The writing style that Kurt Vonnegut uses is somewhat confusing. The order of Billy's memories don't always make sense, and the passages sometimes seem out of context. The writing style that Vonnegut uses is similar to the unorganized way that the Tralfamadorians see life, and think.
When Billy first got on the Tralfamadorians spaceship, he started asking questions, like "why me?": "That is a very Earthling question to ask, Mr. Pilgrim. Why you? Why us for that matter? Why anything? Because this moment simply is..." (77) These questions are similar to questions I was asking myself while reading Slaughterhouse Five. Why did Vonnegut choose to write this way? Why does he repeat phrases in such a way? Later in the book, Billy is confused by many Tralfamadorian concepts such as there being many different sexes etc. "It was gibberish to Billy... There was a lot that Billy said that was gibberish to the Tralfamadorians, too..." (114) Though most of what the Tralfamadorians said to Billy didn't make sense to him, it was true the opposite way as well. This shows that the unorganized thoughts of humans are just as as unorganized as the thoughts of the Tralfamadorians.
I wonder what Vonnegut's thought process was when choosing the order of memories. How do you think Kurt Vonnegut chose the experiences of Billy's to tell? Why do you think he made it so confusing? Do you think it has to do with the way that the Tralfamadoraians think?
I think that one of the reasons Kurt Vonnegut chose to write this way was to reflect Billy's mental instability. Billy has gone through so much throughout his lifetime that he sometimes cannot make sense of it all. I think that writing all of his life events out of order is an attempt to understand and connect everything that has happened to him.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I think that the confusing writing style is also supposed to show how confusing and chaotic the war was. World War 2 was so traumatic for many soldiers, so I think that when they tried to reflect on their experience there were no words that could possibly help them. So, I think that since words could sometimes fail Hurt Vonnegut, he tried to use his writing style as a way to reflect the chaos of the war.