Tone of Slaughter House-Five

     In Slaughter House-Five I personally, find the tone to be regretful and pretty nostalgic. Due to Billy always traveling back in time I feel a sense of nostalgia because he's always thinking of the past and making connections to it. Billy also shows many feelings of regret in this book especially when talking about Valencia, his wife. On page 107 it says, "Billy didn't want to marry Valencia. She was one of the symptoms of his disease. He knew he was going crazy when he heard himself proposing marriage to her....". Billy married Valencia because he saw a secure and steady future with her, Valencia's rich dad sealed the deal for Billy. Looking back on the marriage you can tell Billy regrets marrying her because he doesn't love her at all.

    Another tone I see in the book is fear. In many of Billy's time jumps are negative and fearful moments. For example in chapter two Billy is drowning and then time jumps to visiting his mother in a nursing home because she was very sick with Phenomena. This is a fearful situation because both his and his moms life were at risk. Another example is when Billy time jumps to cheating on his wife, while this may not be as fearful it is defiantly negative. Do you think Billy feels guilty for cheating on his wife? Although Billy doesn't love Valencia do you believe he has any respect for her at all? In chapter five Valencia tells Billy she'll lose weight for him and he assures her he likes her the way she is even though in reality Billy thinks she overweight, do you think that was Billy's way of trying to be respectful? Or is he just strictly with her for the money and doesnt care how he treats her at all? I feel like it would be very hard to be married to someone and have kids with them and not have any emotion or feelings toward them at all. After all, Billy does really love his kids and takes an active part in their lives and if it wasn't for Valencia he wouldn't have them.