Well hello there, old friend! The blog is back. For this post, please:
1) Read and thoroughly annotate Chapter 2, and then choose a passage that stands out to you/intrigues you/confuses you. Type up the passage, in its entirety, and cite it.
2) Then, either:
- Ask a question and work through your confusion in a thorough response. Call on your classmates to also engage with this passage and unpack it together. OR--
- Look at specific language/literary devices/tools and write a response in which you examine the EFFECT of these devices. What do these observations that you've made DO for the novel?
Some reminders:
- Make sure that you BOTH create your own comment and also respond to a classmate's comment.
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- Make sure that you comment under your band
- Don't repeat classmates' passages. If someone has already used yours, then respond to it directly and choose another. There's plenty to discuss.
- Your comment should be at least 5-7 sentences or longer. Your reply to a classmate should be a thorough reply that pushes the conversation forward by asking follow-up questions and/or making connections to other parts of novel or other works. The use of textual evidence in a response is a great way to keep the conversation going!
- Please use appropriate grammar/punctuation. This is NOT a text message.
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The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist"(26).
ReplyDeleteThis quote is very deep. It's also pretty interesting because even though death is very sudden and inevitable. It is still a very traumatic thing to deal with the loss of a loved one. Even though Billy attempts to make a statement about time he ignores a lot of the major factors involved with a sudden death. Yes after loosing someone you can still treasure all of the moments that you shared with them, but will you ever be able to bring those moments back to life? Will you ever be able to press replay? Additionally this quote portrays Billy as someone who has never really been affected by the death of another. This is pretty ironic considering how many people died during the Dresden bombings. You would assume that all characters in the book would be a little more concerned about death. This makes him a peculiar antiwar hero. Also It is pretty significant that Billy was able to survive a plane crash in Vermont and then experience the death of his wife during his healing. All of these surreal experiences might be causes of Billy's instability throughout the chapter.
Yes, I thoroughly agree that sudden death is so traumatic and final, because once it happens there is no way to bring the moments you shared with the people you lost back to life. While some of us may have unfortunately lost close family suddenly, hopefully our own lives were never in any danger. Billy experienced the near loss of his own life when he was the lone survivor of a plane accident, along with a possible brain injury as “He had a terrible scar across the top of his skull”, as well as losing his wife at the same time to “carbon-monoxide poisoning” (25). That’s surreal like you stated, and also takes loss to another level. Billy’s environment does not help him deal with his grief over the losses he has suffered, including his own mortality, thus he constructs a concept of time as well as a place where he can learn about it in order to ground it as his reality. Viewing time in four dimensions as opposed to three, Billy can rationalize that no one truly ever dies: “Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is ‘So it goes’” (27). I think that Vonnegut's use of the motif (repetition in the novel after every death) of “So it goes”, gives Billy a coping strategy to deal with his losses, showing that Billy has successfully shifted his perspective from Earth time to Tralfamadore time, in his own mind. Billy’s writing letters to his local newspaper in Ilium allows him to ground his ideas in present reality, as his “belief that he was going to comfort so many people with the truth about time” gives him a higher purpose, and allows him to survive (28).
DeleteI completely agee that this quote is very significant. I think we can relate this back to the fact that Vonnegut is a realist and doesn’t believe in heaven and hell, so the way he comes to terms with the deaths he has experienced is by believing that you still have all of the memories of the person who died, so they are never really gone. This also explains why Vonnegut might have chosen to have Billy time travel because if he is constantly able to go back in time, nobody is ever really dead. Adding on to Mitchell, this belief of Tralfamadore time definitely allows Billy to survive because it gives him a reason to keep going after he has lost everything, which is probably the reason Vonnegut included the idea of Tralfamadore time. This relates to the overall idea that, whether or not we believe in heaven or hell, or any kind of afterlife, when the people we love die, they are still living in our memories, so we shouldn’t be to broken up about death.
