"Poo-tee-weet?"

The last words of Slaughter House Five are "Poo-tee-weet?" (275). This however, is no surprise to us, because from the very beginning, we were told how the book would end. "This one is a failure, and had to be, since it was written by a pillar of salt. It begins like this: Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. It ends like this: Poo-tee-weet?" (28).

One might ask, why end with a bird chirp? What does it have to do with the horror of the bombing of Dresden, the soldiers, the muck and the waisted amount of life?

I believe that when the author wrote Poo-tee-weet, he meant it as a symbol, a symbol that no matter what awful things humans do to eachother, life will go on. Nature's life cycles are not affected by human's desolation. Things will get better, and go on as before, people will eventually forget about past horrors, and move on to in-the-moment little problems.

Life is simple. Nature is pure. And birds will sing, even after fire has consumed an entire city.