Lily Learns a Thing or Two

In Chapter 9 of Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut briefly introduces a few new characters to the life of Billy Pilgrim. While in the hospital after his plane crashed, Pilgrim's roommates, Bertram Rumfoord, and his wife Lily. Rumfoord's fifth wife, Lily is indirectly characterized by Vonnegut as an uneducated high school dropout with little knowledge inside her head. In fact, could she even read?
Here are a few things Vonnegut directly states about Lily's character: she is Rumfoord's fifth wife and is twenty-three years of age.
Indirectly, Vonnegut later characterizes her as a pretty young girl, but I wouldn't say the lights are exactly on upstairs. Vonnegut says, "[Lily] had been an a-go-go girl when Rumfoord saw her and resolved to make her his own. She was a high school dropout. Her IQ was 103" (184). Honestly, I don't know too much about IQs, but I do know that if Vonnegut were to mention it, I doubt it would be too high. Especially about poor Lily, who just doesn't seem to know any better. Poor Lily. The reader also knows that she was a high school dropout and an a-go-go, so her life hasn't gone extremely smoothly. She has had a rough life so far, and marrying an old man like Rumfoord seemed to be a good option for her, so that also tells the reader how slowly the cogs are turning in her head. Let's just say she isn't exactly the brightest Crayola in the box.
Later in the chapter, Vonnegut continues to indirectly characterize Lily as a dim-witted dropout with a life made difficult by her lack of education. A few examples of Lily's uneducation include:

• "She didn't read well, which was one of the reasons she dropped out of high school" (185). The poor girl can't read? Yikes. Most people learn to read by high school, so that's a great example of Lily's sad lack of education.
• "He knew very little about her, except that she was one more public demonstration that he was superman" (185). She probably only married the guy for his money. She couldn't actually love him. Shaking my head.
• "So Lily sat down and pretended to read the Truman thing" (185). I can actually hear her saying, "Ok, I'll just read this Truman thing." Lily is somewhat of a stereotypical teenager with poor speaking abilities.

Those are three examples I found, and all are on the very next page from the introduction of Lily. it's sad that she hasn't gotten proper education throughout her life. She has struggled greatly in the classroom, but at least she's pretty. That seems to be all that Rumfoord cares about her, and he married her for all the wrong reasons. Although her lack of education isn't something to be laughed at, Vonnegut probably introduces her into his book as a form of satirizing high school dropouts who later marry old men for money. Vonnegut is trying to make fun of the uneducated women in American society. Shaking my head.