Then, try to answer your own question. Dig deep. Perhaps try out a couple of potential answers. Perhaps, in your answer, provide/connect your analysis to an idea of a piece of textual evidence from earlier in the novel. It's okay if you don't know the answer. Points of confusion get us thinking.
YOU MUST ALSO RESPOND TO A CLASSMATE'S QUESTION. Agree or disagree, but make sure that you add something new-- a new idea, a reference to another part of the book. Include textual evidence as you push the conversation forward.
** PLEASE DO NOT REPEAT QUOTATIONS OR IDEAS.
Format:
"...." (#).
Question:
Jonathan Benitez
ReplyDelete"But you're right: each clump of symbols is a brief, urgent message describing a situation a scene" (88).
Q: What is the resemblance of tralfamadorian writing and SlaughterHouse Five? What does this say about vonnegut? How does this connect to the idea of no free will in war?
While reading this quote I felt that there were two highly important details Vonnegut was trying to portray. The first idea was that Vonnegut much like the aliens seems to write in these jumbled up passages of specific events, yet there seems to lack a flowing structure in them. Then I wondered what the hidden was purpose was behind it and the idea of war being fought by children came up. Vonnegut is further portraying that there is no purpose behind war and that there is not much to say about war. In all respect Slaughterhouse Five is also a jumble of events because like Vonnegut sad there is nothing more to war than “Poo-tee-weet?” (22) The novel itself is an example that Vonnegut was unable to choose specifics events from the war because there was nothing intelligent to say about it. Another idea was the connection between Tralfamadorians reading all at once and the idea between free will. The aliens describe stories with “no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects” (88). In Tralfamadorian ideology, books and faith are one, in which there are no surprises because everything is predetermined, just like death. One must simply accept the events that occur and much like Billy one begins to comply with everything that is thrown at them. Billy is represented with this lack of free will because he accepts everyone’s death and feels he can do nothing more but say ”So it goes”. Therefore Vonnegut further poses this idea that free will does not exist in war and even the pain and sorrows of war cannot be paid to those who have died.
I had never thought about how Vonnegut's choice to structure the book, switching between time periods for brief moments, relates to the tralfamadorian books, but now that you point it out they are very similar. Great connection! Slaughterhouse Five itself is a bit of a crazy, nonsensical book, and as you say Vonnegut must have done that with a purpose. I agree that he is portraying the futility and confusion of war. However, while the Tralfamadorians seem to not believe in free will, I think Vonnegut does. We know he is a humanist, who believes in the importance of human choices. he speaks about writing an "anti-glacier" book, but glaciers can be melted. He wouldn't have written Slaughterhouse Five at all if he felt he wasn't contributing to peace and reflection on the atrocities of war. Free will may not exist in war, but I think Vonnegut would say we have the freedom and power to prevent the next one.
DeleteI had never made the connection between Slaughter House Five and the writings of the Tralfalmadorians, but now that you say it, it makes complete sense. Throughout reading it I have been thinking a lot about what Vonnegut said in the first chapter, "It is so short and jumbled and jangles, Sam, because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre." I believe that is exactly what Vonnegut is trying to say in this book, that he might as well make this book as nonsensical as massacre and war are. But the idea that he is putting these memories in random order, like the way the Tralfalmadorians would as to see all the memories at the same time also makes sense.
DeleteGood stuff guys! I agree with John, Billy has been assimilated into the "so it goes" attitude that comes from Tralfamadorian culture. Billy is very receptive to this idea whereas others may not have been. In fact he is believes in it so adamantly that he tries to share his wisdom with the skeptical public. This is because this the idea that life is immutable and predetermined helps billy to make sense of nonsensical war or rather accept. This reminds me of a quote from a previous chapter that sums of the thinking,"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change." This is more or less the lense in which Billy views the world. He can accept the atrocities of war because they would have happened no matter what. Also all moments are equally abundant and simultaneous, so the good balances the bad, no moment is longer than any other. I think as the plot progresses we will see even more signs of Tralfamadorina influence in Billy's life.
Delete"The Englishman touched him explanatorily here and there, filled with pity. 'My God—what have they done to you lad? This isn’t a man. It’s a broken kite'" (97)
ReplyDeleteHow does war alter people? How does this connect to Vonnagut?
In this quote, the Englishmen are astonished to find Billy in the shape he is in. They look at him as if he played an innocent role in the war and were "filled with pity". Vonnagut wants this reaction from people, so he made these men surprised to Billy in this way, because it strengthens his anti-war argument. Billy was physically damaged due to the war. The Englishmen refer to Billy as a "broken kite" which shows how hurt veterans get in the short run. Veterans get scarred in the long term
too. Billy is so hurt and "broken" from the war and seeign so much destruction he can't handle it. That is why he created the Traflagdomina's, so he has a way of dealing with the bad that has come out of war and try to make it good. Vonnagut also had a hard time getting past the things he saw from war, so he is forced to use a satire view on war. A question I have is, why does Vonagut write a war book if he thinks we are just going to repeat ourselves?
