incidents in Dresden. The novel served as a form of therapy for Vonnegut. It enabled him
             to examine the events of the past that impacted on his life and to come to terms with them.
             Slaughterhouse Five takes place mostly about, and partially during, World War II.
             Vonnegut chooses to focus the novel on events surrounding the fire-bombing of Dresden,
             Germany. As James Lundquist explains,
             The bombing of Dresden was a surprise raid. It wasn't expected because the city was
             militarily unimportant. The population of the city had been doubled by prisoners-of-war
             and refugees. On February thirteenth, 1944, American bombers dropped high-explosive
             bombs followed by incendiaries which caused a firestorm that could be seen more than
             two-hundred miles away. On February fourteenth, the Americans carried out a second
             raid which completed the destruction of the city. More that two-hundred thousand
             people were killed outright, burned to death, or died after. Vonnegut and Billy Pilgrim
             were herded with other prisoners-of-war into the storage area of a slaughterhouse and
             later emerged to find the once beautiful city looking like the surface of the moon
             Vonnegut reexamines the bombing of Dresden, he relates the event in a way that shows
             the reader his personal view of the incident. He confronts the Dresden experience with
             ...