First, prepare a response to the statement below in a Word document using coherent arguments, clear writing, and correct grammar. The initial response should be roughly 500 words in length with vivid and specific details from the text. Once the response is of publishable quality, cut and paste it into the blog thread prepared for the novel you read. You will be posting with students from all of my classes who read the same novel. Second, respond to three (3) students in the same blog (you may respond to students not in your class). Your responses must be at least 150 words in length, well-written, and correct in grammar. Make sure you thoughtfully respond to the initial posting, referencing the original student’s thoughts, as well as anyone else who has responded. Include in your responses informally referenced historical or modern day examples to support your argument. This is a scholastic application of Internet networking – “Internet speak,” acronyms, casual or inappropriate language, off-task communication, or profanity is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. Any inappropriate response will be deleted immediately and no credit will be given.
Statement: Kurt Vonnegut strongly comments on American society in Slaughter-House Five. Describe the commentary and Vonnegut's purpose behind it, supporting your analysis with vivid, specific details from the text.
Jordan Clemons
ReplyDeleteSlaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five had a lot of underlining messages. I feel that the main one Vonnegut was trying to listen and learn from other people. After and during the war Billy said that he was experiencing time skips and abductions from an alien race called the Tralfamadorians. He published an article about it after he had suffered head injuries from a plane crash. This, frankly, made him sound like a crazy person. No one believed a single word he said, not even his own daughter. And from what we can infer from the book, what Billy was saying was true. Billy also says that he knows he will die giving a speech about what the Tralfamadorians taught him, so we can assume that people finally listened to him.
A lot of people say that history repeats itself, and this is often used in the context of war. People are usually too arrogant to listen and learn. Because this book could be classified as an anti-war novel, I think Vonnegut is using Billy to symbolize war and his message to represent people’s messages about war so it does not happen again for the same reason. Vonnegut knew what truly happened in war as he experienced it first hand, and he does not want future generations to have to go thought what he went through.
War has happened many times in the past because people did not listen to the ones that have experienced it. They write these people off saying they don't understand the new world, that their stuck in the past, but the game of war is always the same,just different players. This is what happened when Billy spread his message out. Most people thought he was crazy, and that what he was saying was wrong. They did not stop and think that what billy was saying could intact be reality. Just like how societies react when they are given forewarnings about what they could be getting into.
Billy says that in one of his time skips he goes to the moment of his death. He is giving a speech on what the Tralfamadorians have taught him. I think this is Kurt Vonnegut's way of saying that we can change the way we think when presented very helpful information. At first people viewed Billy as crazy, but now they hold on to every one of his words and thinks he is a genius. I think Vonnegut is showing that he is optimistic about the future. That we as a society will learn to listen to the ones who truly know what their talking about. Even though Billy gets shot, his message and beliefs live on in the people who listened to him. I do not feel as if Vonnegut is saying that all progress was lost when Billy got shot. The message of this book is not never let war happen, but rather that it can be avoided if we look for the clues and listen to those who have experienced it.
Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five has a clear statement throughout it on the negative effects and repercussions of war. The novel has a strong anti-war stand with every aspect of its structure. The narrator of the novel has a very dark outlook on the world, focusing a lot on the war and the gore and violence seen in it. The author maintains a dark personality and style of presenting the theme of the novel, putting drastic emphasis on the fact that war has brought him to a darker and more hollow place, along with the world itself, which also has a barren and cold feel in its descriptions.
ReplyDeleteThe novel follows Billy Pilgrim, a war veteran severely psychologically damaged from his experiences in World War II. He is seen by everyone in the novel as insane, but is shown to the reader as if his delusions could potentially be actual paranormal occurrences that he experienced after serving his time in the war. Vonnegut constantly shows how the war has provoked mental instability inside Billy and has made him incapable of being able to decipher what is reality and what is a delusion created by his mind. There is a feeling toward the beginning of the novel that Billy ceases to acknowledge the fact that these occurrences are not real, and the fact that he truly believes that he has experienced these traumatic incidents. The scenes shown that display war and what Billy lived through when serving all have an incredibly dark feel to them, giving the reader a feeling of hopelessness. I remember reading these specific scenes in the novel, feeling that Vonnegut was trying to portray the feeling that the soldiers that lived through these experiences felt as if they were actually in hell, writing these scenes to make the reader feel similar to that.
