Why me?

‘Why me?’ he asked the guard. The guard shoved him back into ranks. 'Vy you? Vy anybody?' he said" (116).

The simple question, "why me?" is echoed here from earlier on in the book when the Tralfamadorians abduct Billy, as that is the only question that he has for them in the strange situation. It seems as if this question sums up Billy's overall question about his life, in a way, which is odd because this directly contrasts with the novel's mantra, "so it goes." "So it goes" is a phrase that exudes an easy-going undertone and makes it seem as if Billy does not care how, when, or why things in life happen, just like the Tralfamadorians. "Why me?" counters all of these ideas by showing that Billy really does wonder what the reasons are for the way that things happen, and why these things are always happening to him.

Is Billy trying too hard to buy into the ways of the Tralfamadorians after he meets them? When before, he always asked questions about why he had to suffer?

Sci-Fi Therapy

“…he and Billy were dealing with similar crises in similar ways. They had both found life meaningless, partly because of what they had seen in war. Rosewater, for instance, had shot a 14 yr old fireman, mistaking him for a German soldier. So it goes. And Billy had seen the greatest massacre in European history, which was the fire-bombing of Dresden. So it goes.

            So they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe. Science fiction was a big help” 

–pg. 128

In this passage, we learn that Billy and Rosewater have both been permanently damaged by their individual experiences in the war. Both of which are characterized the loss of innocent life and the overwhelming guilt that the two men feel as a result. The outside world becomes a constant reminder of the traumatic incidents they both experienced in their pasts. So, the two soldiers turn to reading Science Fiction novels, specifically those written by Kilgore Trout, who even becomes Billy’s “favorite living author,” to psychologically distance themselves from the realities of the real world. By immersing themselves in a different world with different people, places, physics, laws, and lives, they are able to block out the facets of ordinary life that remind them of the horrors that the world is capable of, especially in war. This shows some encouraging resolve in Billy, who uses his Trout novels to “re-invent (himself) and (his) universe” instead of simply succumbing to the misery of his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Reading science fiction is a “big help” in this regard for Billy as he tries to live a post-war life that he and Rosewater both consider to be utterly pointless.

It is also important to note that the phrase “So it goes” follows the description of both men’s most horrific moments in the war. This phrase summarizes the powerless feeling and eventual resignation that Billy and Rosewater experience in the wake of such lasting emotional trauma.

Is Billy’s constant “time-travelling” throughout the plot an attempt to use Science Fiction themes in order to “re-invent himself and his universe” as he tries to cope with civilian life, or is he simply powerless to these shifts in time as the phrase “so it goes” would imply?

"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. 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" (Chapter 5, Page 207-208 ebook).

Billy is attempting to read the Tralfamadorian's novels and finds that he cannot understand nor comprehend exactly what they are trying to convey. Not really understanding just how to relate this form of literature to the norm on Earth, Billy asks if they are like telegrams, to which he is told that they are alike in that they are "brief, urgent message[s] - describing a situation, a scene." This description is almost exactly parallel with Billy's life as a time traveller and the entire structure of Slaughterhouse Five. Vonnegut replicates this sense of telegraphic communication by inserting lines of three star-dots, aligning his attempt to tell his story about Dresden with Billy's narrative. Though out of order, like both of these stories, all of the elements come together to create one beautiful and understanding piece of literature or art. Vonnegut seems to use Billy as a way to convey that his story cannot be complete without taking in all of the information as a whole. Just like the Tralfamadorian's literature, it's more about the big picture, like memories, all coming together at once to show a story, yet still giving important and moving details. This description makes it easier to understand the novel as a whole, rather than focusing on the snippets of information that we receive as readers. Memories are hard to decipher, and Vonnegut's attempt to organize them is interesting and entertaining.

Does Vonnegut negate the sole purpose of time and learning from past experiences to improve the future? If past, present and future are all irrelevant, does our existence become frivolous?

Determinism and War

“The American was astonished. He stood up shakily, spitting up blood. He’d had two teeth knocked out. He meant no harm by what he’d said, evidently, he had no idea that the guard would hear and understand.

‘Why me?’ he asked the guard.

