Slaughterhouse-Five Characters

Billy Pilgrim

Billy is the main character of Slaughterhouse-Five, but he's not exactly the hero of the book. Or...

The Narrator

The narrator is—sorry to spoil it for you—pretty much Kurt Vonnegut. (Not that that's...

Kilgore Trout

If you can read this dude's name without snickering, you're way ahead of us. Kilgore. Trout. This...

The Tralfamadorians

The what-now? Oh, we're glad you asked. These guys are aliens... who look like toilet...

Edgar Derby

Edgar Derby is the unfortunate high school teacher and slightly older-than-average soldier who...

Paul Lazzaro

Paul Lazzaro is the fake name of a real guy the narrator mentions in the first chapter, who...

Roland Weary

Roland Weary is an unpleasant little jerkface who finds Billy wandering around behind enemy lines...

Valencia Pilgrim

Valencia is Billy's extremely large and extremely good-natured wife. She never thought anyone...

Barbara Pilgrim

Barbara is Billy's daughter. In 1968, when Billy writes his letters about Tralfamadore to the...

Robert Pilgrim

Robert is Billy's son. He is a wild kid in high school, but then he joins the Marines and...

Billy's Father

We don't get to see much of Billy's father... but we see enough not to like him all that much. We...

Billy's Mother

Billy's mother is sort of like his wife, Valencia—Freud would have a field day. She is...

Howard W. Campbell, Jr.

Howard W. Campbell, Jr., like Bertram Copeland Rumfoord, actually appeared in a previous Vonnegut...

Bertram Copeland Rumfoord

Bertram Copeland Rumfoord—who originally appears in another of Vonnegut's books, The Sirens...

Bernard V. O'Hare

Bernard V. O'Hare is the narrator's war buddy who accompanies him on his trip back to the...

Mary O'Hare

Mary O'Hare is the wife of the narrator's war buddy, Bernard V. O'Hare. She is initially furious...

Gerhard Müller

The second person who appears in the book's dedication after Mary O'Hare is Gerhard Müller,...

The Narrator's Dad

The narrator's father only appears twice in the novel, but each time he seems to be fairly...

The Narrator's Wife

The narrator's wife is pretty darn minor as a character, but never let it be said that we here at...

Montana Wildhack

Montana Wildhack is a hot 20-year-old porn star/actress whom the Tralfamadorians pair Billy with...

Eliot Rosewater

Eliot Rosewater is a captain in World War II. He winds up in the same veteran's hospital Billy...

Wild Bob

Wild Bob is an American colonel and prisoner along with Billy at the Luxembourg/German border. As...

The Englishmen

The Englishmen are the first group of POWs the Americans meet when they are shipped from...

The British Colonel

The British colonel is the head of the Englishmen in the POW compound Billy stops at before...

Lionel Merble

Lionel Merble is Valencia Pilgrim's father and Billy's father-in-law. He is an optometrist who...

Nanny

Nanny is the narrator's daughter. It's on a trip with her to the New York World's Fair in 1964...

Nancy

Nancy is a very minor character indeed, since she only appears in the fifth section of the first...

The Blue Fairy Godmother

Paul Lazzaro tries to steal a pack of cigarettes from under the pillow of an Englishman, who...

The German Major

This guy is the head of the POW camp where Billy Pilgrim meets the English officers. The German...

Werner Gluck

Werner is a 16-year-old German charged with guarding Billy and Edgar Derby when they first arrive...

Maggie White

Maggie White is the wife of an optometrist and a guest at Billy's anniversary party, to which he...

Lily Rumfoord

Lily Rumfoord is, along with Maggie White, is a hot-but-dumb woman who attaches herself to a...

The Maori

The Maori are a group of native people from New Zealand. When Billy is assigned to dig up bodies...

The Dogs

There are a bunch of dogs in this novel. There is Sandy, the narrator's dog; Spot, a (sadly...

Lance Rumfoord

Bertram Copeland Rumfoord's nephew, whom Billy Pilgrim happens to see from the window of his...

Cynthia Landry

Lance Rumfoord's wife.