what is a Maori?

• a native from New Zealand

3. What stunk like "mustard gas and roses"? In what other situation is this description from?

• the "rotted and liquefied" bodies
• Vonnegut's breath when he is drunk

4. How does the Maori POW die?

• died of the "dry heaves after having been ordered to go down in that stink and work. He tore himself to pieces, throwing up and throwing up."

5. What new technique for disposing of the corpses is devised?

• cremated by flamethrowers

6. Why was Edgar Derby arrested and shot?

• he stole a teapot from "the catacombs"

7. What does the bird say to Billy Pilgrim? Why?

• "Poo-tee-weet?"
• to show that there is no answer as to how something as horrific as the bombing of Dresden could happen

Slaughterhouse - Five Chapter 9 Focus Questions

1. How does Valencia die?

• carbon monoxide poisoning after she was in an accident on her way to the hospital to see Billy

2. How had the army improved Robert?

• "He was all straightened out now... and he was a leader of men."

3. What mental disease does Rumfoord think Billy has? Why does he think he has this disease?

• echolalia: makes people immediately repeat things that well people around them say
• because Billy was saying that had been in Dresden

4. What might Billy choose as his happiest moment? Why?

• "his sundrenched snooze in the back of the wagon."
• it was quiet and peaceful and Billy was so tired all he wanted to do was sleep
• it was before he had to see the horrors of the bombing, the bodies underneath the rubble

5. What is the only thing Billy cries about in the war? Why do you think Billy cried about this and not about anything else?

• the condition of the horses
• he finally realizes the impact of the bombing, he was snapped out of his daze

6. What is Professor Rumfoord's opinion of the raid on Dresden? Why does Billy say that "it was alright"?

• "It had to be done"
• he learned it was alright because of the aliens, he learned to see things with tralfamadorian philosophy, that events are unchangeable

7. What is significant about Zircon-212?

• shows that Billy's being "unstuck in time" and his travel to Tralfamadore was not real, it was an escape from reality that he created to be able to cope with the things he saw

8. What two acquaintances does Billy indirectly encounter in the "tawdry bookstore"? How?

• Montana Wildhack, the magazine and the movie
• Roland Weary, the picture of the woman and the pony

9. What happens to Billy on the New York radio show?

• he talks about the Tralfamadorians
• he is kicked off the show at the next break

Slaughterhouse - Five Chapter 8 Focus Questions

1. Why does Campbell visit the American POWs?

• to recruit them "for a German military unit called 'The Free American Corps.'"

2. Vonnegut explains that there are "almost no characters in this story." What is significant about this statement?

• that no one matters, people can't control what happens to them, and making decisions is what makes up a character

3. How does Billy meet Trout?

• noticed a group of kids surrounding a man, recognized him from his picture

4. What does Trout's story about robots say about the bombing of Dresden?

• that humans are fundamentally okay with causing human suffering, but that they are petty and shallow, hating physical "ailments"

5. Vonnegut mentions "somewhere a big dog barked." In what other situations has this been mentioned?

• the dog that was barking when Billy and Weary were captured by the Germans

6. Who did Kilgore Trout receive his one letter from?

• Eliot Rosewater

7. What two 'lies' does Trout tell Maggie White?

• that it is fraud to write something that isn't real
• that God is listening and if she says too many bad things she'll "burn forever and ever. The burning never stops hurting."

8. How does Billy react to the barbershop quartet? Why does he react this way?

• "found himself upset by the song and the occasion... [he] had powerful psychosomatic responses to the changing chords... his face became grotesque"
• the quartet reminds him of the guards in Dresden during the bombing

9. How does Billy describe Dresden after the fire-bombing?

• like the surface of the moon

10. What do the American fighter planes do after the fire-bombing?

• shoot at anything that is moving

Slaughterhouse - Five Chapter 7 Focus Questions

1. Describe the plane crash in which Billy is injured.

• plane is full of optometrists, it "took off without incident"
• a barbershop quartet was singing Polish songs for his father-in-law
• crashes in Vermont, everybody but Billy and the copilot die
• rescued by Austrians speaking German, Billy thinks he is back in the war

2. What do Billy, Gluck, and Derby discover in the first building they enter while looking for the slaughterhouse kitchen?

