Chapter One

Summary (Highlights):

• The author introduces himself as a man called Yon Yohnson.
  
• An introduction to the fire bombing in Dresden, Germany.
• Glimpse of his trip to Dresden a few years after the firebombing. 
• Introduction to characters; Billy Pilgrim, Mary O'Hare, Gerard O' Hare, Taxi driver.

Analysis:

Almost instantly, we can tell that Vonnegut wrote this chapter after writing the whole book. He gives an introduction to it and explains the various motifs of why he chose to write about the firebombing in Dresden. 

Although throughout the first part of this chapter he writes in 1st person, he later on begins to narrate the story in 3rd person.

We can also tell that he will not speak about his experiences but about the experiences of a character by the name of Billy Pilgrim.

Also, in various occasions throughout this chapter he expresses his feelings towards the war. Ex: Mary O'Hare's opinion about "babies".

Relations:

The way Vonnegut narrates the story, it reminds me a lot of the book called "Catcher in the Rye" and "A Clockwork Orange". Both books use some sort of slang and narrate their life experiences to get to the main point. 

In the beginning, I thought that he would be retelling the story as he remembers it, especially after he meets up with Gerard O' Hare in order to fill in some blank spots. But halfway throughout the chapter, he introduces Billy Pilgrim which in the end lets us know that he is going to retell Billy's story in relation to Dresden. 

Also, when Vonnegut explains how he created an outline for his book using crayons and a napkin and how all the colors eventually blended together, this reminds me of the time I did the same thing for an English assignment. We were supposed to create a story and I didn't have paper so I used a couple of gum wrappers to write down the ideas that came into my head while I was in the waiting room of my dentist's office. 

There was also this one time where I drove in a hired taxi from one region of Colombia to the other. The whole way I talked to the driver about several topics just like how 'Yon' talks about communism to the taxi driver in Dresden. In fact, the Christmas card that the driver sent Yon one year reminds me of the hallmark cards you get people that quote a maxim because you have no idea what to write to them.