Chapter 6 - Dramatic Irony

    In chapter six of Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy and the rest of the American POWs are being sent to Dresden.  Vonnegut presents a situation of dramatic irony as the Englishman romanticizes about the place the Americans are being sent.  He explains his envy for the Americans because they won't be "cooped up like us" since "Dresden is a beautiful city."  The Englishman also tells the Americans that they "needn't worry about bombs," for "Dresden is an open city."  The irony is, however, that the reader knows that Dresden will be bombed since Vonnegut has made a point to notify the reader that the Bombing of  Dresden will be the center of his novel.  Although Dresden may have once been a beautiful city, as the Englishman commented, it will soon just be a pile of rubble.  Vonnegut used this dramatic irony to explain to the reader that the POWs were clueless of what was to come.  The danger Billy and the other characters were about to face was not known to them at the time making it even harder to face.