The Fourth Demention

Time is mentioned often throughout Slaughterhouse 5. Vonnegut introduced the Tralfamadorians with a multitude of meanings, one of them to convey his views of time. As humans, we see in 3- dimensions, and find it hard to understand a world where time is interchangeable. Through Billy's PTSD, the reader is able to see how for some soldiers time does become interchangeable, because they will always be stuck in war. Those moments when they fought, never go away.

"...they could see in four-dimensions... They had many wonderful things to teach the Earthlings, especially about time," (p. 26)

After thinking about this for awhile before finishing the book, I began to think about what the Tralfamadorians said about death. Using what the aliens ideas were, I started to piece different parts of the story together, and came up with the prediction that Billy may already be dead - and is reliving his "good" moments. Then again, is Billy ever really dead in accordance with what the Tralfamadorians say? Different concepts of time can completely change the way the story is viewed. What do you think Vonnegut's overall message about time and our perception of it is?

Memories

Through the duration of slaughterhouse five we see a pattern of reliving vivid memories through Billy. As he puts it on page " He is in a constant state of stage fright, he says, because he never knows what part of his life he is going to have to act in next." This seems to show that he has developed a form of dementia, reliving his memories in painful detail. However not all of the memories are painful, some are spent in a zoo on the alien planet where he is in good care.

"Where did you go this time? It wasn't the war. I can tell that, too."

This quote shows that Billy lives in his normal world while experiencing his memories overlapping. Much like how the Tralfamadorians overlap his reality. It is my belief that he made the Tralfamadorians to be people who would take him away from the harm of his world and put him in a cozy environment where he was the center of attention and was loved by all. I considered this to be Billy's "Happy Place" This cozy place most likely was a package deal with the dementia that came with his severe traumatic brain injury that took place after the crash in Vermont. I found it a very thoughtful insight into Billy's character by being able to see his figments of imagination.

So It Goes

One of the clear repetitions in the novel is the small statement of "so it goes," at any given point in the book. Yet, this simple often used sentence only appears when the subject of someones death arises. Vonnegut's use of repetition in the book enforces how often and unchangeable death is in a situation of war, or times of peace.

"It killed everybody on the gun crew but Weary. So it goes," (p. 35)
"...his wife died accidentally of carbon-monoxide poisoning. So it goes," (p. 25)

Having said earlier in the book, that the narrator had difficulty finding words to describe what he had seen in the war, it can be assumed that includes death. So many people were dying in an almost constant rate. With that much death surrounding someone, it becomes almost normal, a simple thing, "so it goes," in the everyday routine. What other aspects if war did the soldiers become numb to?

Can you truly leave the war?

The novel tells us that Billy Pilgrim was there in Dresden during the firebombing, and was a part of the rest of the war. The novel also shows that he has, to some degree, PTSD. When the plane he was on crashed in Vermont, he was conscious but had brain damage and a cracked skull. He thought that the people who were rescuing him and the copilot were part of the war and that he was still in the war. In response to that thought, he gave them his address for the war; Slaughterhouse Five.

"Billy thought the golliwog had something to do with World War Two, and he whispered to him his address: 'Schlachthof-fünf.' " (pg. 156)

This is a subtle way for the author to tell of his and Billy's PTSD and their feeling of never fully leaving the war. In some way, not physically but mentally, they will always be in World War Two. When Billy gave the golliwog his address of the slaughterhouse, it was an instinct from the war. Earlier on in the novel the narrator said that Billy was told, along with the other prisoners of war, that if anything happens to them their slaughterhouse address. In a way, Billy as well as other soldiers who fought in war still have a small piece of them that is still in the war. Maybe that piece of them will never completely come home from war.

Denial?

Through the course of the novel, it becomes clear that the main character, Billy Pilgrim, is not the author, and neither is the narrator. At times it is difficult to remember that Billy Pilgrim and Kurt Vonnegut are not the same person. In chapter 5 on page 125, Vonnegut mentions a man who is throwing up, and he says that he has thrown up everything except for his brains. Then follows that up with saying he then throws up his brains. The paragraph is followed up with three simple sentences that really made me think.

"That was I. That was me. That was the author of this book." (pg.125)

I began to think, maybe in making up a character for the novel it was a way for Vonnegut to tell his story without actually telling his story. Maybe it was a way of him not having to accept that the horrible things he had seen in Dresden really happened, and were not simply a dream. Witnessing the bombing and the things in the prison camps  must have been so awful that instinctively Vonnegut did not want to remember the things he had seen, much less write a book about them. So instead of writing a book on everything that happened to him, he made it easier for him to write by making Billy Pilgrim the one who went through it all. Vonnegut, in a way, was denying the fact that he was the one who went through the bombing and prison camps.

In Vonnegut's decision to structure the novel like this, it is a way to make people realize that even though Billy is a made up character and some of the events that occur in the novel are not true, that Billy is simply an ordinary person. The events that were mostly true could happen to any person, making the events of the bombing and the prison camps more real to the reader and not just some story read in a book.

Exaggerated Youth

It is mentioned at varying points in the novel, that the narrator views WWII as a children's crusade.This may be because of his own views or from the ideas of Mary O'Hare shared with him upon their meeting. Though it is not always directly stated, passages hint at Billy's non-soldier nature and appearance. We know that Billy was not meant to be on the front lines or fighting at all, and how little appreciation for life he processed; which combined with his age and the overall view of soldiers of this time, it can be stated that Billy was more child than a man at this point in his life.

"...Billy was only twenty-one years old... He didn't look like a soldier at all. He looked like a filthy flamingo," (p. 33)

Being so young, and unprepared for the things he was about to face, Billy simply staggered off to war. Being the face of the book, Billy carries an almost exaggerated childishness to him, showing how the soldiers fighting in this war were straight from school or pulled from college. I wonder if through out the remainder of the novel, Billy will carry magnified traits in order to show the bigger image from a single character point.

Changing the past?

By reading the novel it becomes evident that the author chooses to share the story in a unique way. He jumps around to different points in time, as he says early on that he is writing as the events or "memories" come to him. The main character, Billy Pilgrim, skips around in time. It is possible that the authors choice of skipping around is justified when he shows that Billy literally skips around through time. When he skips to times in the past, he knows almost exactly what is going to occur during that time.

If Billy knows the turn out of the events in the past when he jumps back to them, why in the beginning of chapter four does he still go to the place outside where the Tralfamadorians "abduct" him? The narrator states on page 72, "Billy now shuffles down his upstairs hallway, knowing he was about to be kidnapped by a flying saucer." (p.72)

If Billy knew he was going to be kidnapped as the narrator states, then why didn't he stay in bed with his wife instead of going downstairs and outside to where he knew that he would be kidnapped? Could it be that Billy thinks he cannot change the past so he simply goes along with what already happened? It could be thought of as a memory or a dream instead of him actually traveling back in time. It could be referring to Billy's PTSD that he has on the event that occurred long ago. Maybe this is the narrators way of telling the reader that Billy is re-living the abduction and it all seems so real that he actually thinks he is truly traveling through time experiencing this event once again.