Who is Billy Pilgrim?

In the end of chapter five I truly began to question exactly who Billy Pilgrim is.

The only idea I’ve had so far is that Billy Pilgrim is a human representation for Vonnegut’s trauma of the war. This theory is supported the following statement in the book: “It would make a good epitaph for Billy Pilgrim- and for me too.”

This statement is made in the book whilst Billy is in one of his voyages through time. If the author were not, in some way Billy, then he would have no way to know what he was thinking.

When I read that statement I felt my theory was correct, this however, was proved wrong just a couple of pages afterwards.

“”An American near Billy wailed that he had excreted everything but his brains. Moments later he said, “There they go, there they go.” He meant his brains.
That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book”

Here my whole theory was proved wrong because the author explicitly separates himself from Billy. There is no way Billy can be a representation of Vonnegut’s trauma because he is completely different, on the other hand there is still the previous moment in which Vonnegut knows exactly what Billy thinks.

Putting it all together, I would have to admit that I still haven’t got a clue who Billy Pilgrim is. I find him an intriguing character nonetheless, and I really can’t wait to find out where he comes form, and if he’s real. 

WAR

“Before you kill somebody, make absolutely sure he isn’t well connected.”

Sadly, this reminds me of our current reality.

It reminds me of the way we treat others and it reminds me of the superficial culture we have become. It is simple for us all to say that we are not superficial, that we care for others and we give away all that we have.

That is a lie.

We may feel like giving to others every once in a while, and I would love to be selfless and help everyone. But humans (yes, me included) are naturally selfish. There is no way to deny that. When it comes to a very big and important choice, you will always put yourself first. I have tried to deny it, but truthfully, it’s something we can’t help.

War is unnatural. War is just “… the incredible artificial weather that Earthlings sometimes create for other Earthlings when they don’t want those other Earthlings to inhabit Earth anymore.” We have come to a point where we invent excuses to start a war. As a race we have stopped caring about each other and thus have completely unbalanced the world.

In Slaughterhouse Five I have noticed that most of the characters seem to think of the war as a waste of time. Billy really doesn’t care for it, Derby describes it as unnatural, and even Vonnegut is clearly disturbed by it.

From this it is not hard to draw the conclusion that on the whole, war is a pretty pathetic thing. 

We Win

The books in Tralfamadore are like a picture. They are messages mixed together perfectly to evoke a beautiful and deep image of life. Most importantly, these books are (like all else in Tralfamadore), not written lineally. “There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects.” In other words, there is no room for surprise.

 I can’t picture myself living in such a measured world for more than a few minutes. I would probably explode.

 In a way the world of the Tralfamadorians can be seen as a huge chaos. With time being just a bunch or parallel moments, there is no way that the world can be organized. To me, Tralfamadore is a world of supreme order. They never ask themselves why the world is as it is, they never question living or wars. They have nothing worth living for. This makes life just a thing they have to go through every day because it is written that way. There is no room for a bit of chaos. There is no room for risk taking or for fighting for what you believe in. Tralfamadore just is, and that is what makes the whole thing dull.

“Vy you? Vy anybody?” 

This quote is actually quite touching to me and I find that it may describe many soldiers who actually lived during World War II. Most of the soldiers were just kids when they went to war, and although the posters said that they were doing it for their country I can’t help but think that they always asked themselves: why? Why were they killing the Jews? Why were they killing anyone who was different? Why were they killing at all? I can’t imagine that the soldiers were happy. I believe that any soldier has the right to be bitter and distressed. They should not have to see what they see in war. No one should have to see that. And when I think about it I always end up with the same question: If no one likes war… Why do we do it in the first place?

The world of the Tralfamadorians is very different from ours, and (call me biased) I believe our world is better. Not only a bit better, better all the way. The idea of the Tralfamadorians that life just is and that there is no way to change it makes the everything seem dull. The main difference between the Tralfamadorians and us stands in one small word: why. We ask ourselves why we live the way we do while they just say “it just is.” To me this is just a lie. It can’t be possible. There is no way that we can live without wanting to change anything, just letting people die and excusing ourselves with a simple “it just is.” If life is already written down then what is the point in living it? 

Backwards

And finally… let it be known that this book is a master piece.