The author also goes off in the book, expanding on the fact that humanity has many flaws and shows it with a twisted and cynical perspective. In one part of the novel it talks about the insignificance of free will, Billy believing it does not exist and the Tralfimadorians confirming Billy’s theory. The Tralfimadorians are displayed as incredibly intelligent, all knowing, creatures, when in fact they are simply a reflection of human beings. They are human beings that have embraced the true face of happiness and by what means we much go through to achieve it. An example is when they speak of how they ignore war when they are confronted with it. This relays exactly to a popular phrase known all throughout the world; “ignorance is bliss.” This statement, according to Vonnegut, is completely true, and is the only actual way to finding happiness. Yet another cynical view of the world, I would say. He is basically saying there is nothing you can do to stop/fix the problems that are polluting the world, since there will never be a world without war, and the only real way to overcome the horrors of the world and find happiness is to simply ignore them. I feel this is how Vonnegut sees those in political control that appear to do nothing to stop war and help those involved. Vonnegut thinks, according to his work, that those in power know they can’t completely abolish war, so they simply turn a blind eye to it, inevitably sending all those soldiers to their graves. For the few “lucky” ones that survive, they are doomed to an existence like Billys, one filled with delusions, mental instability, and constant condescension from their peers, this all due to war and the violent and brutal effects it has on humanity and the world as a whole.
In response to what Jordan Clemons said, I agree with pretty much everything you stated. I believe that Vonnegut was giving the reader a feeling of hope in the fact that we do have to ability to change, and he believes that one day we can. I also agree that Vonnegut wasn't using Billy's assassination as a way of showing us losing hope, but instead using it as a way of promoting what Billy said. I made the connection that Billy's assassination was much like that of Martin Luther King Jr. Many people ask themselves what more could Martin Luther King Jr have done for this country had he not been killed. It's a strong statement, but frankly I always think "not much." Not to say he couldn't have done more, but his death actually attracted about as much supporters as he did himself when he was alive. He died for the cause, which helped to get people to join it. I feel Vonnegut was doing the same with Billy, using him to show his dedication against war and his assassination as a boost of support from everyone, launching their cause into a whole new realm of support, one Billy probably couldn't have achieved himself had he lived to attempt to do so. I do agree that history tends to repeat itself and yet no one acknowledges that fact, and that was one of the main ideas that Vonnegut tried to emphasize when writing this novel.
ReplyDeleteKurt Vonnegut comments on American society through many different techniques. He uses different scenarios and events to parallel human behavior in American society as well as a vast array of characters to represent the many different types of people in our society. For example, Roland Weary provides an almost provocative insight into a theme or lifestyle among many Americans. He has a manner about him that is representative of an aggressive behavioral type. This type of behavior is generally seen in people that live in larger cities which is appropriate for Weary because he is from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Since Vonnegut made created him to be from this large city, he used to actions to mirror the actions of true city dwelling Americans. Roland Weary’s attitude toward other people is that of superiority because he believes himself to be able to accomplish anything and that he knows everything. This is very similar to the aggressive behaviors of people in cities. They are tough and very defensive and only do what they want to. These people generally put other people down, much as Weary put down Billy.
ReplyDeleteThis characterization shows the audience how Kurt Vonnegut makes descriptions. His way of doing so is by using descriptions that slowly make the reader grow to hate what is being described, which mirrors the feelings of Vonnegut himself. For example, Vonnegut says, “He had so much energy that he bustled back and forth between Billy and the scouts, delivering dumb messages which nobody had sent and which nobody was pleased to receive,” talking of course about Roland Weary. This reminds the audience of somebody who has been an absolute nuisance to him or her. People like this are generally the rumor starting individuals who nobody wants to remember or associate with. As he makes this connection with the audience, he can let his feelings about a topic become the audience’s as well.
