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.
As I read this part of the book, I noticed that as the movie played in reverse, everything became more simple. Everything was "perfect", Hitler was once a baby, and airmen were innocent teenagers. Throughout this passage, I thought that the message was that everything was easier and simpler before the war. However, when I read what you said about "when people get old, they turn into babies again" it made me think that age and time are very irrelevant to the needs of humans. I think that is why the events of this book are not in chronological order. Everyone needs to be cared for at different moment in their life. As the war move was playing reverse, it became clear that even though the movie ended at the beginning, he has still seen every event in the war. So, no matter what order the movie was in, the war happened. At the "beginning" of the movie, the teenagers were young and needed to be looked after, during the war the comrades looked after each other, and at the "end" of the movie the elderly needed to be cared for. So, no matter what point in time, people can be "vulnerable and fragile once again" which is why this book stresses the irrelevance of time.
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