Billy's "going crazy"

At the beginning of Slaughterhouse Five, we identified Billy Pilgrim as the main character, but unlike many other books, Billy is a difficult character to admire,  relate to, and fully understand. His experiences with the Tralfamadorians and his perspectives of time are very unusual. Many events throughout his life have caused him to stand out and act differently than most people. His war comrades were not fond of him, his family thought he needed help and "the doctors agreed: He was going crazy" (pg 100). From my view, the most obvious reason as to why Billy Pilgrim is "going crazy" is because he is time traveling and interacting with the Tralfamadorians. Another factor could be the traumatic experiences that he encountered during the war. However, the doctors don't believe that either of these things caused Billy to go crazy, "they were sure that Billy was going to pieces because his father had thrown him into the deep end of the Y.M.C.A. swimming pool when he was a little boy, and had then taken him to the rim of the Grand Canyon" (pg 100).
These two small events that occurred when Billy was a child, seem very insignificant compared to other events (such as the war and time travel). So, why would the doctors think that his father might be the cause to Billy's "craziness"?  If Billy has endured much more frightening experiences, it seems as though those more powerful events would be the cause to Billy's mental health. Would you define Billy's mental state as crazy?
Or, perhaps it is too "human" to diagnose something. The Tralfamadorians believe that the past, present, and future have always existed and always will exist, so maybe it is not right to say that Billy is "going crazy".

Giraffe Dream

Billy Pilgrim was having some sort of a panic attack and was taken to a hospital and given morphine to calm him down. "Under morphine, Billy had a dream of giraffes in a garden"(99). In this dream, Billy was one of the giraffes among a few others who "accepted Billy as one of their own..." (99). In many parts of Billy's life, people rarely like or even accept Billy. Throughout the war, nobody enjoyed Billy's presence and thought of him as a burden. When the comrades had to sleep in the tight environment of the train boxcar, Billy was considered an annoyance and he was forced to "make himself nearly ghostlike when lying down" (78). Nobody ever appreciated having Billy around, which is why it was surprising to read that the other giraffes accepted him in his dream. As I thought about Billy being accepted in his dream, it made me wonder if the giraffes were a version of the Tralfamadorians since the Tralfamadorians are the only things that have really accepted Billy. What do you think the giraffes symbolized and why did Billy dream about being accepted by them? Does the face that they were all female giraffes have any significance?

Also, as I read the details of Billy's dream, it seemed very random and bizarre. He dreamt that the giraffes "had horns like doorknobs. The knobs were covered with velvet" (99). Earlier in his dream "he ate a pear. It was a hard one" (99). These details seem so random and irrelevant. It is hard to find a connection between these facts and the significance of his dream. Throughout this book, the Tralfalmadorians continue to say that "why?" is such a human question, however I found myself asking that a lot as I tried to find a reasoning behind Billy's dream. Do you think that the dream is meant to be discussed and interpreted, or is it just meant to be left as is, without any real meaning?

Bobbing up-and-down

The use of repetition has been a major part of Kurt Vonnegut's novel. Many phrases are noticeably repeated over and over again throughout this book. One of these phrases is the phrase, "bobbing up-and-down". In the war, 'bobbing up-and-down, up-and-down, Billy beamed lovingly at a bright lavender farmhouse that had been spattered with machine-gun bullets"(65). The uneven soles of Billy's shoes cause him to walk awkwardly, but there must be more significance to these repeated words.
Repetition was also a large part of our previous book, Night By Elie Wiesel. On page 64, Wiesel wrote, "never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night...".  The phrase "never shall I forget" was repeated four other times. In this case, I think that the reasoning behind this repetition was to create an emotional connection with the reader and to emphasize the power and hardship of what the author went through.
Even though the reasoning behind Wiesel's repetition was quite clear, the thinking behind the repetition in Slaughterhouse Five is not always apparent to the reader.
As I try to compare the repetition in Slaughterhouse Five and Night, I find it a little difficult because it was clear that repetition was used in Night for emphasis and so that these horrific events would resonate with the reader. However, can this same reasoning be applied to Vonnegut's repetition? If it is applied in the same way, why would he be trying to have Billy's "up-and-down" motion resonate with us?
Do these words help to enforce Billy's strange personality? What is the importance of this repetition? Is there a significant between the two extremes of the words "up" and "down"?

A Childhood Reversed

In chapter four of Slaughterhouse Five, Billy experiences time in reverse while watching a movie about war.