By setting this foundation, Vonnegut was able to relate his feelings based on war. This novel contains a strong anti-war tone which Vonnegut elaborates on through his graphic descriptions of wartime events. He relates the war to our society through the people in it and their actions, but also draws parallels to society through the wartime events. When all of the captive American soldiers are crowded in the train, Vonnegut is able to use emotional appeal. He lets the audience know how awful these conditions were and that nobody should have to go through them. This is also a direct reflection on American society because it seems as though all of us are crowded together not knowing where we are headed, but continually moving. This same concept was reintroduced when Vonnegut talks of his Tralfamadorian experiences. The aliens see life as a continuous picture, and know what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen. Vonnegut wants the American society to look at our lives this way and know what we have planned for our futures, especially by remembering our pasts. His theory is that the tragedy of war can certainly be avoided if societies, especially heavily influential ones like the American society, have plans in place. Wars are not long thought over decisions, and certainly have not been planned, so Vonnegut is telling the American society to take initiative to not just go with the flow, but to be prepared, so that wars can be avoided.
In Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy's character represents individuals who wandering aimlessly, not knowing what to do with life or where their life's path will lead. Billy is not a leader, but rather he is searching for purpose. So like many others lacking direction, Billy joins the army. When he joins the army, he is looking for someone to tell him what to do with his life; what direction he should go. When he is walking through the forest with other people in the army, he realizes he needs them and is dependent on them to survive. This is representative of many people in America who do not take full advantage of their lives and just try to get through life taking what life has offered them instead of seeking their full potential. They never really search their soul to see what they need or believe.
ReplyDeleteIt often takes a war for individuals to sort out their values and beliefs. This is true for the citizens of a country as well as the soldiers. People bond with those who share the same viewpoints, values and beliefs. A modern day comparison is the war on terror and how it causes people to make a stand on what they think is right. If you look at Vonnegut's book and the modern world, one can draw some analogies. The attack on the trade centers is like the bombing of Dresden in that both scenarios resulted in the deaths of innocent people whose deaths were not necessary to deliver the intended message. Wartime often tries to change ideology through force
Billy does not have a strong sense of who he is or what he believes until he encounters the Tralfamadorians. They teach him about their culture and that they do not understand the concept of free will. They tell him that Earth is the only spot in the universe that they have encountered that believes in free will. They believe that each person's life has a certain course it will take regardless of the choices you make. Once Billy learns this from the Tralfamadorians, the bombing of Dresden has already occurred and Billy and his friend Ronald Weary are falling behind during an escape back to friendly territories and they are captured by German soldiers. They are put on a train with other prisoners and taken to a Prisoner of War camp with friendly British soldiers. This is where Billy becomes less aware of everything of that is happening around him and doesn’t care what people think of him. When Billy gets dressed up because the clothes he was issued were not suitable for the conditions, so he finds some leftover clothes from a Cinderella play put on by the British soldiers to welcome the new arrivals, and marches into Dresden. People take notice and poke fun at him because he is out of uniform and people believe he is representative of all Americans. But Billy has reached a point where he doesn't care what people think of him. He is beginning to understand that there may be a greater purpose to life than what people think of him.
When the bombing of Dresden begins and he lives through it, Billy begins to question his purpose and why he was spared when so many others who he feels were superior because of rank, motivation or physical and emotional stature. Before he was abducted, he questioned his purpose of life and didn’t know what to do. The Tralfamadorians gave him his purpose when they taught him about the true essence of time and death. This gave Billy a purpose, and that was to relay the information contained in is book to the rest of the world. His book conveys the new knowledge about how our perception of time is wrong and a person's death is only for that moment; they live on through other people. I think that many young people are looking for purpose in their life as well. They don’t just want something to do with their life. They want direction or something to make them feel like they belong in this world or will have a significant influence now or in the future.
In the novel or book if you will slaughter house five Kurt Vonnegut comments on the American society through three different ways. He shows criticism towards war in the book by openly saying he is writing an anti war novel. Kurt uses the war again to show the death it causes through his famous line, “so it goes” Kurt shows us death. Lastly Kurt gives us a sense of humor through Billy Pilgrim and His time traveling.
