Billy's mother visits him while he is in the mental hospital. Billy is described as being ungrateful and embarrassed to have his mother there because "She had gone to so much trouble to give him life, and to keep that life going, and Billy didn't really like life at all." (102) Billy had a difficult life. He fought in war, was "kidnapped by aliens, taken to their planet" then he was thought of as mentally ill when he told anyone of his travels to Tralfamadore. At this time in the book, when Billy's mother visits him at the hospital, Vonnegut says Billy is embarrassed. The embarrassment comes from Billy not wanting his mother: the person that gave him life, see how unhappy or crazy he was. Even though in retrospect some people had harder lives than Billy, he was still unhappy, and he didn't want his mother to see that ungrateful side of him.
Later in the book, Vonnegut mentions Billy's mother asking, "How did I get so old?". The way that I took this quote, was that Billy's mother spent so much time worrying about Billy, that she almost forgot about herself. "How did I get so old?" is often a question asked by older people when they see how old someone younger than them is getting. Do you agree with me? What do you think the importance is of Billy's mother in Slaughterhouse Five? Do you think she is even important at all?
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