"The Americans were taken to the fifth building inside the gate. It was a one-story cement-block cube with sliding doors in front and back. It had been built as a shelter for pigs about to be butchered. Now it was going to serve as a home away from home for one hundred American prisoners of war" (Vonnegut 152).
In this quote Vonnegut describes the old slaughterhouse in Dresden where pigs used to be butchered.This picture relates to this quote because it shows a large butchering knife.
I believe that the fact that the prisoners are staying in the old slaughterhouse is very significant. The slaughterhouse can be interpreted as a metaphor for World War II, and the pigs symbolize the soldiers. The soldiers are rounded up and shipped off to war and then killed in mass quantities, much like pigs being butchered. I believe that by comparing the war to a slaughterhouse, Vonnegut strengthens the anti-war themes present in the novel.
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