The guard shoved him back into ranks. ‘Vy you? Vy anybody?’ he said” (116)

The simple response that the German Soldier gives to the American POW conveys both the idea of determinism and that war is inevitable and stupid. The German does not necessarily know why he wanted to hit the POW he just knows that the American is his enemy and should be disrespected in any way, shape or form. The German soldier also understands that he could have hit any other POW but, he happened to hit the man who talked. This encapsulates the idea that humans do not have free will and we are governed by predetermined actions. The beating also goes hand in hand with the repetition of “so it goes” to represent that we have choice in life and everything is predetermined. Vonnegut is also able to show the pointlessness of war by depicting the senseless beating of the prisoner. There was no reason for the German to beat him, he just did it because it was determined that he was his enemy. The beating was pointless, just like war is pointless from a moral and ethical standpoint.

If war is inevitable then why should their be anti-war books or ideas, shouldn’t we just accept that war happens? What is the point of existing if our lives are predetermined?

Pg 112

"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."

At this point in the novel, Billy is discussing how Tralfamadorians write their books, which is coincidentally (or not so) how Slaughterhouse Five itself is written. I think the form in which is written is vital to the jumpiness and sparatic memories experienced by Billy. Like the books on the alien planet, Slaughterhouse Five, as well as Billy, are just a jumble of scenes and thoughts and memories that have "no beginning, no middle, no end." Also, because Billy can "time travel" he knows exactly how his life will play out and shares his knowledge of the future with the readers, which in turn gives us "no suspense." Sometimes reading the book can be a struggle if you aren't paying attention or forget what was previously happening in the scene when Billy revists it. However, overall, I think the way it is written helps us to relate to Billy and see his jumpy life from inside his mind and through his eyes.

Do you think Vonegut wasn't satisfied with telling his story in chronological order? Did he create these aliens in the story for the sole purpose of planting the idea in Billy of jumping around in the past, present, and future, so that he could construct the novel differently to make it stand out against other novels?

SlaughterHouse- Chapter 5

"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." P. 112

In this passage, Billy attempts to read a Trafalmadorian novel. However, he is unable to read it but realizes that the books are laid out in clumps separated by stars. In the quote above, one of Billy's captors explains why Trafalmadorian novels are structured as they are.

Kurt Vonnegut obviously adopts this model in the structuring of Slaughterhouse Five. He separates clumps of texts with a row of dots. Like billy, Vonnegut also lack the power to choose his moments. Vonnegut's use of the Trafalmadorian structure appears to be a desperate effort to achieve the beauty and depth he thinks his novel may lack. The rows of dots in Slaughterhouse are something the novel can go without; they do not add any dimensions to the novel that Vonnegut may have strived for.

Do you think Vonnegut achieves the depth he aims for by separating the text with a row of dots?

Vision and Time

“While he examined the boy’s eyes, Billy told him matter-of-factly about his adventures on Tralfamadore, assured the fatherless boy that his father was very much alive still in moments the boy would see again and again.
“Isn’t that comforting?” Billy asked.
And somewhere in there, the boy’s mother went out and told the receptionist that Billy was evidently going crazy. Billy was taken home. His daughter asked him again, “Father, Father, Father— what are we going to do with you?” (172)

Billy, refreshled and inspired by his “wet dream about Montana Wildhack,” has decided to return to work and preach the “Tralfamadorian” gospel of the “fourth dimension” to an unsuspecting war widow and her son. As Billy “examined the boy’s eyes,” he attempts to adjust his sight by offering the boy a perspective of time in which his father is still alive. For Billy, the things we see are what we will always see, which is why he has taken it upon himself to inform the “boy that his father was very much alive still in the moments the boy would see again and again”. Unfortunately, the boy’s mother and Billy’s daughter are unable to appreciate his “Amor fati” (love of fate) that he describes as being a “comforting” alternative to the dull surprise offered by mortality and they conclude that he must be “going crazy”. In a final display of life as repetition, the passage concludes with his daughter asking Billy “—again, Father, Father, Father— what are we going to do with you?” Thus, the emphasis upon the importance of vision and time becomes apparent as Billy attempts to share the insights that resulted in his being “unstuck”.

How does fragmenting the narrative into non-linear parcels of time, enhance the effectiveness of the novels antiwar message? Are Billy’s deconstructed views of his experiences capable conveying the absolute absurdity of wars to todays reader?