ReplyDeleteVonnegut places him self in the book in the opening chapters by saying how his book will be written to be an anti war book. Billy gets thrusted onto the front lines of a World War 2. The author portrays Billy to be kind of nerdy, clumsy and not all to bright. He shows us the stupidity of people and the dangers of war through Billy missing a shot all of his friends end up dead. Then Billy and Roland Weary are captured by the Germans. Kurt doesn’t show us the victory and the celebration part of winning he shows us the after effects. Kurt shows us what happens to the people on the losing side. He also shows us that the people fighting in the war are either older gentlemen or fresh young teenagers. The author really enforces his point that war is wrong through Billy being allowed to become unstuck in time. Through Billy being able to time travel he can go back in time and everything was how it was before, but every time he time travels to the front lines he experiences new horrors that just solidify the anti war views.
Another comment he shows on society is through the war as well. In the beginning of the book the narrorator covers a story of a man who had been crushed by elevator after his wedding ring had gotten snagged. Then we hear the famous line throughout the book only occurring when death strikes, “So it goes.” Every time a death occurs the in the book the narrorator always says so it goes. This makes me think that the author is just playing death off like a normal everyday average thing. I think he is saying that war has made us insensitive to the death that is occurring. He is telling us that the war has made us insensitive to death and death is a pretty big thing. When someone dies they are no longer on the earth. The general population knows people are dying but because of war its like, “oh 3 people died in a raid, wow that’s sad.” But after that people just carry on with their normal lives not thinking about it after that.
Kurt also gives the book a lighter note by adding a little sense of humor to the novel. Billy Pilgrim cannot control where or to when he time travels. Kurt also makes fun of the way beings are portrayed in the book. He said the aliens looked like toilet plungers with arms. He described his daughter to have legs the size of a piano. Also he describes the way the earth will end is through the aliens trying out some new jet fuel and blowing it up. During the war in the book Kurt gives us an easier feeling. I guess he didn’t want to make the book just grim and gloomy he wanted to add a little humor to it.
Kurt shows the effect of war throughout slaughter house five. He comments on the death war causes and that war desensitizes us death. Although Kurt is trying to portray his views in a real way he also adds a little humor to ease the reader.
Kurt Vonnegut’s dark yet strangely humorous book Slaughterhouse Five is a mocking and brutal look at the heavy toll war, in this case World War II, takes on a human mind. The protagonist is Billy Pilgrim, a lanky and dejected man whose psyche is callously broken apart by the war and becomes “unstuck” in time. Though bizarrely presented and unforgiving in its intensity, a clear disdain of war and its barbarous repercussions becomes noticeable as Billy first handedly experiences the war. Not only is the war in Europe presented as a nasty conflict, but the entire book clearly shows how much the mind can suffer and at what point it snaps. Billy relives his whole life, linking his everyday life with the atrocities of war in an atramentaceous swirl of memories. As the story progresses it becomes more disjointed as Billy less and less connected to anything, noting to himself at one point what it might say on his grave, “Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt”. Death no longer bothers him, in any of its horrid possibilities, as though the war had sapped him of compassion and emotion, very much the same way violence in the news and around the world desensitizes people to such savagery. This is not only apparent in Billy’s despondent attitude towards life after the war, but in the way the author so bleakly apostrophizes the horrific events of his life as well and makes them insignificant. This has become commonplace over the ages as wars come and go, leaving veterans scarred and unfeeling for their own plights, much less the plight of others. I believe Vonnegut is trying to call attention to how glassy and cold reactions to such evils become when you have to experience it over and over again, even in your daily life, and how such
ReplyDeleteVonnegut clearly harbored a deep disdain for war, and possibly more so for the American glorification of war and blood, as shown in Roland Weary, an unpleasant and violent character with a love of bizarre and outdated torture devices and weapons, whose vicious attitude and war-mongering spirit are indicative of an American upbringing. Though not so noticeable when first read through, many people show contempt for the Americans in the war, even their allies in the Nazi camp. America is a country born of fire and baptized in blood, a violent birth whose wicked essence that has pervaded the pages of its history and leached into the very fabric of its citizens, alienating them of their ability to pity and making them insensitive and cruel. This book represents the depravities of war in an unflinching and scorching light, and the evils of Americas accepted practices.