DeleteI agree with you in that Billy’s traumatic experiences contribute to his mental instability, but you contradict yourself slightly. I disagree with your assertion that the characters are not concerned with death. I think that death is the only thing they are concerned with. Billy, after his survival of the fatal plane crash is obsessed with death and even goes so far as to create a mythical planet in his mind whose inhabitants can see in four dimensions and replay events in their minds. He is obsessed with keeping people alive. I think that this mode of thinking was greatly influenced by the plane crash, World War II, as well as the death of his wife. Vonnegut crafts a character who has experienced a great amount of death in order to demonstrate the effects that it has on a person.
DeleteI agree with most of what you wrote but I believe Max is right, you do contradict yourself. Billy is slightly obsessed with death ( Vonnegut created Billy to show how death can take a toll on your well being) and from what I wrote in my response the Tralfamadorian's represent a rational way to not feel grief or pain after the death of a loved one. Billy has been affected many times by death and the only way he is not going crazy us by believing the tralfmadorians ideals of just being in a bad condition.
DeleteI agree that this quote holds a lot of significance. It displays a lot about Billy as a character and his perspective on time and death,and how those two relate to eachother. Billy has a very peculiar view about time and I think it should be interesting to see where this takes him throughout tbe novel.He doesn't understand the saddness that people feel when there is a death of a loved one. He believes that that death doesn't have an effect on a person's being. But does he believe that everyone understands this, or thinks the same way he does?
DeleteI agree and found such significance in this passage as well. I find the whole concept of Tralfamadore so intriguing. I have a theory that the purpose of this fictional concept is to highlight human ability to advance from the immaturity of anarchical, uncivilized beings that eventually leads to war. I believe that by accepting and moving forward; by advancing humanity through maturity, will the unnecessary perpetuation of war and violence finally come to an end.
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ReplyDelete“‘Here he is, boys,’ said Weary. ‘He don’t want to live but he’s gonna live anyway. When he gets out of this, by God, he’s gonna owe his life to the Three Musketeers.’ This was the first the scouts had heard that Weary thought of himself and them as the Three Musketeers” (48).
ReplyDelete“Now they twisted out from under Weary’s loving arms. They told Weary that he and Billy had better find somebody to surrender to. The scouts weren’t going to wait for them anymore. And they ditched Weary and Billy in the creekbed” (49).
Although these quotes are separated by a page, I decided to put them together because the first one gives background for the second one. Weary has been bullied throughout his life and has learned to live inside his head. He formed a background for the group of soldiers, calling them the Three Musketeers and such, but neglects to inform them of this. It is then seen that immediately after he discloses this information, the other two “Musketeers” abandon him saying that Weary and Billy should “find somebody to surrender to” showing the lack of faith that American people have in each other. Prior to this, Weary trekked back through the snow to save Billy, whom he has tried to make clear that he dislikes. Despite this, the others do not do the same and abandon Weary, even though he would have willingly waited for them. This shows the empathy and emotion that Weary holds inside of him.
I agree with this claim but I would like to add that, Kurt Vonnegut gives the reader a sense of remorse for Weary because he wants to show how even though Weary believes he is more popular/ a better soldier than Billy, he suffers through, as you said, live inside another world separate from reality. He lives in a world separate from reality because he feels as if reality is a place too harsh to live in, so he places names on the two soldiers and himself, "The Three Musketeers", and the belief he has on how everyone else in the war should die except for them three coming out on top of the war. When the two soldiers abandon him and Billy, he feels betrayed and releases his anger on Billy by mistreating him even though it is partially his fault for being so demented towards Billy.
DeleteThis passage stood out to me as well, and I found myself surprised at the empathy I felt towards Weary, as I was not a fan of his character. At first, I understood the "creepiness" or the "awkwardness" of knowing that a person has a secret name for you and a friend, but I was struck by how frankly his two companions abandoned him, on a literal and metaphorical meaning. It shows how the soldiers did not value loyalty or connection, even in a time when a companion is suffering, which I think is a motif in the book. It was another case of a character being acutely aware that he was alone.
Delete"The main thing now was to find the steering wheel. At first, Billy windmilled his arms, hoping to find it by luck. When that didn't work, he became methodical, working in such a way that the wheel could not possibly escape him… Amazingly, he was eventually hard against the right-hand door, without having found the wheel. He concluded that somebody had stolen it" (47).