I have become more familiar with the way Vonnegut writes. This has helped me understand the novel and I am now taking more out of each section I read. The time traveling Billy is subjected to is the reason for this novel’s hazy plotline. Said plotline only makes the book more interesting, each section leads to a new event, in a different year, and in completely different circumstances. As a reader I am still not sure what all these events have in common (maybe they don’t have anything at all) and where they are leading. Perhaps there is a bigger point behind all of the small memories Billy has. Perhaps they are just meant to give me more insight on Billy Pilgrim’s life. Perhaps the author used them just to fill pages. I wouldn’t know, but there they are, and they are thrilling.

Vonnegut manages to find the obscure line between excessive description and not enough description in this book. Every event is described perfectly. The author gives enough insight so the reader will get the exact image of the scene, but not so much that the reader will get bored through it.

This scene is a complete contradiction to the Tralfamadorian ideal which states that time is not linear. The way Vonnegut describes every detail of time (even if it is going backwards) clearly states that time is lineal. According to the Tralfamadorian way of thinking, time can’t go forwards or backwards, it just is. 

Furthermore this scene is just a mockery of war in general. It doesn’t illustrate war as something painful or even as something that has an effect in human lives. It just describes war as a comic book would, as if it were nothing more than a few pieces of scrap metal and some humans lying around crying melodramatically. It takes away the importance of war, which is also a contradiction seeing as it was this war that caused Billy all his suffering in the first place.  This is the main reason I loved the beginning of chapter 4.

I would like to begin by saying that the description of the movie seen backwards by Billy Pilgrim is easily the best scene I have ever read.   

(all confused readers please read the paragraphs from last to first)

Past, Present, Future

“Among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future”. This quote from the book appears contradicting seeing as Billy Pilgrim is seemingly able to travel in time. In this chapter, Vonnegut treats the past and present as if they were insignificant, somehow merged together. He writes them as though the limits between them were blurred. Billy’s life is a mixture of past, future, and present. He spends his time falling asleep while he should be awake but finds that sleep doesn’t come to him when he has the time for it. Throughout this chapter it is easy to see that Billy Pilgrim finds his life unfulfilling. As a war veteran and wealthy optometrist this seems hard to imagine, but that’s the way it is. His daughter thinks he is a liar, he was a war prisoner in Germany, he falls asleep during his work meetings and nothing seems to fill him up.

The fact that he seems to be crazy and is unable to sleep may lead to the reader believing that Billy Pilgrim has post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the war, and I must say, to me, that is the most likely explanation for his behavior and his idea of being kidnaped by aliens. The Tralfamadorians seem to be his way of getting over what he saw in the war. They believe that every moment has always been the same way and thus it could have never been changed. This probably helps Billy live over the regret of war. This ideology probably is the one thing that keeps him sane, or at least relatively so.  He is certainly a troubled man and I think some of this confusion may be due to the war and possibly to the bombing of Dresden which is what the book is supposed to be about.   

Something that struck as very interesting to me in this chapter was the plaque in Billy’s office which stated: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference.” This plaque seems to tie up with the quote I mentioned at the beginning, it states that there are certain things that cannot be changed, and we must accept that, but in a way it also contradicts it by saying that some things must be changed if they can be. I have noticed that Vonnegut seems to contradict himself a lot in his writing, even if it is with little things such as this. To me this is part of what makes him such a brilliant author, his book is fascinating to read because it is complex. You find yourself rereading pieces of it, just to make sure you understood right. The novel is extremely well written and the situation is so bizarre it is hard to put it down.  

So It Goes

Death always happens when you least expect it: “So it goes.” Most people would agree to this statement, and most would try to ensure their survival for the longest amount of time. Billy Pilgrim however, is not one of them. He lives in a constant state of fright due to his time traveling. What I find interesting about Billy’s situation, is the fact that he is doing nothing to prolong his time on earth. On the contrary, he wishes it was all over. He wishes to be left alone so “he wouldn’t cause anybody any more trouble.” In a way this reminds me of a book I read a while ago called Speak. In this book the main character was raped and she constantly feels the need to just disappear, like Billy, she would’ve liked to just “turn into steam and float up among the treetops.”