I agree with you, Billy is definitely affected by war. However, tragedy of war is even better described by people surrounding Billy in prison camp. I have a strong impression about Englishman prisoners, who are living kind of “normal” life, but this life is “virtual” and tragic, like their freedom is.
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ReplyDelete"The book was 'Maniacs in the Fourth Dimension', by Kilgore Trout. It was about people whose mental diseases couldn't be treated because the causes of the diseases were all in the fourth dimension, and three- dimension Earthing doctors couldn't see those causes at all, or even imagine them." (104)
ReplyDeleteDoes Billy's mental instability affect how the story is told?
Since the beginning of Slaughterhouse Five, Billy has been referencing to his encounter with the Tralfamadorians. In chapter 5, it is revealed that, while in a mental hospital, Billy is exposed to Science Fiction Books. Eliot Rosewater is responsible for this exposure because he shared a room with Billy, and brought along books that had to do with beings who could see in fourth dimensions. This information provided by the quote shows how Billy was influenced by these books. Because of not being mentally stable, he thought of this supernatural idea, as being a reality. This makes me wonder if anything he is saying about his life after the war is even true. His time traveling, and encounter with an other worldly species can all be a side effect of his mental problems. Does Vonnegut create Billy's mental problems in order for us to question his credibility?
I agree with you, and I also thought the same thing while reading. This made me think of a scene where Billy gets drunk and then starts talking about the Tralfamadorians (pg 73). While reading I asked myself, "were the Tralfamadorians just a drunk imaginary thing of Billys? Or did he truly believe it?" I question his credibility, because I think that many parts of the story are odd or hard to believe. How is it possible for him to recall a huge chunk of his life so clearly, but at the same time believe that he was friends with aliens?
DeleteI agree completely. I also believed that it was because of his instability of his mental health. I think it could also be the way he ignores things that bother him in the world. As we know from previous chapters he never gets mad or shows anger. So him believing in Tralfamadorians and abductions helped him to cope with his problems here on Earth and in those milliseconds he is able to get. i feel like he also has a short attention span.
Delete"The giraffes accepted Billy as one of their own... two approached him from opposite sides...they kissed him..." (99)
ReplyDeleteWhy does Vonnegut include the dream about the giraffes?
In Slaughterhouse Five, Billy is a soldier who feels alienated, unimportant, unloved, and unaccepted. Throughout his war experience, Billy has been pushed around, both by German soldiers, and fellow Americans. He has repeatedly tried to connect with them, but due to his failed attempts, he has resorted to creating stories in his mind where he is accepted and loved. These scenarios include the giraffe dream, where he is "accepted as one of their own," and they loved him so "they kissed him." Another way Billy has made himself feel apart of something is through the Tralfamadorians that he created. By creating Billy’s imaginary friendships, Vonnegut emphasizes Billy’s loneliness, and shows how death is not the only depressing aspect of war.
I agree that Billy is very lonely, but what is interesting to me is that Billy chooses to isolate himself from the people that love him. For example, when he is in the mental facility, he hides under his blankets from his mother. Billy feels "embarrassed" and "weak" around his mother. This description causes me to think that Billy wants to be treated as an equal and does not want to be pitied. We have to remember that Vonnegut is a humanist, so he believes in the equality of everyone. All of this proves that being in a war has permanent effects on people, including the creations false realities.
DeleteI also agree the Billy is lonely. Billy is apart from most of his family. His wife is dead, his son at war, his mom is in a home, and his daughter barely visits him. Billy's giraffe dream is a reflection of who he is as a lonely person and an inner longing to be loved. In many ways Billy hides his emotions by denying the grief that comes with death and destruction. For me, I wonder how long Billy will suppress his emotions and how it will manifest in the future? Apart from an inner longing, this giraffe dream may help Billy cope with death and destruction.
Delete"Derby described the incredible artificial weather that Earthlings sometimes create for other Earthlings when they don't want those other Earthlings to inhabit Earth anymore." pg. 106
ReplyDeleteWhy does Vonnegut describe war in such an unusual way? Why does he repeat the words "Earthlings" and "Earth"?
This quote stood out to me because its such an unusual way for an author to describe the exchange of gunfire in a deadly and terrifying war zone. The gunfire is called "incredible artificial weather" which sounds like some innocuous technology, even a helpful one. It reminds me of Weary calling gruesome killings "neat tortures" like we talked about in class. Vonnegut also talks about war in a detached, naive way in this passage, the way an outsider would, or someone talking to a child. Instead of saying Earthlings murder each other, he says war is something Earthlings do "when they don't want those other Earthlings to inhabit Earth anymore." I think Vonnegut does this to make Earth seem unfamiliar, as if readers are Tralfamadorians trying to understand what's going on in a war. I believe Vonnegut also wants to catch our attention, trigger our moral compasses, when we stop and think, gunfire isn't "incredible", war shouldn't be this sugarcoated. He emphasizes Earthlings and Earth to further develop the idea that war is abnormal, an anomaly we shouldn't let happen. I think this quote can even shed light on why Vonnegut includes the Tralfamadorians in Slaughterhouse Five: I think he wants us to really look at war as something unusual and inexplicable, ultimately alien.