ReplyDeleteBilly’s search for the steering wheel of his car mirrors his search for the steering wheel to his life. To him it seems that he has no control over the events that transpire before him. Be it a metaphor or otherwise, he does not control which part of his life lives next as he has become “unstuck in time.” During his experiences in World War II, he also seems to have no control over what will happen next. He is so weary of this that he practically gives up in his fight to survive. He tried to seize control for some time, but he realized that he does not have the ability to and now has completely lost all drive (pun intended) as shown in his behavior towards the end of Chapter 2. He tells the others to leave him behind and puts up no fight while Weary is beating him. Someone has “stolen” his ability to control his own actions and he is at the brink of losing his mind entirely.
I completely agree that Vonnegut intended to use the steering wheel as a metaphor. As I said in my previous comment Vonnegut does a pretty good job demonstrating how unstable Billy's life is. I do have to say that the steering wheel seems to be one of the strongest metaphors I've read. If you really think about it you can't operate a car without it's steering wheel. Similarly you can't control your life without stability.
Delete“Little Billy was terrified, because his father had said Billy was going to learn to swim by the method of sink-or-swim. His father was going to throw Billy into the deep end, and Billy was going to damn well swim. It was like an execution. Billy was numb as his father carried him from the shower room to the pool. His eyes were closed. When he opened his eyes, he was at the bottom of the pool, and there was beautiful music everywhere. He lost consciousness...He dimly sensed that somebody was rescuing him. Billy resented that” (44).
ReplyDeleteDoes Billy’s “sink-or-swim” childhood experience teach him that the only control he has in his life, is to live in a self-created delusion?
Billy’s first “unstuck in time” memory clearly shows that even from childhood Billy has no control over his life, as his father decides to “throw Billy into the deep end” of the pool to teach him how to swim. Vonnegut’s use of the simile “like an execution” represents the extreme fear that Billy experiences, and one wonders if this distrust of his father performing this distressing act to him, “as his father carried him from the shower room to the pool”, is the beginning of his inability to cope in life. The fact that “Billy was numb” and “His eyes were closed”, both suggest that Billy turned off his feelings and his sense of sight to this frightening event, which are clues to Billy’s difficulty in dealing with his challenges later on in life. Although Billy does not choose this option for himself, when “he opened his eyes...at the bottom of the pool”, Billy finds himself in a peaceful state, most likely from the lack of oxygen as he heard “beautiful music everywhere”. Perhaps this experience teaches Billy about a dream-like state of existing, that he actually prefers, as he learns from an early age that he can escape the reality of life this way. Moreover, Billy “resented” someone rescuing him from the pool, illustrating once again Billy’s lack of control or lack of free choice in deciding his own fate. This shows the reader the importance of having some control over one's life even as a child, for having no decision power at all, can lead to the inability to deal with demanding circumstances later on.
“It made Weary sick to be ditched. When Weary was ditched, he would find somebody who was even more unpopular than himself, and he would horse around with that person for a while, pretending to be friendly. And then he would find some pretext for beating the shit out of him” (35).
ReplyDeleteAt this point of the novel, Kurt Vonnegut gives us insight to Weary’s perspective towards other people. He would later show this type of reasoning of Weary’s to explain the relationship that Billy and Weary have. In the last paragraph of the book, Weary decides to kick Billy in the spine because of his frustration towards the others he called, “musketeers”, for leaving him, but instead he tries to give a false reason of how Billy “shouldn’t even be in the Army” (51). This ultimately shows how Weary is too, incapable of being in the army because of his lack of maintaining control over himself, which is ironic because this is what he tries to prove throughout the novel. I also find it interesting how Weary decides to an attempt of kicking Billy’s spine which can show his effort in fixing Billy by kicking him in the spine “which haed so many of Billy’s important wires in it” (51).
