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Contents
The novel's central figure. Billy is passive, thin, and accidental. He survives the war without doing anything heroic. His time-travel and alien abduction may be real or may be a breakdown. Either way, they show a man who cannot live in the present because the present is unbearable.
Vonnegut appears as himself in the first and last chapters and occasionally within the story. He reminds the reader that this is a real event he witnessed. His presence keeps the novel from becoming pure fantasy.
A fellow soldier who travels with Billy during the Battle of the Bulge. Weary is cruel and delusional, casting himself as a hero in a story where he is just another lost soldier. He dies of gangrene and blames Billy with his last breath.
An American POW and schoolteacher who is elected leader of the prisoners. He survives Dresden only to be executed for stealing a teapot. His death is the novel's clearest example of war's absurd cruelty.
A small, vicious American POW who promises to have Billy killed after the war to avenge Weary. He represents pure spite. His threat hangs over Billy's entire postwar life, and Billy knows it will be carried out.
A young actress abducted by the Tralfamadorians to be Billy's companion in the zoo. She is kind to Billy. Her presence in the alien sections shows what Billy wants: simple companionship without the weight of history.
Billy's wife. She loves him genuinely, though the novel treats her as a background figure. She dies in a car accident rushing to see Billy after his plane crash, and the narration moves past her death quickly, which is itself a comment on how the novel handles loss.
The wife of Vonnegut's wartime friend. She confronts Vonnegut in the first chapter, afraid he will write a book that makes war look exciting. Her challenge shapes the entire novel's approach.
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