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DeleteI agree with you about Vonnegut asserting that war should not be sugarcoated. At one point, Billy mentions that he owns some Tastee-Freeze stands and he says, "Tastee-Freeze was a sort of a frozen custard. It gave all the pleasure that ice cream could give, without the stiffness and bitter coldness of ice cream" (61). Many times, the media and movies portray heroic feats of soldiers and exclude the trauma and agony some of them may have experienced. However, I feel like he doesn't want readers to see war as inexplicable, but rather face the cruelty of it instead of hiding from it. I think he includes the Tralfamadorians as way of showing that war is actually unavoidable because in many ways, they personify war. The creatures take Billy captive as if he were a war prisoner and they put him in a zoo; it seems as if they can do whatever they want with Billy.
Delete" 'Why me?' he asked the guard.
ReplyDeleteThe guard shoved him back into ranks. 'Vy you? Vy anybody?' he said" (91).
What is Vonnegut trying to say about fate vs. free will?
The idea that free will is absent in war is a recurring one. There is a parallel between the Germans and the Tralfamadorians: the Tralfamadorians tell Billy that we are all just "bugs trapped in amber" and that "there is no why" (77). In other words, free will does not exist and no decisions that we make will affect the future. Billy Pilgrim has altogether stopped asking questions about the tragedies in life and now views all losses with same attitude: so it goes. This outlook is an unhealthy one because all deaths are being treated as equal, when the death of a person is more important than the death of champagne. All of this begs the question: if our lives are predetermined, why does anyone put in effort? If all people thought that free will did not exist, they would see no reason to change anything because it wouldn’t matter anyway.
I agree with what you said here. Billy doesn't have such a positive outlook on life anymore. It almost seems as though he thinks there isn't anything worth living for. The fact that no one has free will sort of takes away from the purpose of actually living and functioning. If we have no control over what happens in our life, then why be alive at all?
DeleteI agree with you, although when I observed this I thought it was more of a commentary on Vonnegut's part rather than a development in Billy's character. I believe Vonnegut uses this as well as his question to the reader of "Why?" (99) to show humans tendency to question things and the juxtaposition of the Tramalfadorians who don't question anything. I also notice a commentary on the life of a soldier, miserable, constantly in danger, who has nothing to do except look to the sky and ask "Why?"
DeleteI agree with you. I do think that Billy treats all deaths as being equal, and he might have been influenced by the dog tags and numbers that the American prisoners got when entering the prison camp. When someone died, all they did would take the tag and have "a strong man.. snap it in two with his bare hands"(92). This procedure was the same for everyone, because everyone was treated equally when it came t their death.
Delete"' We have forgotten that wars were fought by babies. When I saw those freshly shaved faces, it was a shock.'" (106)
ReplyDeleteQ: Why does Vonnegut compare soldiers to babies?
A: This line in particular stood out to me because of the comparison Vonnegut makes. He compares the soldiers to babies, which I find quite strange. When I tend to think of soldiers, I imagine men who are prepared for combat and whose physical state is fit. Babies on the other hand are the complete opposite. Babies are in this process of growing and developing, something a soldier should have already gone through, for the most part. Vonnegut creates this image to demonstrate that the people sent to war are learning how to fight as they go along. In reality, no one knows what to expect when put in combat. They grow and develop as the war progresses. I do slightly disagree with this comparison. I don't think men are just sent to war and not given any training. Soldiers have to have some sort of understanding on how war works and what happens. I think it's just a matter of who you are and how you learn from what occurs around you. Is there ever a point though, where babies become men?
I think the comparison between babies and soldiers has to do with the time period. We are in a time, when people choose to join the Army and at a specific age. In World War II, young men didn't have a chance to grow a certain age and join the army. Therefore, most of the people fighting this war, were under the age of 18. And, the soldiers in WWII, were put into the battlefield without any training whatsoever, even Weary didn't know how to handle a gun. So, the comparison between soldiers and babies is correct when thinking about what time period Vonnegut was writing about.
DeleteA draft, which was the American rule of war at this time, sometimes didn't offer the intensive training for the incoming recruits. They were thrown into a battle overseas when needed, and since they were young men, they were, under false pretenses, expected to easily pick up on the rules. While the Germans were trained to a core, the Americans were just in dire need of men on the front lines, no matter how good or bad they were. They just needed people holding a gun. Babies are out there on the battlefield dumbfounded, not knowing what to do. I believe the comparison is well written. Babies become men through experience and a war might just be the turning point to their lives.
