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Allusion
Explanation and Analysis—Pillar of Salt:
At the end of the first chapter, there are two allusions to the biblical Book of Genesis:
And Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes. [...]
I’ve finished my war book now. The next one I write is going to be fun. This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt.
The Book of Genesis explains that angels were going to punish the people of Sodom but wanted to spare Lot's family. Because Lot's wife turned and looked back, attempting to see the destruction wrought by the angels, she was turned into a pillar of salt. The narrator claims to love Lot's wife because to look back was human. For Vonnegut, then, to make mistakes, and to die as a result of those mistakes, is to be human. Considering the story centers around World War II, this humanizing message is quite relevant.
There is also a metaphor in the quotation above, as the narrator claims the story of Billy Pilgrim was written by a pillar of salt. The narrator, a stand-in for Vonnegut, then compares himself to the pillar of salt from Genesis: through reflecting and writing on his time as a soldier, he is constantly 'looking back' at destruction, and is punished accordingly. Vonnegut, by writing this book, is once again bearing witness to the horrors of war. The allusion to Lot's wife than reveals what Vonnegut thinks of himself as the author of Slaughterhouse-Five: a flawed human who has made and will make mistakes, complicit both as a real-life solider who fought in World War II and as voyeur in the horrors that he witnessed. The themes of witness and mercy, as well as war and destruction, are both furthered at the end of the first chapter through the allusion to the Book of Genesis.
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