• naked girls showering

3. What does the war widow in the kitchen think of Billy, Gluck, and Derby?

• that none of them are real soldiers

4. How do the Americans get vitamins and minerals?

• they spoon it out from the syrup for pregnant women that is being made in the factory they are working at

Slaughterhouse - Five Chapter 6 Focus Questions

1. What is the source of the animal magnetism Billy feels in the prison hospital shed?

• 2 lumps in the lining of Billy's coat

2. What does Lazzaro say is the sweetest thing in life? What story does he tell to prove his point?

• revenge
• how he put sharp points into a steak, which he then fed to a dog that had bitten him and watched him suffer as they cut up his insides

3. How does Billy die?

• killed by Lazzaro

4. What does the Englishman say about Dresden? What type of irony is this?

• "You needn't worry about bombs, by the way."
• dramatic

5. What color are the dead hobo's feet? Where else is it referenced in the book?

• "blue and ivory"
• pg. 28 "His bare feet were blue and ivory."
• pg. 65 "There was so much to see... corpses with bare feet that were blue and ivory."
• pg. 72-75 "He looked down at his bare feet. They were ivory and blue... [he] padded downstairs on his blue and ivory feet... Out he went , his blue and ivory feet crushing the wet salad of the lawn."
• pg. 80 "Billy Pilgrim was lying at an angle on the corner-brace, self-crucified, holding himself there with a blue and ivory claw hooked over the sill of the ventilator."

6. Describe the Americans' arrival in Dresden.

• the Dresdeners viewed the Americans as fools
• a doctor was offended by Billy's outfit, thinking he was making fun of the war

7. Describe the Americans' "home away from home."

• an unused slaughterhouse with bunks, stoves, a water tap, and a latrine, which consisted of a rail fence with buckets under it

Slaughterhouse - Five Chapter 5 Focus Questions

1. What does the way Tralfamadorians view of the universe and Earthlings tell us about their concept of time?

• they see all of time at once, its never ending

2. Is there a similarity between the format of Vonnegut's novel and the description of Tralfamadorian novels? Explain.

• not in chronological order, meant to show all of a life not just parts
• "There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects."

3. What does the American soldier ask the guard when the guard knocked him down? What is significant about his response?

• "'Why me?'... 'Vy you? Vy anybody?'"
• relates back to Billy's question to the Tralfamadorian and the theme

4. What was the main ingredient of the candles and soap used at the welcoming dinner for the American POWS?

• the "fat of rendered Jews and Gypsies and fairies and communists, and other enemies of the State."

5. Why do the British POWs send Billy to the hospital shed?

• he had a nervous breakdown during Cinderella

6. Why does science fiction appeal to Billy and Rosewater?

• it is an escape from the reality of their lives into a new world

7. Why is Billy upset by his mother?

• just because she is his mother
• "She made him feel embarrassed and ungrateful and weak... [because he] didn't really like life at all."

8. Describe Billy's habitat in the Tralfamadorian zoo.

• looked like a house in a magazine or a display in a store; TV didn't work, had a picture pasted to the front
• "most of the furnishings had been stolen from the Sears Roebuck warehouse"

9. What was Billy's response when the Tralfamadore lecturer asked what the most valuable thing he had learned on Tralfamadore was so far?

• "How the inhabitants of a whole planet can live in peace!"

10. What do the Tralfamadorians suggest Earthlings should do?

• "Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones."

11. What epitaph does Billy think of on his wedding night?

• Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt

12. Who said that he had "excreted everything but his brains" then moments later said "there they go, there they go"?

• Kurt Vonnegut

13. Summarize what Campbell writes about American POWs in Germany?

• poor Americans hate themselves, blame themselves for being poor
• no fraternity between soldiers; "despised any leader from among their own number"
• childish, self-pitying, "incapable of concerted action on their own behalf"

Slaughterhouse - Five Chapter 4 Focus Questions

1. Who do you think the drunk is that called Billy on his daughter's wedding night?

• Vonnegut

2. How does the message of the war movie change when it is viewed backwards?

• it seems as though they are trying to fix everything and war impossible from then on, when really they wanted to destroy "the enemy"

3. How do the Tralfamadorians answer when Billy asks "why me?" What do you think is significant about being "trapped in the amber of this moment"?

• "Because this moment simply is... There is no why."
• it shows the idea that Billy has no choice in the matter, it reveals the theme of the illusion of free will

4. Why do the other POWs refuse to let Billy sleep near them?

• he kicks, whimpers, and yells in his sleep

5. What does Weary tell the other men in his car before he dies?

• to avenge his death by killing Billy

6. Describe the coat that Billy receives when he arrives at the prison camp.

• crumpled and frozen, stained, looked as though there was a dead animal frozen to it

7. What does the Tralfamadorian say about Earth?

• "Only on Earth is there any talk of free will."

