Compare and contrast images of paradise versus calamity in slaughterhouse-five and explain the use of such contrasting images.

Slaughtehouse-Five has a very peculiar structure. Vonnegut's idea of time is reflected in it, it's not linear. As a result, there are a lot of contrasting images. An example of this is the contrast between the following Paradisiac image:

Under morphine, Billy had a dream of giraffes in a garden. The giraffes were following gravel paths (...) Billy was a giraffe, too (...) The giraffes accepted Billy as one of their own, as a harmless creature as preposterously specialized as themselves. Two approached him from opposite sides, leaned against him. They had long, muscular upper lips which they could shape like the bells of bugles. They kissed him with these. They were female giraffes-cream and lemon yellow.

With an quite calamitous image not too far from that part of the book:

Rosewater was twice as smart as Billy, but he and Billy were dealing with similar crises in similar ways. They had both found life meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in war. Rosewater, for instance, had shot a fourteen-year-old fireman, mistaking him for a German soldier (...) And Billy had seen the greatest massacre in European history, which was the firebombing of Dresden.

billygate was not one of the scandals

the government closely monitored its finances to avoid another financial collapse.