ReplyDelete“ when a tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in bad condition in that particular moment, but the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the tralfamadorians say about about dead people, which is “So it goes” page 27
•This quote was significant to me because it explains Billy’s coping mechanism of “ So it goes” which is said 167 times in the book. Throughout this chapter I wasn’t sure if the tralfamadorians were supposed to represent a greater theme that is being embodied through them or just being very knowledgeable aliens that Billy made up, I thought this because of how they view death. Instead of being overcome with grief after someone's death they look back at the great moments and just think that the person is just in a bad state of time. Billy faces many traumatic events in his lifetime and from what we discussed in class he has seen many deaths. I believe Billy wants to emotionally feel better and by creating the tralfamadorians it’s in his mind a rational way to not feel pain
I completely agree with your statement and I thought of using this quote myself. I think that Billy uses the tralfamadorions as a vessel for views in which he wishes to believe. He wants to believe that all the people that he loved or knew or saw die aren't really dead but just at a bad point in their life. I don't think that it's easy for him to deal with that much death so he has to find a way, no matter how crazy, to feel as if all those people aren't actually dead. I think that if he thought of them as dead, than she wouldn't be able to handle all of that tragedy and would go mad.
DeleteBilly can also be seen using the aliens as a scapegoat for his irrational actions, wanting to give then credit for what they had done. This can also be seen when he almost gets shot on the bridge, saying that it is only a common courtesy of war, rather than admitting that he possibly wants to end his life. Will we see more evidence of this courtesy-scapegoating later on in the novel?
DeleteI also agree with your analysis. When I read this passage, I found that a few questions came to mind. Although Vonnegut uses Billy to translate why the phrase "so it goes" is after every death, he also uses it prior to Billy's entrance into the novel. This made me think whether it is Billy or Vonnegut saying, "so it goes" after each death. Additionally, Vonnegut's writing is filled with description, yet lacks many emotions. This adds onto the fact that Billy has experienced many traumatic events in his life and his emotions have been altered because of this. Vonnegut shows this through the lack of feelings in his writing.
DeleteAdding on to some of the ideas already commented from this passage, I believe that in a way, the Tralfamadorians function as a coping mechanism for Billy Pilgrim later on in his life (i.e. post war). In attempting to understand the concept of death, especially after witnessing the loss of innocent lives, Billy wants to logically explain why death occurs (or doesn’t). In using the Tralfamadorians (fictional, plunger-like beings), death is dismissed and portrayed in a whimsical light (ultimately connecting back to Vonnegut’s comments about war being fought by children.) By finding a way to rationalize death in a fun, child-like nature, we see Billy’s longing for answers surrounding war and destruction, and the ways in which he still processes death as a child would.
DeleteI agree to everything you said, I think you have a very interesting take on this pool experience. This can also connect to the time when he says that he has no control over what part of his life he will travel to next.
Delete"Little Billy was terrified, because his father had said Billy was going to learn to swim by the method of sink-or-swim. His father was going to throw Billy into the deep end, and Billy was going to damn well swim" (55). (I have the big book).
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this I wondered how this relationship with his father made him who he is today and shaped him as a person. I think that this idea of success or complete failure made Billy the way he is and made him think that he can't succeed. I think this is conveyed when he says that he would've liked to be left behind. I think that because Weary has created this idea of the "Three Musketeers" without including Billy has made him think that he can't succeed at all in this war. I also wonder if this fear instilled by his father has created a sense of mistrust between him and his father and has made him unable to trust anyone. I wonder how this scenario will relate to the rest of the book and I wonder if we'll see the effects of this history play out.
Lucas I totally agree with everything you said about the deeper meaning of that passage and especially the idea that this scene relates symbolically to war. In addition to what you said on that topic, I believe that the learning "to swim by the method of sin-or-swim" is directly applicable to war and their affect on the children who fight in them. The children who are thrown into war have to learn to be mature and grown up very fast in order to survive. This mirrors how Little Billy was thrown in the pool and had to learn how to swim very fast in order to survive. I have noticed stories of children and their struggles else where in the novel (see my post) and I think this is a motif that we will continue to see throughout the novel.