Slaughterhouse - Five Chapter 3 Focus Questions

1. Describe the German force that captured Billy. What does that force tell us about Germany at the end of the war?

• 2 boys, 2 old men that were farmers, and a middle-aged corporal
• "armed and clothed fragmentarily with junk taken from real soldiers"
• haggard, tired, worn out

2. What happens to the scouts?

• shot by the Germans

3. Why does the German photographer take a picture of Billy's and Weary's feet?

• to show "how miserably equipped the American army often was"

4. What was on Billy's wall in his office, which kept him and some of his patients going?

• a bible verse: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to tell the difference."

5. Describe the conditions on the trains that transported the prisoners. Describe the car that housed the railroad guards.

• cramped, half must stand while the other half sleeps; cold, narrow, little food and water, not allowed to get off at all
• bright, comfortable, good food, decorated

6. Why does Vonnegut refer to the prisoners on the trains as "human beings"?

• no longer individual people, just a mass of beings that eat, drink, sleep, crap, and piss

Slaughterhouse - Five Chapter 2 Focus Questions

1. What does the author mean when he says that Billy "has come unstuck in time"?

• he has traveled in time with no control over where he goes

2. List the major events of Billy's life depicted in this chapter? Why is this significant?

• went to optometry school after high school, his father died in a hunting accident
• goes to WWII and gets an honorable discharge
• goes back to optometry school and gets engaged to the owner's daughter
• has a nervous collapse and receives shock treatment at a veterans hospital, is released and marries his fiancee
• practice is successful, becomes rich, has two kids, his daughter marries and his son joins the Green Berets
• only survivor of a plane crash, while in the hospital his wife dies of carbon monoxide poisoning
• he writes letters to a newspaper and goes on the radio, talking about how he came unstuck in time and was kidnapped by aliens and forced to mate and displayed in a zoo
• this is significant because it is the correct timeline in chronological order

3. Describe how Billy and his daughter, Barbara, interact.

• Barbara treats him like a child

4. What is Tralfamadore? What happens to Billy there?

• an alien planet
• "displayed naked in a zoo" and mated with an Earth movie star

5. How does Billy describe the Tralfamadorians?

• 2 feet high, green, and shaped like plungers
• at the top of each shaft was a "little hand with a green eye in its palm"

6. What ability do the Tralfamadorians have that Earthlings do not?

• ability to see in four dimensions

7. What is the origin of the phrase, "so it goes"?

• it is what the Tralfamadorians say when something dies

8. Describe Roland Weary's character.

• "he was stupid and fat and mean"
• was always ditched by people who didn't want him near them
• pretended to be friendly with someone less popular than him, then "find some pretext for beating the shit out of him."

9. When and how did Billy first come unstuck in time? Describe the experience.

• when he stopped to rest against a tree in the forest
• "His attention began to swing grandly through the full arc of his life... There was just violet light - and a hum. And then Billy swung into life again"
• went to before he was born, then to when he was a little boy and his father was going to teach him to swim

10. Why do you think Billy resented being rescued from the bottom of the swimming pool?

• he knew that if he had died as a child, he wouldn't have had to go to the war

11. Identify the type of narrator in this chapter.

• third-person omniscient

Slaughterhouse - Five Chapter 1 Focus Questions

1. What aspects of the book does the narrator insist really happened?

• the war parts

2. How did the narrator find O'Hare after the war?

• by calling the telephone company and asking them to connect them

3. What does the narrator do to entertain himself late at night? Why do you think he can't sleep?

• he calls old friends
• has nightmares about the war

4. What did the narrator learn in college after the war?

• there was absolutely no difference between anybody
• nobody was ridiculous or bad or disgusting

5. What difference does the narrator see in the veterans who "really fought" and the veterans who had office jobs? Why do you think this difference exists?

• the ones who "really fought" hated war
• because they had seen the true horrors of war, while those in an office job hadn't

6. What response does the narrator get when he tries to get information about the Dresden raid from the Air Force?

• "the information was top secret still"

7. What does "Eheu, fugaces labuntur anni" mean in English?

• Alas, our fleeting years pass away

8. Why is Mary "polite but chilly" when the narrator visits O'Hare?

• she thinks that his book will glorify war and make young kids want to go to war

9. What happened during the real Children's Crusade?

• the children were sent to N. Africa to be slaves
• half drowned in shipwrecks
• most made it to Africa and sold
• some were accidently sent to Marseilles and were taken in by "good people" that sent them back

10. Why is the book "so short and jumbled and jangled"?

• "because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre."

