In Chapter 6 of Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut provides his best example thus far of situational irony. With the quote from Edgar Derby to his wife of: "Dear Margaret- We are leaving for Dresden today. Don't worry. It will never be bombed. It is an open city" on page 147,Vonnegut ironically hints the reader the exact opposite of what will happen. He knows Dresden will be bombed. Billy Pilgrim, in future flashbacks of his life, knows Dresden will be bombed. Even the reader knows (at this point in the book) that Dresden will be bombed.
The situational irony in the statement from Derby to his wife alerts the reader to the upcoming climax of SH-5: the inevitable Dresden bombing. Vonnegut has been hinting at this event since Chapter 1, but now the picture seems less and less fuzzy. We (the readers) know the bombing is coming and will undoubtedly shake up the rest of the plot. Now it seems as though Vonnegut will somehow manage to transform the bombing into a humorous, comical epicenter of SH-5.
We, as the readers, should have known this was coming. (Uh, what am I saying, we do know it's coming.) Vonnegut has been throwing his humor throughout his book, so it only makes sense that he will convey humor from such a tragic event in history. Somehow, it took until now for me to realize this. With Derby's ironic "It will never be bombed", it all finally clicked with me. Everyone (except obviously Derby) knows the bombing is coming. Now it's just a matter of when it will happen, and how Vonnegut is able to satirize the bombing. So it goes.
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