In the final chapter of the book, we are given a final message from the Tralfamadorians: " The Earthling figure who is most engaging to the Tralfamadorian mind, he says, is Charles Darwin- who taught that those who die are meant to die, that corpses are improvements" (74 PDF). On the same chapter this statement is proved wrong. All the people that were killed in Dresden did they improve humanity through their death? Most of their corpses were burned and nothing was left to make their existence justified by that Darwinian principle.
The people that died at Dresden didn't die because of natural selection. They didn't have a chance to resist the bombs. Natural selection allows some to live through, the strongest. Dresden is destruction alone, with out a meaning other than death. Anyhow the Darwinian principle as adopted by the Tralfmadorians dehumanizes us even if it is the way things are meant to be for humans.
The "corpse mine"(74 PDF) has great importance in proving this point. Bodies were eventually burned and left there. They would not contribute to the evolution of humanity, they would only remain there as proof of the horror we have created. This belief contradicts the Tralfamadorian believe and shows as a great contrast on the story. However these contrasts in the book clearly show something other than irony.
These differences in the book between what should happen and the reality demonstrate the evil in war. This accentuates the book's anti-war theme. Through irony and sarcasm this books tells us a point of view of the war. It teaches us many important lessons and when I ended reading the book I wasn't sure what to take seriously and what as irony. The only thing that I was certain about was that war is a horrible thing that isn't natural and it will only harm humanity. This is certainly the message Vonnegut wanted to instill in us, how war goes against everything evolution has worked so hard to create.
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