Chapter 1

The novel begins with an anecdote about how Kurt Vonnegut came to write the novel. He knew that he wanted to write a novel about war but he could not decide what sort of approach to take. He was aided in his discovery by a woman named Mary O'Hare. She scolded him for writing a book about war that would then cause more young children to ship themselves off and die. Vonnegut decides to write an anti-war novel in order to detail his own negative experiences and to dissuade others from following this path. The novel then undergoes a shift from autobiographical information to the story that he actually wrote. He ended his introduction chapter by providing the reader with how the story starts as well as how it ends in order to connect the autobiographical information with the story ahead.