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ReplyDelete“But then Weary saw he had an audience. Five German soldiers and a police dog on a leash were looking down into the bed of the creek. The soldiers’ blue eyes were filled with a bleary civilian curiosity as to why one American would try to murder another one so far from home, and why the victim should laugh.” (51)
ReplyDeleteAs a result of the scouts leaving Weary due to Billy being unprepared and unhurried when danger strikes, Weary feels Billy should pay for being an inconvenience to them. Weary proceeds to beat Billy up, who laughs while he does so, causing attention from German soldiers who find the scene of allies hurting allies shocking. This essentially shows the difference between the soldiers of each side, the Germans and Americans, and how the American soldiers chosen are unfit for the job. Billy is emotionally unstable at this time as he laughs when he’s being harmed, unable to sense he’s truly at risk, or fail to care, wanting to die. Due to being such a young man in war, he doesn’t have the strength needed or reason to have something to fight for, not understanding the purpose of war. Also, Weary is unable to acknowledge the importance of being discrete and really sticking to his team as he lets his anger get to him, bringing the enemy to his attention, showing as a young boy, he was unable to control his feelings for the sake of his own life. This ultimately connects to O’Hare’s statement about the war being fought by babies instead of men, because, like Billy and Weary, innocent young lives are forced into war without a choice, doing the best of what they’re told, having no idea of what is right or wrong.
I agree with the connection you made back to the idea that war is fought by babies instead of men. I think that another way of looking at it is that men feel the immense pressure to fight in the war because society deems that as the way to prove your masculinity. In the case of Billy Pilgrim, I think this really gets to him because he desires to live in a world where this is not the case.
Delete“It was absolutely necessary that cruelty be used, because Billy wouldn’t do anything to save himself. Billy wanted to quit. He was cold, hungry, embarrassed, incompetent. He could scarcely distinguish between sleep and wakefulness now, on the third day, found no important differences, either between walking and standing still. He wished everybody would leave him alone. ‘You guys go on without me,’ he said again and again.”(34).
ReplyDeleteIn reading this passage about the effects of war on Billy Pilgrim it is obvious that the experiences that he has had and the troubles that he has had to go through has affected the composition of his happy, oblivious personality into someone who lives in fear of what’s to come, and would rather just give up. What intrigues me about this shift in his personality is whether or not these new characteristics are permanently embedded into his personality, Whether or not he is changed forever. Why is it absolutely necessary that cruelty be used? I think that by having a character describe the necessary need for cruelty with Billy, who is harmless, Vonnegut is conveying the unnecessary violent nature of war that ruins people’s lives forever. This immense pressure to be violent is so extreme that it gets to Billy so intensely that he no longer feels the need to live.
“Billy’s son Robert had a lot of trouble in high school, but then he joined the famous Green Berets. He straightened out, became a fine young man, and he fought in Vietnam.” (31 in the bigger book)
ReplyDeleteUpon reading this passage, I noticed two majorly significant nuances in what is said and the way it is said. One of those nuances is the fact that the way Vonnegut phrases this sentences suggests that joining the Green Berets is what “straightened out” Robert and made him into the “fine young man” he was not before. For those who do not know, the Green Berets are the United States Army Special Forces, so in essence, I believe that Vonnegut was trying to say that the army fixed up Billy’s son, mirroring and highlighting the popular narrative echoed across America that follows that template. Additionally, I thought that the fact that Robert fighting in Vietnam was said last, suggesting that the narrator believes it is the ultimate achievement of Robert’s, beating even him becoming “a fine young man.” This is significant because it shows that for too many people fighting in war is more important then what war did to the person. In Roberts case, the war, arguably, made him a better man, but for a lot of veterans, war can cause PTSD or disorders. I think by Vonnegut indirectly labeling the fact that Robert fought as more important, he is emphasizing how many people brush over the fact that veterans can be suffering from PTSD or want to tell their story or even aren’t the war hero everyone makes them out to be, simply because they are veterans.
"The third bullet was for the filthy flamingo, who stopped dead center in the road when the lethal bee buzzed past his ear. Billy stood there politely, giving the marksman another chance. It was his addled understanding of the rules of warfare that the marksman should be given a second chance. The next shot missed Billy’s kneecaps by inches, going end- on-end, from the sound of it" (33).
