What else is left to be said after a massacre like Dresden? When all the people are buried in graves of rubble and ashes, what is left to speak volumes for the many, now deceased? Only the birds, asking rhetorically, "Poo-tee-weet?"
The question, intended for strong effect, is the last statement in the book; it is left unanswered. It leaves the audience of Slaughterhouse-Five to create their own reactions and responses to the strongly anti-war novel. Normal human words cannot do the disaster justice (even Vonnegut mentions how he had trouble writing the book), so animals who witnessed the whole thing were left to tweet in awe. "Poo-tee-weet?" means what happened? What do we do now? How... how could humans do this to other humans? The nonsense question represents the speechlessness and horror that people experience when seeing such mass destruction and death. Many times, the strongest of men become weak at the knees and damp in the eyes at the violence of war. Brilliantly, Vonnegut ends his thought-provoking novel with the rhetorical question and simple response of the creatures to the bloodshed of Dresden. That feeble statement of innocent birds represents exactly the thoughts all of Earth's creatures who freeze in shock upon learning of such a massacre.
I completely agree. Vonnegut uses the rhetorical question to explain that war does not make any sense. No matter how hard anyone tries, no words can describe the horrific events of war.
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