DeleteStephen Michaels
ReplyDelete"something ghostly... The Watch had a radium dial" "there were more starving russians with faces like radium dials." 91, 92
Why does Vonnegut describe the Soldiers and the "ghostly" watch as having Radium Dials?
I immediately noticed the use of the repetition of the radium dial on the two consecutive faces. I stopped reading to compare the three ideas spoken about. The ghostly watch Billy sees in the dark cave, and the starving Russians are both connected to the idea of the Radium Dial watch. This makes me think about the presence of time in the Russians and the ghostly watch. Seeing the Russians as radium dials seems like a countdown, that theyre existence is measured by the time they have left on the earth. The way the watch haunts Billy foreshadows his relationship with time throughout the book, and the "ghostliness" of the watch reminds me of the presence of death throughout the book, and the connection between death and time as something natural which happens. Vonnegut seems to suggest the ghost of the watch and the near ghost of the Russians are similar in that they both haunt Billy. I also see the connection in the Russians being prisoners and Billy being a prisoner to time as he travels against his will through different moments in his existence. Another connection I made was the glow of the Radium dial to juxtapose the pale, hungry Russian soldiers who live without glow.
"Seeing the Russians as radium dials seems like a countdown, that they're existence is measured by the time they have left on the earth."
DeleteThats actually really an interesting thing to say, considering radium is radioactive and any given amount of the stuff has only a limited time for its existence. This element, a fundamental building block of the world, is impermanent. I feel like that adds a whole new level to what you're saying. You may have stumbled on more than you thought.
-Ben
"There isn't any particular relationship between all the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep."
ReplyDeleteWhat are the differences between the way Tralfalmadorians see the world and how humans see the world as told by Vonnegut?
Tralfalmadorians, the aliens in Slaughter House Five, see time and space and death as one big picture, with each moment just a pixel in the larger image. They see memories on a string, and view them all at the same time. They do not believe anything can die because it was alive at one moment so it can live forever in memories. They see the world in shades of grey, there is no absolute, there is no right and wrong, there just is. Humans however, through Vonnegut's eyes, see the world in black and white. A person is alive and then they are dead. The past was then, the present is now, and the future is later. People see everything with tunnel vision, not able to take in the meaning of what they are experiencing. This all speaks a lot to the way Vonnegut views people and the war. He describes how Billy adapted the Tralfalmadorians view on death and how after someone, or something, dies they simply say, "so it goes." Billy repeats that over and over throughout the book, always after something dies. Maybe Vonnegut himself took on this view of death in order to cope with the huge amount it he witnessed during the war.
I agree with you in the sense that the term "so it goes" is used to comfort the idea of reoccurring death in the novel. However when put in context, it seems very unlikely that Vonnegut would use the term to comfort while an anti war book. The question is then, why use repetition of the term? I believe instead that Vonnegut uses the term to do the opposite of comfort the idea of death. Rather, I think that Vonnegut created the term to intensify the effect of death throughout the novel because of the repetition of such a bland term. In reality though, "so it goes" carries a forceful message that war is full of constant death and pain, that while reading a book, the reader cannot pass a page without the term "so it goes". Thus, Vonnegut illustrates a time in which death cannot go by unseen.
Delete"Everybody was legally alive now. Before they get their names and numbers i that book, they were missing in action and probably dead."(91)
ReplyDeleteQuestion: What is the meaning of legally alive? Why is everyone given a number, isn't that inhuman?
Answer: Legally alive in context of Vonnegut's writing means that you are accounted for in a group of others. Or even the knowledge of your existence. I think that it is wrong for them to assume that you are dead and have not even attempting to look for you or to think of your presence. They just skip over you as if you hadn't made accomplishments in life and that you may have amounted to something. This also reminds me of death at war, no one really cares if you die they don't even think to look for you or notify your family. They feel as if you are unimportant and you hadn't done anything justifiable in your life time, Being assigned a number is degrading and inhuman, that is basically giving you a category or a placement. I think that if I had number I would feel ranked or even displeasing. I feel that you were given a name for a better title of recognition and that people would be able to address you on a more personal level. Rather than saying number 512. I feel that having a name makes you feel more important and useful knowing that they can address you with a special greeting or something that's your own. Being that Vonnegut is a humanist it shows everything he is against. Vonnegut uses this novel to show how having human characteristics could help to make you feel more welcome in a society.
I agree, it is inhumane to give a number and call someone legally alive. However, this is an anti war book and Kurt Vonnegut is a humanist. He is showing the harsh ways soldiers were treated in the war because honestly this is reality. Soldiers are treated like objects when in war, yet heroes when they are not in the war. In response to legally alive again soldiers are just objects and are living to be a part of a group fighting for their country. But yet they are dead from all the traumatic experiences and are emotionally dead therefore they are legally alive due to their physical body functioning.