ReplyDeleteAlthough the tone of this passage and all of chapter two makes it seem as if Billy is the narrator, only referring to himself in the third person, we have been taught to understand that this is not the case. Therefore, one can assume that by referring to Billy as a dirty flamingo, Vonnegut is making it seem as if Billy is out of place in a war zone. He also does this in earlier passages when describing the clothes and weapons that Billy has (very little of both). Furthermore, when Billy stands politely for the next shot, as he sees it as a common courtesy, it shows his young naivety and inexperience. It also, however, questions the level of sanity which he possesses. Standing still in order to be shot at again is not something that any sane person would do. Can this tie back to his whole "Tralfamadore" fiasco, that he has something more than just an active imagination?
I agree! Indeed, Billy is a misfit in war as a result of his intolerance for violence and death. I also believe, due to being forced in a war he doesn't want to be a part of, he acts insanely. This connects to the tralfamadore incident as well, as I feel he uses it as a coping mechanism to survive through all the deaths he has faced by ignoring the truth of his family and friends truly being gone forever.
DeleteI agree Tina and Julian! I feel like because Billy didn't even want to be in the war in the first place but yet he was forced to, it made him spiral out. And this demonstrates how a persons environment can have an effect on their actions and overall persona.
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ReplyDelete“ The umpire had comical news.The congregation had been theoretically spotted from the air by the theoretically enemy. They were all theoretically dead now. The theoretical corpses laughed and ate a hearty noontime meal.” (31)
ReplyDeleteIt is very interesting that the news of the congregation is described as comical. This has to have something to do with the fact that Billy believes that people only appear to die and that death doesn’t truly exist because of all moments included in the present, past, and future. This idea that death isn’t necessarily inevitable or certain, but possibly theoretical, displays a certain depth to life and to time. Billy Pilgrim has a very contrasting view on the significance of time, that he believes has been validated from different events that took place in his life.
"Billy Pilgrim was having a delightful hallucination. He was wearing dry, warm, white sweatsocks, and he was skating on a ballroom floor. Thousands cheered. This wasn't time-travel. It had never happened, never would happen. It was craziness of a dying young man with his shoes full of snow" (49).
ReplyDeleteBilly's hallucination ties into how he's trying to stay positive and keep his mind off of how much of a struggle he's in. This also ties in to how in a bad situation your mind is full of all these thoughts and you begin to go crazy. But the only question I have is was Billy's hallucination a positive thing to keep his mind off whats happening or was it a bad thing that he had a hallucination because it exemplifies how he's going crazy?
I also found his quote interesting but for the reason that he only seems to decalre it as a hallucination because it isn't a moment he has expierenced or is going to expiereince its as because he can travel through different times of himself he is able to know every expiereince he has or will ever have. How do we know that all of his expieriences weren't just hallucinations?
DeleteHaylie byers
“Weary was as new to war as Billy…He had been unpopular in Pittsburg because he was stupid and fat and mean. He was always being ditched in Pittsburg by people who did not want him with them” (34-35).
ReplyDeleteRonald Weary as a character struck me in many ways, although we only meet him briefly in this chapter. In explaining his father’s gun collection and torturous ideas, we see the immense pride he holds in both his father’s accomplishments and his violent tendencies. Violence, as is evident in his actions, functions as a coping mechanism for Weary throughout his time in the war (something which, I predict, reoccurs in many of the soldier characters). Because he is bullied throughout his life, we see a need for Weary to put up a façade and, in a way, find a coping mechanism to deal with his pain. This mechanism is inflicting pain upon others, or at least threatening this notion. Tying this back to Vonnegut’s comments surrounding the innocence of the children going to fight these wars, the naivety of the soldiers is also evident in this passage, represented through Weary. As a child, you learn the saying, “two rights don’t make a wrong,” something hammered into children from a young age in an attempt to prevent them from lashing out against other. Weary, however, never learned this saying, along with many others fighting alongside him…that is why wars occur.
I agree with your thinking on Weary, and he also stood out to me as a character. His use of violence to deal with his own life of being bullied inevitably leads him to the life of a soldier. However, we see that a positive quality was produced in his life of being left behind. He refuses to leave behind Billy, despite his increasing want to die. This is because he knows the feeling of despair in life and even though his method of coping is by violence, he remains a good person.
