Chapter 9: Holier-than-Thou

          While reading this chapter I had mixed emotions about Rumfoord. Rumfoord was like an older sibling or someone who feels more intelligent than you or over confident about themselves. This becomes apparent to me when Rumfoord is reading these articles and Billy begins to speak and says, “I was there [Dresden]” (Vonnegut 191). Rumfoord seems to refuse to believe Billy and diagnosis him with echolalia, which is a disease where a mentally unstable person repeats (echoes) what others around them say. I feel like Rumfoord has this over confident and Holier-than-thou impression because of his life and his money. He feels as if he knows all and he does not want to be wrong about the fact that Billy would be better off dead. He uses the echolalia to ensure that he is not wrong about Billy and that he really is just repeating what others say. However, when he considers the fact that he was wrong about Billy he is willing listens to Billy’s knowledge of the bombing of Dresden and takes in the new knowledge with a sense of interest and pain and sorrow for all those who were there on that drastic day.