Happy Birthday, 1951

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"Happy Birthday, 1951" is a short story by Kurt Vonnegut. It takes place in an unknown country. Our main characters live in some of the ruins after the war. It is seven years after World War II, but the country is still filled with soldiers. The main characters in the short story are an old man and a boy, we do not know their name nor their age. We are told that a refugee woman left her baby by the old man after the war and then she never came back - That's how the man got the boy. The old man do not know anything about the boy and that's why they are choosing a day to celebrate the boy's birthday. As a birthday present the man wants to take the boy to a place without war. On their way to the place, they see four soldiers "The old man stepped into the street, out of their way. The boy saluted, and held his ground. The soldiers smiled, returned his salute, and parted their ranks to let him pass." When they arrive, they eat their lunch, close their eyes and sleep for a while. In the end of the story the boy disappears when the man is sleeping out in the woods, and when he realizes this, the panic wells up in him. The young boy was born in the latter half of the Second World War. We can extract this piece of information because of the short story’s title (1951), and because the boy has not gotten any birthday presents in the first six years of his life, which probably means that the boy turns 7 years in the story. The boy’s nationality, name and birthday are also unknown. The boy’s mother was a refugee, who probably delivered her baby to the old man because she feared for her life. The young boy has lived his whole life in a cellar in a shattered city. Therefore he cannot remember much if anything nothing from the war. This is why he does not have the same view on soldiers and tanks as the old man, who takes care of him. The boy admires the soldiers and the tanks,

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