Delete“Roland Wearly was only eighteen, was at the end of an unhappy childhood spent mostly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He had been unpopular in Pittsburgh. He had been unpopular because he was stupid and fat and mean, and smelled like bacon no matter how much he washed. He was always being ditched in Pittsburgh by people who did not want him with them” (35).
ReplyDeleteThis quote reminded me of something Vonnegut said in the first chapter, “nobody was ridiculous or bad or disgusting” (8). I think Vonnegut created Wearly’s character as a representation of this. At first Wearly comes off as a really bad person, he curses, talks about torturing methods, and constantly “beating the shit out of people” (35). However, he also had a terrible childhood, nobody ever wanted in him and his pain from that partially justifies his brutish attitude. This demonstrates that overall idea the nobody's all bad, a idea that can also be used to represent war. In war both sides have a reason they a fighting the other side and soldiers justify murdering others with this reason. However, the reality is both sides of a war wronged the other side in some way, so neither are all bad. Altogether this shows how humans aren’t just good and bad, they are more complex than that, which is an idea that is generally lost in war.
I totally agree with your idea. I think that this concept that he has of people and that everyone is good is very important to keep in mind while reading this novel. With war, especially with a war like World War 2 it is very easy to point fingers and claim that the nazi's were bad people and it's easy to say that they deserve bad things in their life but we in fact to not do any self reflection. Like he said, if it wasn't an American loss it was most likely not even validated as much because no American lives were being ruined but it was "the bad guys" that we were striking at and us being the "good guys" we did the right thing in attacking Berlin when in reality we ruined so many innocent lives and burned down a great city where people lived in at some point. Connecting this back to Wearly, since we are seeing things through Billy's perspective a little more, it is easy to call Weasley a bad guy for doing a lot of things like beating Billy up and such, but we need to learn to be sympathetic and look at life through a different perspective.
Delete“The creatures were friendly, and they could see in four dimensions. They pitied Earthlings for being able to see only three. They had many wonderful things to teach Earthlings, especially about time” (26).
ReplyDeleteBy referring humanity to creatures that are not found on planet Earth, Vonnegut is making a larger commentary on human nature, which I believe is a significant factor in understanding this novel. According to an English Philosopher of the 18th century, Rousseau, humans are born inherently good, but throughout time are corrupted by the evils of society. Vonnegut truly simplifies the concept of humanity, and through satire implies that we only complicate things for ourselves. By stating that Earthlings can only see three dimensions of our world, he argues that we fail to look at the bigger picture when it comes to war and violence. Often times when authors attempt to make a social commentary through their novels, they make such significant factors seem distant and fictional, which should only bring our attention to it and make it applicable to our own reality. For example, in The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood provides a tone that makes the struggles of the oppressed seem distant to the unoppressed in order for her readers to recognize the issues of social oppression. Likewise, Vonnegut intends to make a comparison between this foreign “dimension” and the simple elements of humanity in order to highlight humans’ ability to reform traditional violence (war).
"Little Billy was terrified, because his father had said Billy was going to learn to swim by the method of sink-or-swim. His father was going to throw Billy into the deep end, and Billy was going to damn well swim. It was like an execution. Billy was numb as his father carried him from the shower room to the pool. His eyes were closed" (44).
ReplyDeleteAs I read this passage, I was reminded of the book The Glass Castle, which the freshmen read last summer. In the book, the main character's father threw her into a body of water in order to teach her to swim. It was a memorable moment for the protagonist, and could be interpreted as an act of tough love, as the lack of empathy the father felt for his daughter's temporary suffering, or a story portraying the uniqueness of his parenting style. In any case, both the protagonist of The Glass Castle and Billy find this memory engrained in their minds. Billy shows an obvious discomfort or fear in the memory, and feels angry about it. Yet, it can be interpreted in multiple ways, much like the scene from The Glass Castle. Personally, I think it shows the lack of empathy, a hole in the connection between them. This is a motif throughout the book, and speaks a lot about Billy's character. He starts out without a strong connection with his father, which can be seen recurring through other characters throughout the novel.
