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.  

Billy's Side

While Billy is on his visits to Tralfamadore, and becoming stuck and unstuck in time, it seems very similar to a child being told about the struggles of being a veteran of war. This somewhat connects to the second title of the book, The Children's Crusade. This also makes sense because after viewing something so devastating as a firebombing, it is like the veteran himself is trying to see at like a child would. It also shows the author is holding his promise to his friend's wife to almost dull, if you will, how traumatic the war, and the firebombing of Dresden more specifically, really was. When Billy was writing to the paper about the Tralfamadorians, it was his way of telling the everyone instead of individuals about PTSD.

"The cockles of Billy's heart, at any rate, were glowing coals. What made them so hot was Billy's belief that he was going to comfort so many people with the truth about time" (28).

It is interesting to see Billy's viewpoint of PTSD and how he chooses to describe it. I wonder if the rest of the story will also be told as if a child was telling the story or if the child was being read a rated R book. (If there is such a thing).

Voiceless Against Pain

During one of the descriptions of the Tralfamadorians, it is said that these aliens cannot talk. In connection with what the narrator said in the beginning chapter, those who survived the war, or specifically the Dresden fire bombing, could not find words for the things they saw. It can be assumed that the Tralfamadorians are a form of Billy's PTSD coming through to represent that he is unable the directly talk of events he lived through in the war.

"But not words about Dresden came from my mind then-not enough of them to make a book, anyway. And not many words come now, either..." (p. 2)

As the story goes on, and we are told of Billy's alien "encounters" through the voice of an equally silenced narrator, I think that more facts about how the world is viewed by Billy, will emerge by the things taught to him by these voiceless creatures. He has learned the values of time, by not being able to speak of the time taken from him by a war. Will we continue to see this theme of being silenced by war throughout the remainder of the book?

Example Posts - Meets and Exceeds

The following are two posts that may serve as models for your own. These posts use The Grapes of Wrath as the considered text, but the requirements are the same. The first is an example of a post that MEETS the standard; the second is an example that EXCEEDS the standard.

Meets:

It became apparent in chapter 5 that the narrative of the Joad family is only one perspective of the struggles people faced in the 1930s. The use of racial slurs and culturally insensitive language reminds us that the Joads, although they are a poor family lacking many basic resources, they do have the privilege of being white. The use of the word "nigger" and the highly insensitive way of speaking about Native Americans remind us that whiteness was a privilege that could elevate the status of even the most desperate farmer.

I wonder how this theme of race and culture will continue to develop over the course of the novel. What will the presence of race and racism continue to teach us about the social fabric of the U.S. in the '30s?

Exceeds:

The description of the land in Chapter 5 tells us a lot about the tensions arising out of the industrialization of farming. The physical connection to the land is broken, and this seems to lead to a bigger gap that transcends the physical.

In chapter 5, we learn that the tractor driver "could not see the land as it was, he could not smell the land as it smelled; his feet did not stamp the clods or feel the warmth and power of the earth...Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses" (35, 36).

Humans are being replaced by machines, and these machines will never love and appreciate the land (and what the land provides) as much as the humans who farmed it with their own hands. I am curious to see how this theme continues to play out in the novel - will the divide between the human and the machine continue to grow, and will it cause the farmers' struggle to become increasingly bitter and devastating?

Notes:

• Please consider your grammar and spelling. These posts should be thoughtful and well-crafted. 
• As you can see, the posts need not be long. A few sentences, or a small paragraph or two is sufficient. Remember - quality over quantity! 
• Please title your post purposefully - your title should help give a heads-up about the content of your post.