Chapter 8: Metaphor

          In this chapter of Slaughterhouse Five Vonnegut gives us an image and understanding of how hungry and sick the Americans were. Vonnegut uses the presence of Howard W. Campbell Jr. as the opportunity to show the terrible condition all the Americans were in. Campbell comes to recruit American prisons of war for “The Free American Corps,” which was supposed to fight only on the Russian front. Vonnegut describes the American prisons in many ways such as, “Campbell’s audience [Americans] was sleepy… It [the audience of American prisoners] was skinny and hollow-eye. Its skin were beginning to blossom with small sores. So were its mouths and throats and intestines” (Vonnegut 163). As a gift to the Americans Campbell offered the Americans food, which included steaks, mashed potatoes and gravy, and mince pie; however, the Americans would only receive this gift if and only if they would join “The Free American Corps.” Even though the American prisoners were hungry and sick, they did not say a word to Howard W. Campbell Jr. Eventually “poor old Edgar Derby’ stood up and Vonnegut describes this as, “His stance was that of a punch-drunk fighter” (Vonnegut 164). Poor old Edgar Derby stands up for the American prisoners in a time that Vonnegut describes as, “…probably the finest moment in his life” (Vonnegut 164). The metaphor that Vonnegut uses by describing Derby’s stance as he stands up show us, the readers how hungry, sick, and exhausted the American soldiers were and how terrible of conditions they had to live in were. Considering the fact that Edgar Derby was unable to stand up and be stable, I can conclude that the Americans still believe in their government and their country, because even though they are living in bad condition they are not willing to abandon their countrymen just for a steak and some mince pie.