DeleteWhy did Vonnegut choose Billy to be the main character since he isn’t a correct example of what other soldiers in the war behaved like?
ReplyDelete"'My God- what have they done to you, lad? This isn't a man. It's a broken kite'" (Vonnegut, 97).
This quote stood out to me because it does a great job of characterizing Billy. Billy seems more like an object showcasing the mental results of the traumatic experiences in war and not exactly a regular solider in the war. Billy’s calm persona after being burned makes the Enligshman assume that Billy is use to this kind of treatment. Since he had no reaction it seems like he is broken and he had been victimized before. Billy is a really pathetic solider, he gets on nearly everyone's bad side by being hopeless and useless. Physical he isn’t any better; he is “tall and weak and shaped like a bottle of Coca-Cola” (Vonnegut 23). But yet he survives many traumatic events that many other people couldn’t. I think it was very smart of Vonnegut to choose Billy to be the protagonist in an anti war book because he portrays the innocence hidden deep in all soldiers.
“When Billy Pilgrim’s name was inscribed in the ledger of the prison camp, he was given a number, too and an iron dogtag in which that number is stamped. A slave laborer from Poland had done the stamping. He was dead now. So it goes” (91)
ReplyDeleteHow Vonnegut does use the characters to show the absurdity of war?
When Billy gets to the prison camp, he crosses his path with a different people. All of them are different but they are linked with their tragic destinies as a direct result of the war. Physically exhausted and mentally distressed Americans Paul Lazzaro and Edgar Derby are lost souls in the world of war, a wrong people on the wrong place in the wrong time. As opposite, we have a group of Englishman prisoners who make war look stylish and reasonable and fun. They singing, exercising, even become wealthy with their stock of food given by Red Cross. And that’s becomes metaphor of absurdity of war. Their ”happiness” is actually tragic, and their world is virtual, like their freedom.
Milos, I agree with you fully that British Prisoners are living in a false paradise, but I believe that this is to their own benefit. They have all attempted escape, and failed miserably. Had the succeeded, they would have likely died. Without food, money, fuel, or the ability to speak the language they would likely be dead within a short period of time. So they are confined to a small physical space. They are also not able to contact their families, other than the Red Cross informing them that they are alive. For the past four years they have lived without contact from a woman or child. Yet they live like kings inside their prison. Their gross abundance of additional food rations has let them live a life of physical ease, but of mental toil. They are more mentally captured than physically, and in there lies Vonnegut’s twisted cycle. You cannot free your body without freeing your mind, and vice versa.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with what you're saying. However, I feel like Vonnegut doesn't only use his characters to show the absurdities of war. I think he uses different characters to grasp different aspects of the war. The quote you chose shows that Billy was a prisoner and it helped support the fact that he was treated poorly. This represents one of the negative aspects of war. However, the Englishman prisoners show a different side to war and the effects of war than Billy does. A new question could be, why does Vonnegut show some prisoners as happy and some as sad? Why not make them all one mood to show the ultimate effect war has on it's prisoners? What is he trying to say about war through the variety of moods of his prisoners?
Delete"They were adored by the Germans, who thought they were exactly what Englishmen ought to be. They made war look stylish and reasonable, and fun. So the Germans let them have four sheds, though one shed would have held them all" (94).
ReplyDeleteQ: What is Vonnegut trying to convey about humans’ justification of horrifying events?
While reading this novel, I noticed that Vonnegut uses Billy and his experiences in war to portray that the courageous and triumphant tone to war stories we here today are mostly inaccurate representations of war. For example, we are used to hearing stories about all the brave men fighting hard in these wars, but in the beginning of the novel, Mary O’Hare angrily points out that Vonnegut and her husband were nothing but babies when they fought the war, and Vonnegut vows to name his novel “The Children’s Crusade.” Roland Weary was one of these child crusaders, inexperienced and at the mere age of eighteen. The Germans laugh at Billy and wonder how an army could send someone so weak to the front. These stories juxtapose the valiant and strong soldiers we hear about in the media and admire in the movies. When Vonnegut mentions that the Germans adored the Englishmen because they “made war look stylish,” he is trying to portray that humans justify horrid events such as keeping war prisoners by finding something they believe sounds appealing to cover up the harsh truth. In this case, the Germans enjoy that Englishmen cover up the brutalities of war by singing and being enthusiastic. The Germans believe that everyone should see war as ‘reasonable’ because it will help justify the killings and other cruelties that occur in war. This reminds me of when a Billy asks a Tralfamadorian how they got him and it replies, “It would take another Earthling to explain it to you. Earthlings are the great explainers, explaining why this event is structured as it is…” (85). There seems to be a tone of sarcasm here. Humans are always trying to make themselves feel better by hiding the truth and sugarcoating it with messages they know will satisfy people. For example, we pretend all soldiers in war are brave and ready to fight for this country and we exclude the trauma many soldiers face (I’m not saying there aren’t any brave soldiers, but pointing out that we usually do not talk about the frightened and delirious ones.) Vonnegut wants humans to stop sugarcoating the gruesome facts of war and instead convey the truth because if there is one thing we owe to soldiers, it is not to respect them because of the admirable soldiers we see in movies, but because we know many of them have made it through hell and back.