The Tralfamadorian idea that time is not linear is, to me, one of the most interesting ideas in the second chapter. Maybe that is the way the universe really is organized. As human beings we have come to consider ourselves the most knowledgeable species in the universe, yet we constantly prove each other wrong. If we can prove each other wrong, then maybe we are all wrong right now. Maybe someone will someday discover something that will change the world. Maybe someday we will realize that time is after all, non-linear. By then I will probably be dead, and the world will have changed. Maybe someday we will find that there really is a grand purpose for life and for our existence but for now we are just doomed to wander in a world we barley understand. We watch time go by and then we die. “So it goes.”

Even though the book constantly refers to death (that is not surprising, it is a war book after all) the feeling of the writing is not so serious. I believe this is mostly due to the simple three words the author uses after every death scene, the three words I previously quoted: “So it goes.” This phrase lightens the mood of every death, making it sound as something normal, something that can’t be changed and therefor is not worth dwelling over.

 Death happens: “So it goes.” 

Everything Happens, More or Less.

“All this happened, more or less.” The bombing of Dresden happened and eventually Kurt Vonnegut wrote a book about it. He had trouble doing it though. He had trouble remembering the most traumatic event of his life.  The most important events in a person’s life normally shine like a beacon in his memories and they have probably been replayed constantly. But when it comes to actually describing said events, you may find that they become a full on blur, and no words seem to fit.  The moment you really have to think about that episode that changed your life, suddenly the memory seems to be gone

“All this happened, more or less.” Everything seems to be that way in the world now, even in Kurt Vonnegut’s reality. We never really know what’s happening. Twisted propaganda, social classes, and commercialism have led us all towards different realities. We all live in bubbles, thinking that our own specific reality is the same around the world. We live without realizing that what to us seems normal, may be considered completely abnormal in someone else’s life.

“All this happened, more or less.” This phrase is how Kurt Vonnegut chose to start Slaughterhouse Five, one of his most famous novels. In my opinion no other beginning would have fit this book better. The whole first chapter of Slaughterhouse Five is completely different from anything I expected. Having heard that it was a famous “war book” I wasn’t expecting what I read. I was pleasantly surprised though, and I noticed that this seemed more realistic than any other book that simply talks about war. The way the author captures the want to write about war, and at the same time the hesitancy to do so, makes the book a master piece.  Vonnegut doesn’t organize his ideas in a traditional way. He jumps from memory to memory, creating a brilliantly messed up order for the story. He writes in short chapters, each one being a specific memory. Although this manner of writing may be frustrating for the reader at times, I find it makes the book even more interesting and realistic, because no one really thinks in chronological order. 

The Perfect Life by John Koethe

As we grow up and learn about ourselves and the world that surrounds us the magic we used to find in simple things is gone. The world seems to lose half its color and the things we used to associate with happiness and fun lose their special touch, turning into everyday activities. In this poem John Koethe  illustrates his life this way and conveys to the reader a certain desperation to find something more, something that brings back the perfection in his life. 
I believe perfection in life doesn't come from the perfect circumstances but from the bright moments that make a difference in daily life. Perfection depends on the person who is striving for it because it may mean something different for everyone. To me perfection is freedom.
Nobody is free in this world. The greatest enemy to freedom is the person looking for it.You  may set the bar to be free, but by doing so you create expectations for yourself, the same expectations you wanted to be free of in the first place. This is, what I believe John Koethe wanted the reader to see in his poem, a certain wish to be free and see life in technicolor as kids do. A wish for magic to come back and for repetitive routines to end. In many ways I think the author just wishes to be a child again just as most people do.
When we are young we all wish to be grown-ups and have a more complicated life. We spend our days pretending to be older and wiser, we see adults as all powerful beings. Beings that could solve all our problems and make everything perfect.
Now as adults (or at least  on our way to become adults) we wish our problems were make-believe as they once were, we wish life was as simple as once was but most of all, we wish the world was as colorful as it once seemed to be.  

POETIC JUSTICE

"When the savage spirit quits the body from which it has torn itself, then Minos sends it to the seventh maw. It falls into the wood, and there's no space to which it is allotted, but wherever fortune has flung that soul, that is the space where, even as a grain of spelt, it sprouts." (Dante's Inferno; canto XIII; 93-99)
This quote represents poetic justice in Dante's Inferno because it illustrates how the spirits have that which they misused taken from them. Their bodies were given to them by God and they were unthankful for them. That is why they are later punished as trees, condemned to miss what they wasted for all eternity.