Reply to Clayton
ReplyDeleteI would agree with you that the book has an anti war personality to it, but the way you address the fact that the book has gore and violence and saying how he is cold in his descriptions it gives me a darker feel of the book. I don’t think this was the authors purpose in writing the novel I think he wanted to show how real war is through the violence and descriptions but he still used a form humor to make the novel a little friendlier to read. Instead of being grim and gloomy about it he perks the book up a bit by adding a sense of humor into the novel.
I agree with you that in the beginning of the book it seems like the war isn’t real to Billy. He acts clumsy and almost or does I forget get his fellow army men killed. It almost seems that Billy was dreaming which is another thing in the book. As the book goes on we learn more about what is happening in the present and we can decipher the fact from the nonsense time travels.
Reply to Nolan
ReplyDeleteI agree that war makes you sort out beliefs and the fire bombings of Dresden compared to the twin towers was clever as well. I also agree that death is only for that moment, but I think what Kurt was also saying is that the war desensitizes us to death. Through Kurt showing death to us as another everyday average thing it shows how little we take life for granted. One could sit here typing meanwhile in the world someones brother father or mother are dying and that impacts them and their family, but not really anyone else. Kurt is saying that death is just an average occurance when in reality every life is important because the world doesn’t know how capable that person is or can be. Kurt shows the death through the war. If you were just sitting on the couch and heard on the news 3 people died in a car bombing in Iraq you might care somewhat but since it doesn’t really apply to you, you don’t really pay it any mind after you turn the channel.
Reply to Nolan
ReplyDeleteI agree that war makes you sort out beliefs and the fire bombings of Dresden compared to the twin towers was clever as well. I also agree that death is only for that moment, but I think what Kurt was also saying is that the war desensitizes us to death. Through Kurt showing death to us as another everyday average thing it shows how little we take life for granted. One could sit here typing meanwhile in the world someones brother father or mother are dying and that impacts them and their family, but not really anyone else. Kurt is saying that death is just an average occurance when in reality every life is important because the world doesn’t know how capable that person is or can be. Kurt shows the death through the war. If you were just sitting on the couch and heard on the news 3 people died in a car bombing in Iraq you might care somewhat but since it doesn’t really apply to you, you don’t really pay it any mind after you turn the channel.
Reply to Chris
ReplyDeleteI agree with you a hundred percent on how you compared the train ride to American society. I think when Kurt uses the term it smelled of mustard gas and roses maybe he is saying that through war we can learn to look at history and learn from our mistakes and we can prevent future wars which could be the rose in this situation.
When you talk about how Kurt describes Billy, its almost as if saying look at the people fighting the war they are immature kids, they may have just gotten out of high school and we are sending them off to die. This could relate to the fact this book was written as an anti war novel to help sway the readers opinion against the war.
You talk about how when they are all crowded in the train how it appeals to our emotions. Kurt uses these strategies to help get his point across. He plays on our emotions to help us make a change so there doesn’t have to be anymore wars.
The most important element of American literature is the potential it has to emphasize certain aspects of society. This is possible because of the ability of an author to convey a message to readers through their work. Kurt Vonnegut seized this opportunity in the creation of Slaughterhouse-Five to express his opinion regarding universal issues. Using a unique and entertaining style of writing, he formulated his characters and plot in a way that successfully carried out his purpose. I believe that the most prominent concerns in American society that were addressed by Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse-Five were the tragedy of warfare and the general attitude of mankind toward death.
ReplyDeleteIn the first chapter of the story the author specifically mentioned that he intended it to be an anti-war novel. The plot fundamentally revolved around the experiences of the main character Billy in World War Two. Even though the complicated pattern of his mental reality caused the story line to be complicated to follow, the author put effort into making the bombing of Dresden the center of focus. He described this devastating event without directly stating his personal emotions toward the concept of war. Instead he made his point by forcing the reader to comprehend the deep meaning behind the work of literature and personally connect to it. This technique is very powerful and more effectively convinces the reader to develop feelings against the solution of physical war.