. "Billy was told to hang the tag around his neck along with his American dogtags, which he did."(92)
ReplyDelete-What does this dogtag symbolize? Why is it significant?
In my belief, the dogtag symbolizes control over Billy, and the American troops. Billy was given a dogtag to wear in a prison camp, which he hung with the rest of his American dogtags. Dogtags are meant to show the name of the person to be able to identify them and send them to their family. But, is Vonnegut trying to convey something else? The dogtags represents how war has the ability to overtake any person and manipulate their views. In death, the dogtag is snapped in two. It is because, once you are a part of the war, and with a dogtag, you are only half of who you are. The other half is what war has made you, and when you die and the dogtag gets snapped, the side of yourself is left at the grave, while the side of you in the war remains. The reason why Vonnegut wrote that the dogtag was easy to break is because, Billy's view on death is passive and so is most of the book's view on death. Therefore, the dogtag is easily broken because the soldiers lives are so short in war, many of them die and its okay, because its war.
"Everybody was legally alive now. Before they got their names and numbers in that book, they were missing in action and probably dead...So it goes. (91)
ReplyDeleteQuestion: Why does Kurt Vonnegut refer to this line as if soldiers are already dead on the inside, and that they are replaceable?
Answer: Kurt Vonnegut is extremely anti-war. Although serving, his first hand encounters with the treatment of soldiers and how they are not treated as humans with a mind for themselves and can be replaced by drafting anybody. They choose the young men that still have their whole life ahead of them to go serve in the army for which most of them have no prior training for. Vonnegut uses this to portray the belief that soldiers are just like robots, programmed to serve their country and die. They are not "alive". Everybody dies but not everybody lives. When the soldiers' names were put in the ledger, that made them prisoners of war, as if that were their definition. Before that, they were assumed to be dead, because everyone was expected to die in the war or go missing because these kids had no experience. Vonnegut emphasizes the disgust that 18 year old "babies" are put on the front lines when they could have been something greater to humanity. Soldiers are seen as very replaceable because if one dies, there's always more out there to take their place. Kurt Vonnegut's repulsion for war is clearly shown through this line.
Lily Barbu
DeleteI agree with what your perspective that Kurt is strongly showing his distaste towards the fundamentals of war. He describes soldiers in war as merely numbers in a book, or just another addition to the list of missing or dead soldiers. I like how you wrote that "when the soldiers names were put in the ledger, that made them prisoners of war." I believe that once a soldier enters war, they will be carrying around the stigma of its horrors for the rest of their life. The brutality and inhumane surroundings that are around these "babies", ones who still have much of there life to experience, are exposed to these cruel, horrible memories from a early age. Kurt emphasizes the true effects of war on people, and how it can devastate the rest of your life.
"There were twenty nine other patients assigned to the ward, but they were all outdoors now, enjoying the day. They were free to come and go as they pleased, to go home, even, if they liked- and so was Billy Pilgrim. They had come here voluntarily, alarmed by the outside world" (100). This quote really brings up the idea of insanity and especially the predominant role it may or may not play in Billy Pilgrims life. The essential question remains: Is he insane? Does mental insanity account for all the time traveling and other things in his life that seem unrealistic? I, personally, do not think Billy Pilgrim is mentally insane. I don't think he has a medical disability or disorder that accounts for the odds and ends in his life. I think he has simply created things such as Tralfamadore to help him cope with certain hardships in his life. For example, one of the things that the Tralfamadorians have an excellent way of coping with is death. They don't regard death as important and therefore, nor does Billy. However, after being around so many deaths throughout the war, I think Billy uses this Tralfamadorian way of thinking of death as an alternative to actually facing death itself. This is just one example. Billy created Tralfamadore so he could have a different way of handling everything he's feeling- particularly the after effects of war. The Tralfamadorian way of thinking gives him an easy way out of facing the hard post war emotions.
ReplyDeleteEmily I agree with you on your point that he is crazy, but I also believe that he feels a certain loneliness in his life to feel this way. in order to cope with being lonely and isolated from society he makes up all these crazy stories of time travel and the Tralfamadorians to pass his time, and to cure his insanity. His stories are very farfetched to make him seem crazy I think he is just a very young man being thrown into the world and does not know his place yet. All of this made billy feel like his life was meaningless and there was no point of his existence. The reason I think so is because billy constantly says how life is meaningless and war is inhumane.
