Slaughterhouse: The Unanswered Question

Slaughterhouse Five
Kurt Vonnegut

"It is so short and jumbled and jangled, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds. And what do the birds say? All there is to say about a massacre, things like "Poo-tee-weet?" (Vonnegut, 13).

At the end of the first chapter, Vonnegut tells the reader how the story is to begin and how the story is to end. True to his word, the story ends with a bird saying "poo-tee-weet?" The significance of this last line, however, is left for the reader to interpret.

Although the above quote at the beginning of the novel helps to give some background as to what the bird noise is supposed to signify, the sound still holds some mystery. The idea that the entire book was written about a horrifying event, yet the author could not comment on the event to conclude the story. This is strange because it seems unlikely that someone would write a book to leave the aftermath of its main subject open for discussion and interpretation. The fact that it is a question, and not a statement, lends to its mysterious nature and allows for greater interpretation. It is almost as if the bird is questioning the reasoning behind the massacre of the Dresden fire-bombing. Perhaps, it was asking why the massacre had not worked as planned and why there were survivors. The most likely interpretation, though, would be one with a negative connotation because of the quote at the beginning of the story. But this seems contradicting because of the setting in which the sound occurs. It is spring which is traditionally a time of rebirth, but it is still a time of great destruction in Dresden. In any matter, the idea of the bird ending the story leaves it open for interpretation and adds to the overall mystery of the event of the Dresden firebombing.