Vonnegut also applied this method of subconscious persuasion to make a bold statement about the overall attitude that humans have toward the concept of death. As a result of his encounters in the war, the author has an unusual perspective on death which is represented in the repetition of the simple phrase “so it goes”. These words appear in the story after every single presence of death, whether real or hypothetical, even when referring to inanimate objects such as dead champagne. The number of times he uses this saying is overwhelming, which serves a definite purpose. Not only does it highlight the importance of the topic, but it also causes the reader to become apathetic about the phrase, and therefore insensitive to the idea of death as a whole. This theory exists in the Talfamadorian idea of death as well, suggesting that it is nothing more than a part of life and is pointless to cry about, which is a commonly accepted belief in real life. The author infers that his readers should become more aware of this numbness to such a serious subject, and make an effort to change this outlook for American society.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote Slaughterhouse-Five for the primary purpose of sending a crucial message to readers about problems with society in America. He clearly has strong opinions about war and death which he expresses to the community through the use of literature. Those who read this novel are meant to feel inspired to consider the matter of death more seriously, whether individual or in mass numbers, and protest against the major contributing cause which is warfare. Slaughterhouse-Five is a perfect example of how something as common as American literature can have a significant impact on society as a whole.
Dear Gentelmen -- Well done. You analyzed the book very much from an anti-war purpose and view point. Do you think Vonnegut is commenting at all about the aburdity of society outside of a war context? What about the role of free will in the book and the constant "and so it goes" comments of the narrator? Is life in modern America as absurd as a WWII veteran who escapes reality by time travelling with aliens?
ReplyDelete“Slaughterhouse-Five”, to me, is more of a collection of memories than it is an actual story. I believe Kurt Vonnegut wrote the book this way to further explain how Billy’s understanding of the fourth dimension affects his life and how he responds in certain situations. Throughout the story Vonnegut depicts how tragic war is, and that it can destroy a person’s mental stability and their view on the world.
ReplyDeleteThe destruction of war is primarily apparent in Billy Pilgrim, but Vonnegut shows this change in all of his characters. Everybody is affected in some way or another. The man that shared a hospital room with Billy devoted his time to studying the attack on Dresden, people were ridiculed and tortured because of where they come from, and in the end Billy’s fellow soldiers become more malicious than the German’s had been. As mentioned in the first chapter, Kurt Vonnegut’s main reason for writing the book is to show the negative aspects of war. To further emphasize this statement he makes the main character weak and innocent, like any normal person would be in a time of war. Billy symbolizes most of the population of the world, and how people continuously get pulled into the game of war against their will. The Tralfamadorians speak of man’s idea of free will as though we created it to cover our fear of being controlled and having no choice in what happens in life. In my opinion this is Vonnegut’s way of saying that nobody is as strong or powerful as we think; that we created this excuse to give ourselves some sense of superiority over others.
One of the reoccurring themes that I found important was human dignity, and how easily it can be taken away. During the war Billy faces the torment of his captors and the other soldiers. While in the boxcar he’s excommunicated by the others, just because he kicked, yelled, and whimpered in his sleep. The British ridiculed all of the American soldiers because they were dirty, sick, and poorly clothed. When under the pressures of war it is nearly impossible to keep what little pride the soldiers may have had.
Billy’s story about the Tralfamadorians appears to be something he created to cope with everything that he has seen throughout his life and during the war. Because of the amount of death that he has seen he made this rationalization that nobody really dies, and that they are always doing what they had previously done in separate memories. The way the book is set up makes it seem like all of the events that take place are just positioned in a random order by a senile old man to tell the story of the Dresden bombing. Everything makes sense if you look at it that way, but one thing that I can’t figure out is how he correctly predicted his own death. The only explanation for this is that he really was abducted by the aliens and can jump through time.
