There is no dramatic irony in the pit and the pendulum but there is situational irony.
The answer would be “but” since it contrasts his motivation with competing with others for a high score.
Hopefully this helped.
I hope i didn’t miss anything but here are the edits!
This question is incomplete, here´s the complete question.
Read Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut.
During the party for Billy and Valencia’s eighteenth wedding anniversary, Billy is greatly upset by the barbershop quartet (219-30; 172-80 in the shorter edition). Summarize what happens to him in this moment and why. What do you think Vonnegut is saying about the nature of memory in this section of the book (and indeed throughout the book)?
Answer:
The barbershop quartet reminds Billy of the German officers when they saw the destruction caused by the bombing of Dresden. Billy breaks down and realizes he has some "big secret" inside. Vonnegut´s ideas about the nature of memory appear in Billy´s suppressing his emotion during the war, to end up having his later civilian life shape by what happened there.
Explanation:
Traumatized by the horrors of war, Billy´s memory constantly takes him into vivid flashbacks, showing that he hasn´t truly processed what he has gone through.
I've been meaning to <em>ask you</em>
If that's not too <em>drastical</em>
wonder if it's <em>okay</em>
To pick you up by<em> eight</em>
The rhyme scheme of this poem is AABB. The rhyme in this poem is achieved by the pronounciation and stress put into "ask you"; stressing ASK and then stressing the first syllabe of "drastical" and this way the rhyme on the first two lines is completed. Then for the last two lines the rhyme is achieved and the whole stanza resolved by stressing "okAY" and then "Eight".
Meter:
The stanza's meter is trochaic tetrameter (4 trochees, 8 syllables)
<em>I</em><em>'ve</em> <em>been </em>| <em>meaning</em><em> </em>| <em>to</em> | ask you
if that's | not | too | drastical
wonder | if | it's | okay
To pick | you up | by | eight
This rhyme scheme and meter are most used by rap artist for it's impact and flexibility to create a rhyme. The stressed words are the ones that address the receiver of the message that is a proposition for a meeting or a date. This poem is fitting for the rap music genre, for it's pronounciation of key words (with a suburban accent) completes the rhyme in the second and third lines ("oKAY" and "DRAStical").