DeleteLily Barbu
ReplyDelete"Billy had committed himself in the middle of his final year at the Ilium School of Optometry. Nobody else suspected that he was going crazy...Now he was in the hospital. The doctors agreed: He was going crazy..They didn’t think it had anything to do with war"(100).
Question: Does Billy use optometry as a connection between his Tralfamadorian theories and expressing them to the public, does it account with war?
Billy does use the study of optometry to inform the public of Tralfamadorian theories, these theories (realistically) appear true to him, as he believes that he actually experienced them. When you go into war, you are consequently entering a battle through death, watching other people die and the other various horrors of wars that many people witness. It leaves a stigma on your life forever; many people after war are diagnosed with stress, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder- the list goes on. Kurt Vonnegut could have possibly put this “Tralfamadorian theory” into the book to express the effects of war on people, and a way for Billy to handle all the horrors that he witnessed. Another suggestion, can be that, Billy is not crazy and he actually experienced it these Tralfamadorian phases. In terms of optometry, it is very important in the book because it is his way of explaining to the rest of the world, through the very perplex theories of the Tralfamadorians. For example, the Tralfmadorians had the idea that when someone dies, they are not gone forever, because their memories still live. Thus, you can connect optometry (correlated to study of vision/glasses) as a way for Billy to express these visions through beyond “Typical” lenses, and correct humans understanding of death. In conclusion, yes Billy does use optometry to connect those theories to the public through a different “lense of life.”
I agree that the events that Billy had witnessed do stick with you, they are not easy to forget. I actually think that him going "crazy" has to deal with the war. And I think Billy made up the Tralfamadorian theory to make sense of the events he witnessed.
Delete"How nice to feel nothing, and still get full credit fr being alive"(105).
ReplyDeleteWhy does Vonnegut say that its good to feel nothing ( as if your dead) but its good to get the credit for living?
I think Vonnegut is trying to show how much war can really affect a person and how depressing it is. Billy is a patient in this hospital with a guy named Rosewater who is equally depressed as Billy. I think because of all the horrific events that Billy and Rosewater had to endure, they just want to feel numb to the pain. And no longer have the normal feelings and emotions that come with being a human like sadness, pain, depression, and they just want to feel nothing. I think these two patients want to live, but they just have been feeling depressed for so long that they just don't want to have that pain anymore and just want to feel better again as they were before they were drafted into the war.
I agree, both Billy and Rosewater have been depressed for so long, they can no longer enjoy life and find it meaningless to live. However, I feel like the comment, "How nice to feel nothing," is sarcasm, because not feeling anything, is just torture. How is one suppose to live life, with out having any feelings, besides depression. One should be able to enjoy the little things and feel happiness once in a while. To actually live, is to make most of life.
Delete" There are no telegrams on Tralfamadore...each clump of symbols is a brief, urgent message-describing a situation , a scene...we tralfamadorians read them all at once...there is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, and no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of marvelous moments seen all at one time. “(88)
ReplyDeleteQ: How do Tralfamadorian novels differ from modern day novels?
A: This quote stood out to me because of Vonnegut’s description of Tralfamadorian novels. When analyzing a novel, I usually look for the themes, the main characters, and the plot. I see how the story is woven from the beginning, through the middle, to the end. It takes me time to finish a novel and I can’t read it all at once. Vonnegut draws our attention to the uniqueness of Tralfamadorians by having the ability to read things all at once that have such deep meanings and interpretations without context just symbols. Today, novels consist of words which together match up to make an idea, but Vonnegut describes Tralfamadorian novels as deep beautiful moments. For me Tralfamadorian novels can be interpreted as pictures. Pictures have no beginning, middle, or end, they consists of beautiful moments that happened in time and can be interpreted to your perspective. One glance at a picture can show the deeper meaning within it.
"I was there. So was my old war buddy, Bernard V. O'hare" (67).
ReplyDeleteI don't know, maybe I'm crazy, but I keep coming back to this one little line. He drops out of the third person writing style to enter this first person perspective about himself, not billy pilgrim, not any character, but himself. I thought that was the point of Kilgore Trout. My question is simple: Why does he drop out of third person in favor of first person?
Honestly I'm not entirely sure. I think its because this scene was most likely a real scene in his life. Some deranged captain trying to rally his men in their defeat, uselessly. To me, this was a powerful scene, in that it was human and real. A lot of the book up until this point was somewhat disconnected and detached. That one sentence however, is entirely real Vonnegut, which I found really amazing. There might not be a deeper meaning here. It might just be Vonnegut.
"I think you guys are going to have to come up with a lot of wonderful new lies, or people just aren't going to want to go on living"(101).
ReplyDeleteQ: Why is it better to lie? Is the truth too much to handle?