I agree that we as a society as a whole have naturally become desensitized to war and violence in general due to how it is romanticized in movies and through the media, like newspapers and news stations. People now accept war and violence as a part of life and no longer see it as something to fight against, something Vonnegut portrays in the novel through the carefree attitude of both the author and Billy Pilgrim. However, I think Vonnegut uses both of those as a way to draw attention to how people think like that in order to show them that sort of mentality about war is wrong and may lead to many more violent tendencies, much like we’ve seen in history including many atrocities like the Holocaust, among many other forms of Genocide that have been brushed under the rug. I feel this sort of acceptance of violence is one seen often that we must fight to put an end to.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you said about how people generally look for purpose and significance in everything they do, and try to have some sort of an impact on the world. However, when you said that Billy’s dependency on his fellow soldiers shows how he isn’t searching for what and who he is, I would have to disagree. I feel this instead shows the gradual weakening of his mental stability, forming a dependency on others to keep a grip on his sanity, but it also represents a natural human tendency; one of dependency and constantly being reassured that they are needed and wanted. I also feel that there was more to the fact that Billy didn’t care about what others thought other than the simple fact that he was content with who he was. I think this also shows the beginning of Billy’s closing off to reality and slowly slipping into his own mind, thinking he now sees the overall insignificance of that specific moment and what the people in that moment thought of him, knowing that it was one moment in a chain of many and would never really have an impact of his life.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Clayton Kovich
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. Ignorance truly is bliss. Like you said the Tralfimadorians have learned to accept that war in inevitable. It is something that happens whenever you have two different cultures. They just accept the fact that it will happen, just like death, and I feel like they treat it like death. We know that everyone will eventually die, but we don't walk around everyday worried sick that it's going to be our last. We don't let it affect us. The Tralfimadorians walk around knowing there is a thing such as war, but they do not let it get to them. They know that if you dwell on something as bad as war that eventually it is all you think about, and it eventually ruins your society, or in the case of Billy, your mind.
Response to Jordan
ReplyDeleteThat final bit of information was very insightful, I had never thought about it that way before. I think that there is a great deal of truth behind that though. Billy Pilgrim is in my opinion, an exact parallel to the author himself. I think this because Billy’s story is confusing, sad, gruesome, and some bits are not believable. Kurt Vonnegut uses Billy to present his own story without having to write it as a type of autobiography. This ensures that people will not ridicule what he is trying to get across, but they can appreciate a well written story that makes them think, “What if?” Your theory about this not being a novel to exactly forbid war, but to listen to those who have viewed it, makes a lot of sense. Since Vonnegut made such a bold statement as Billy knows when he will die, this makes the audience realize that advice is given for a reason, and that reason is so it can be used.
In response to Chris Lowermilk
ReplyDeleteI agree with your statements about the parallel between the characters and real life people. I think this fits Kurt Vonnegut's style of writing, which I would describe as very “real”. This whole book is very real, even with time skips and Tralfimadorians, because it shows true war. It turned out to be what Mary O'Hare wanted. It was not about how everyone was a hero, it was about how war, in it's extremist form, can mentally effect someone.
The people in this book are very real as-well. Like you said each one seems to represent a stereotype of an American subculture. Just like you said with Roland Weary. I think Billy represent a soldier with post traumatic stress disorder in it's worst form.
In response to Nolan Franz
ReplyDeleteThere were a few good points you made in your post, but some I disagreed with. I do not believe that it takes war to sort out your values and beliefs. If anything I think it makes you question them. When your in foreign lands killing other human beings, I think at some point you question if what your doing is right. This usually results in a mental collapse like with what happened to Billy. I feel as if though most soldiers convince themselves that the enemy is a monster, and they must be killed. That would give most people the allusion that they have themselves sorted out. If they thought about it for a strenuous amount of time they would go insane. I do agree with you that Billy got to a point that he did not care what people thought about him. I think he thought about what he was doing, and realized the magnitude of the situation. Then he prioritized what was truly important, and realized in the end appearance was not important.
Response to Clayton
ReplyDeleteI view Billy’s feelings about happiness exactly as you described. In this novel, ignorance truly is bliss and the author doesn’t let you even try to forget that as you read. Throughout the entire novel, Vonnegut uses the phrase “so it goes” which shows in fact just how ignorantly he feels about death. Every time Vonnegut described a death, he wouldn’t do it as it was a tragedy, but as an unstoppable force. Whenever he would write “so it goes,” he was just reminding us, as the audience, to not dwell on the tragedy because it will cause you to suffer. However, Vonnegut still wants to relate to us the importance of using advice from the past to plan a course for the future. Vonnegut uses Billy as a conduit to stream the effects that can come from wartime events and he wants us to know that war truly can be avoided, along with all of the aftermath it contains, if we simply have an appreciation for history.