11. Who is the narrator of Chapter 1?

• Kurt Vonnegut

12. Research what happened in Dresden and provide some background information based on your research?

• military bombing by the British RAF and the U.S. Army Air Force
• drobbed tons of high-explosive bombs and incendiary devices that destroyed much of the inner city
• had become a safe haven for about 600,000 refugees
• one of the more controversial Allied actions of the Western European theatre

Heart of Darkness Part I Focus Questions: pages 1-25

1. Heart of Darkness is a frame tale. Where does the frame tale take place and who is speaking in the very beginning?

• on the Nellie, outside of London on the river Thames
• a former shipmate of Marlow's

2. What is significant about the setting of the frame tale?

• very serene, reflective of Marlow's current status in life

3. The phrase "bearing the sword, and often the torch" (pg. 5) is an example of what figurative language device?

• metonymy
• sword=soldiers, torch=knowledge

4. Who said "And this also...has been one of the dark places of the earth" and what is the antecedent of the pronoun?

• Marlow
• "the monstrous town": London

5. Who was the only man who still "followed the sea" (pg. 6)?

• Marlow

6. The only one who still "followed the sea" is described as being paradoxical because he did not represent his class. Explain this paradox.

• was a seaman, but was also a wanderer
• speaker considers seamen to live a sedentary life

7. When Marlow first begins speaking, what is he speaking about?

• London being one of the dark places of the earth

8. Can a person be initiated into "the darkness" (pg. 8)?

• no, has to live "in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable"

9. What does a person need in order to be a conqueror? What is one of the themes of Heart of Darkness that is revealed here?

• brute force
• theme=strong oppressing the weak

10. Why does Marlow start telling his story?

• nothing else to do while they wait for the flood to ebb

11. When Marlow says that his experience affected him by being "...not very clear. And yet it seemed to throw a kind of light," (pg. 9) this is an example of which figurative language device?

• paradox

12. When Marlow was young, he had a passion for maps and there were many blank spaces on the earth that he had a "hankering for" (pg. 10). What does this reveal about Marlow?

• always been attracted to the unknown

13. How does Marlow reveal that the English have a condescending attitude about the continent of Africa?

• "its cheap and not so nasty as it looks"

14. How did Marlow get his "appointment"?

• through his aunt's help, she asked a friend of hers whose husband was powerful

15. Who was Fresleven and how did he get killed? What happened to his body? What does his death reveal about the setting of Africa?

• former skipper of Marlow's steamboat
• when having an argument with a native, the son of the man cautiously poked him with his spear
• his body was left there, the grass grew through him
• that it changes people, nature overtakes

16. Marlow needed to visit a doctor before going to Africa. Describe his encounter with the doctor and the advice the doctor gives him. Why is this significant?

• the doctor measured his head and asked if there was any madness in his family
• "Avoid irritation more than exposure to the sun."
• shows that many who go to Africa either die or go insane

17. Right before Marlow is about to leave for Africa "a queer feeling came to [him] that [he] was an imposter...instead of going to the centre of a continent, I were about to set off for the centre of the earth" (pg. 17). What do you think this foreshadows?

• that this trip is much "bigger" or more than just a normal trip
• nervous, subconscious is telling him not to go

18. Marlow speaks about "the uniform somberness of the coast, seemed to keep me away from the truth of things...the voice of the surf...was a positive pleasure..." (pg. 19). What is significant about this setting?

• shows that Marlow is more at home on the open sea, forebodes difficulties in the interior

19. Marlow remembers a man-of-war "shelling the bush" (pg. 19). Describe this setting and explain what is significant about it.

• French warship firing at what appears to be nothing on the shore
• motif of waste

20. When Marlow has been traveling for 30 days he switches to a steamer whose captain is a Swede. The Swede remarks "It is funny what some people will do for a few francs a month. I wonder what becomes of that kind when it goes up country?" (pg. 21). What is significant about this comment?

• the Swede is questioning the morality of man because of the setting
• without civilization --> becomes unrestrained
• "up country"= little civilization

21. Pages 21-23 describe the new setting. What specific point is Marlow making while describing the setting?

• Marlow is pointing out that it is full of waste
• the objectless blasting being all the work that is going on shows waste
• connect back to the man-of-war blasting the bush again
• big hole that was dug just to give the "criminals" something to do

22. Marlow describes the workers as "black shadows of disease and starvation" (pg. 24) and continues to describe them until the bottom of page 25. How do you think Marlow feels about the workers?

• sees them as less than human
• is indecisive about his feelings
• shows imperialistic attitude