I believe that this quote shows the horror of life and how humanity can not tolerate it. People seem to only live with lies, and so avoid knowing the truth. If the truth does come, humanity would collapse, "people just aren't going to want to go on living". Rosewater comments to, "come up with wonderful new lies", suggesting that the world currently lives on lies, and by inventing wonderful false statements, humanity can progress. Vonnegut probably suggests that humanity is too coward to know the true meaning of life, and so concludes that people would not be able to handle the truth about reality.
“The only thing he can see through one eyehole is the narrow passage of a pipe, and all he sees is a little dot at the end of the pipe. But the vast spectacle in bright daylight that is supposed to lie before him across a desert is a mountain
ReplyDeleterange, birds, clouds, stones and canyons. Neither aware of this panorama, nor of the moving flatcar that has fixed him, nor of his peculiar limitation, Billy has no choice but to say "That's life"(115).
What does Vonnegut think of complacency towards evil?
Throughout slaughterhouse 5 the phrase “it is what it is” is used constantly. It is a literary shrugging of the shoulders. It is complete complacency. This is what Vonnegut questions, our complacency with our own reality. The aliens that are created are not a hallucination or a phantom. Rather they are a symbol of our innate ability to reject what our own reality is. Instead of simply giving into our environment, humans can redefine our own realities. Not only do we have the privilege to do so, we have the responsibility. Complacency towards evil is an act as despicable as committing that evil. The citizens of Auschwitz may not have been releasing the tanks of gas, but they smelled the burning corpses, and they gladly took the mountains of shoes, and clothes, and jewelry. They knew what was going on around them, to every person that walked under the sign that said “Work makes you free.” Yet they were complacent, and they are guilty.
There isn’t any particular relationship between the messages, except that the author has chosen them carefully, so that, when seen all at once, they produce an image of life that is beautiful and surprising and deep. There is no beginning, no middle, no end, no suspense, no moral, no causes, no effects. What we love in our books are the depths of many marvelous moments seen all at one time.
ReplyDeleteMy Question: What does this book show about the Tralfamadorians, and the writing style of "Slaughter House-Five"
The book from Tralfamadore accurately epitomizes the teachings of their discoveries. There linear plot as we have on earth which plays into their way of looking at time, as a collection of simultaneous events rather than chronologically. Also the mysterious way that they can deliver the best things about nooks without any of the tools we would use on earth such as drama, suspense, etc. shows their profound sage-like wisdom. Looking at the bigger picture, the book from Tralfamadore is (and this may be a bit of a stretch) the rough structure of "Slaughter House-Five." Like the Tralfamadorian book "Slaughter House-Five" is more or less a collection of events, sort of clustered or lumped together that do not necessarily connect, except that we know that they are very carefully chosen because Vonnegut took 20 years to write it! Vonnegut wants to achieve the same beauty and depth as the Tralfamadorians so he uses the same format. I think this part of the book is kind of like a "peek behind the curtains" showing what Vonnegut's thought and writing process was when writing this book.
"Every night I pray"
ReplyDelete"That's a good thing to do"
"People would be surprised if they knew how much in this world was due to prayers" (103)
When I read this part of the conversation it made me link it back to "so it goes" a quote we notice that Billy uses after every death no matter the person or thing. When I read that part of the conversation, however, it reminded me of people and their faith and how at times we loose faith and at others we gain. I feel like Vonnegut is trying to make another dealing with death idea. That when someone does die or goes away for a long time. (similar that to Billies moms when she died) The person who passes away is gone but not forever because when you you will eventually see them in the after life. And if you dont believe in that then just live for them, tell their story. If something unjust was done like being dragged into war sit down and right a book about it get peoples attention. Pray for closure and peace. All that you an do now is remember the good memories which is the main idea behind "so it goes" and to continue praying, praying for strength, praying for the lives lost everyday, which i feel is the big idea behind "people would be surprised if they knew how much in this world was due to prayer." You will loose people through out your life and whether it be due to war or to a poisoning or whatever it be we must continue to live on for them and tell their story.
Quote:
ReplyDelete"So they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe."(101)
Question:
Why does Vonnegut use a character like Billy to symbolize the stupidity of society and civilization? Why does Billy keep questioning ones existence?
My impression of Vonneguts writing is that he uses characters like Billy to show that war is not humane, but wicked. In Billy's case going to war as a young man where one has usually not found ones identity can be very traumatic and it almost seems normal for someone to go crazy under those circumstances, I certainly know I would. Being pressured into war is the worst thing one can do cause' the maturity factor and attitude is not where it should be if your going to see friends and family die in combat. Billy believes his life is meaningless and irrelevant to society. I think he is just lost, lost in his own mind after experienceing many traumatic experiences in the war, being alone, and surviving while others die around you might make you want to think, why am I still here? Or is there a purpose to my existence? These questions seem to standout while reading and thinking about Billy's experiences.