Before Billy Pilgrim is abducted by aliens, he sits down to watch  a war movie, and the movie played backwards. The bomb planes flew backwards, and bullets flew back into the planes. Billy watched the airmen turn into teenagers, then children, "...Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed... Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed." (75) Billy supposed that Hitler turned into a baby, the same way that he supposed that all humanity produced Adam and Eve. To go back in time far enough to be rid of the war and pain, Billy had to imagine the two original and perfect people: Adam and Eve.

In this part of the book, even though Billy Pilgrim was seeing the world in reverse, I think that in some ways, it wasn't completely reversed. When people get old, they turn into babies again. Old people need to be cared for. They become are vulnerable and fragile once again. I think that there is a chance that Billy is having these memories of aliens because he is once again a child with an imagination.

Expression of Pacifism

Among the pages of Vonnegut's book Slaughterhouse Five the anti-war sentiment is clearly seen. From the basic portrayal of gruesome war to more complex events such as watching a war movie in reverse.

During the opening pages of chapter four Billy Pilgrim is watching a movie about American Bombers attacking France. Strangely he starts watching the film backwards when he becomes unstuck in time. He witnesses the bombers fly "backwards over a German city....in flames" and "shrunk the fires"(74). The movie continues on as the Americans and Germans use their "miraculous devices"(74) to heal each other, and further on people dismantle the war weapons and turn them into harmless minerals of the Earth.

This period in the story strikes me as a strange, nontraditional way of spreading a feeling of pacifism among its readers. If Vonnegut can come up with such an interesting way of spreading that idealism I am interested in seeing how his anti-war rhetoric continues throughout his book.  

The Contradiction of Mustard Gas and Roses

Repetition of certain words and phrases has been important to pay attention to so far in the book. Specifically, the phrase "mustard gas and roses" has come up multiple times.

In the first chapter of the book, the author Kurt Vonnegut describes himself when he was younger, "...I get drunk, and I drive my wife away with a breath like mustard gas and roses." (4) The way that the author describes his breath is contradictory. Mustard gas is an color-less liquid whose vapor is used in chemical weapons as an irritant and vesicant. Roses are flowers that are typically thought of a symbols of love, and beautiful. Kurt Vonnegut ties war into his everyday life, which in turn shows how being around the smells of war permanently changed his lifestyle. Later in the book, while Billy Pilgrim is waiting for his Tralfamadorian abduction, the phone rings. It is a drunk who had gotten the wrong number, "Billy could almost smell his breath-- mustard gas and roses." (73) Repeating the phrase, once in the first chapter and once in the fourth chapter makes me wonder why Vonnegut would have used a phrase like this.

I wonder if the mustard gas represents Billy/ Vonnegut's time at war and the rose represents the way that flowers grow even though they have sharp thorns. How do you think the contradiction in phrases (this phrase, or others like it) could relate to any contradiction in Billy's life?

Differing Views on Free Will

 The natural state of man, free will is brought up by Billy Pilgrim and a Tralfamadorian late in chapter four. While Billy's views on free will are not very clear the Tralfamadorian has views that differ greatly from views many humans hold. Views that seem strange and arguable to a human. 

A Tralfamadorian when speaking to Billy about time says "Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I've said before, bugs in Amber."

       Billy responds by saying "You sound to me as though you don't believe in free will"(86).

Bugs in Amber is a reference back a couple pages where a Tralfamadorian explains that "There is no why"(77), to a moment in time it just is. For most humans they believe that they control the actions in their lives. Therefore this brings into question, do humans have free will and if so is it taken away during the war time.  

      

 

Tralfamadorian vs. Human vision

Irony has played a big part so far throughout Slaughterhouse Five.
On page 56, Billy Pilgrim time travels from World War 2 to his optometry office in Ilium. His job as an optometrist does not quite suit him because of his beliefs and his perspective of humanity.

Billy's job as an optometrist seems ironic considering the fact that earlier in the book (on page 26) the Tralfamadorians taught Billy that humans see things in a very restricted and limited way. "They pitied Earthlings for being able to see only three [dimensions]"(26). The irony of this is that Billy fixes people's eyesight for a living, however Billy believes that the vision of many people needs to become clearer, not in a literal sense, but in the way that humans see different life events (such as death). The book continues to mention that the way we use our vision is such a "human thing". On page 22, a woman was told not to look back at the destruction of homes, "but she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human." Billy believes that the way humans see certain things is silly because the Tralfamadorians have taught him that "all moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist" (27). So, as Billy fixes people's eyesight, he continues to have another belief as to how human vision should be corrected.

If Billy has another perspective of how to look at life, then why do you think he is an optometrist? Do you think that at some point in the book he will use his job as a platform to convince people how their vision actually needs to be corrected?

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.