Haylie byers
ReplyDelete"He told about having come instuck in time. He said too that he had been kidnapped by a flying saucer in 1967. The saucer was from planet Tralfamadore" (25)
I think the fact that he includes the piece about being abducted by aliens in the same section as talking about coming un stuck in time either represents the story of being "unstuck in time" sprouting from his head injury on the plane crash in the litteral sense. It could represent how this story sounds to other people though I am not sure which one I think adds more to the story it could go either way.
“She bought one from a Santa Fe gift shop during a trip the little family made out West during the Great Depression. Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. And the crucifix went up on the wall of Billy Pilgrim” (39).
ReplyDeleteThis passage highlights the recurring idea of trying to make sense of the inexplicable. Billy Pilgrim’s reaction to the death of all those with him on that plane and the death of his wife is to try and make sense of the insanity he is being forced to live through. His mother’s attempt, along with all other Americans, to make her life make sense during the Great Depression is an indicator of the importance of a false sense of security in times of despair. Billy creates the world of Tralfamadore and the idea of times being meaningless in regards to death in order to cope with what has happened to him. He has no one to turn to that can explain why he is being forced to go through so much death, so he creates a world in which an explanation is not needed, a world because death holds no significance.
"And Billy, meanwhile was trying to hang on to his dignity, to persuade Barbra and every body else that he was far from senile, that on the contrary he was devoting himself to a calling much higher than mere business."
ReplyDeleteThis passage was very significant because it showed Billy as a whole different person. Through the many time travels made in this chapter, we see a commonality through Billy's life and that is weakness. He is constantly being pushed around and is always being told what to do. He has little will to live because of his lack of purpose anywhere. Weary even says in his view on the story that it was always the three musketeers and Billy was a tag along that depended on them completely in order to survive. Billy's weakness is even portrayed through his body and physical features as he is described to be very skinny and tall and even awkward looking. However, in this time period he breaks free from this usual repetition and becomes outspoken and passionate about what he is talking about. In other moments we view him as a purposeless guy who barley can find the will to live, but in these moments we see his transformation into someone who tries his best to get ideas across and lets no one tell him he is wrong.
It made Weary sick to be ditched. When Weary was ditched, he would find somebody who was even more unpopular than himself, and he would horse around with that person for a while, pretending to be friendly. And then he would find some perfect pretext for beating the shit out of him"(35).
ReplyDeleteWhen I read this it made me wonder whether Vonnegut was making an observation on Weary or on Humanity. I think he is trying to state that people have a general fear of being ditched, which is pretty important since this is an anti-war novel. It also shows how as humans we generally take our anger and throw it at the people who are weaker or have less power, making a chain, and connecting to Yon Yonson on the idea of infinity. So I believe he is saying that when people are hurt, they hurt others, so that they are not alone in their own pain.
this passage actually reminded me of the Hierarchy we saw in the Handmaids Tale, where any initial human reaction is to try and gain power and be at the top of this heirarchy, so i think it was a normal reaction on Wearys part, but the author was actually commenting on humanity
Deletethis passage actually reminded me of the Hierarchy we saw in the Handmaids Tale, where any initial human reaction is to try and gain power and be at the top of this heirarchy, so i think it was a normal reaction on Wearys part, but the author was actually commenting on humanity
Delete"The third bullet was for the filthy flamingo, who stopped dead center in the road when the lethal bee buzzed past his ear. Billy stood there politely, giving the marksman another chance. It was his addled understanding of the rules of warfare that the marksman should be giving a second chance" Page 33
ReplyDeleteMy impression after reading chapter two of slaughter house 5, is that the main character, this billy pilgrim, has a sense of detatchment from reality and feels safer when he isnt in a reality. We see this when he insists on these alien creatures that he met after the plane crash because it was a traumatic event for him. Another example of a traumatic event he physically encounters but does not mentally is the text above, where he doesnt even call himself billy pilgrim, but instead says the filthy flamingo and doesnt even call the bullet a bullet but instead it is a lethal bee.