Response to Tre
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you on how Kurt Vonnegut used humor to put the audience at ease. Throughout the novel, he released a great deal of very sensitive material. This information was gruesome, sad, and quite frankly, very provocative. I am positive that he was aware of this because he put in so many humorous vignettes right when there was a climatic part about the war. By creating Billy with the ability to unwillingly skip around in time, Vonnegut was granted a large amount of space to draw the reader’s attention elsewhere at any time he wished to. Since he also used the phrase “so it goes” so liberally, he got the point across that there was a lot of death in the novel, but I think he was doing this to prepare the audience for his description of Dresden, because that was the main point of the novel. His description of the Dresden attack was why he wanted the book to be an anti-war novel and as a climax to the rest of his wartime stories, the Dresden story hit the main point home.
Response to Chris
ReplyDeleteI agree with Chris in his breakdown of Ronald Weary. His character is very loud and wants people to notice him and respect him. I think that is what a lot of present day Americans want, respect. I think that Billy represents the small percentage of Americans who are scared of the world and don’t want to be in charge of their life. Vonnegut nailed the character of Billy right on the head in the fact that people who need direction in their life join the military. I also agree with Chris that Vonnegut began to show more feelings and emotion to the reader as the book progressed. After the bombings, Billy's description of the cleaning up of Dresden was so vivid, it almost felt like you could smell the bodies that were in the ground.
Respose to Mrs. Kushner
ReplyDeleteI think that the phrase "so it goes" was very clever on Vonnegut's part. I think he says that because he the Tralfamadorians taught him that death is only an instant. They live in all the other moments. "So it goes" is just saying that that is what happened at that second in time and everyone's death is isn’t permanent. The number of times that phrase is used in this book is substantial. It is used quite a lot but if you consider that they are in a war, the number becomes more understandable. Another thing the Tralfamadorians taught Billy is that free will is non existent. It took Billy a while to understand this but he eventually conceded in the end. It's a pretty scary thought that our lives are controlled only by fate and that we don’t have a say in what goes on in our lives. I think that the war veterans of today have it pretty rough with the post traumatic stress disorder but it defiantly isn’t as absurd as someone escapes reality by time travelling with aliens.
Response to Jordan
ReplyDeleteI like what Jordan said about history repeating itself and how people don’t learn from their mistakes. It's true that most people don’t pay attention to what happens in a war and why the conflict even started. They just know that there is a war going on and who's fighting in it. The war in the Middle East has been going on for centuries. Even though there hasn’t actually been war over the whole span of time, there has always been conflict. If someone were to stop and get both sides what they wanted or compromised between them, the conflict would eventually die down. I know this is harder than I make it sound, but that is the basic problem. People need to learn to listen and that would solve so many of the world's problems.
In response to Jordan Clemons
ReplyDeleteI agree with you completely with what you said about how nobody listens to the warnings they are given until it is too late. We refuse to listen to those who actually know what they’re talking about, because we’re either afraid or we’re simply just too ignorant. People used to think that Albert Einstein was crazy, but he turned out to be a genius. Maybe Billy really knew more than everybody else did about aliens and the fourth dimension. It seems like Kurt Vonnegut made the Tralfamadorians symbolize human beings, in the sense that we try to ignore war and live our lives as though none of it is happening. But it’s like you said: if people would just listen to what those who have experienced war and know how horrible it really is have to say, we could potentially avoid future conflicts and tragedies.
In response to Clayton Kovich
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with you about Kurt Vonnegut’s negative outlook on humanity and the world we live in, I disagree with what you said about how he portrayed the war. Throughout Billy’s part in the war Vonnegut makes being a prisoner of war seem almost peaceful. Despite being ridiculed the Americans are fed everyday, provided entertainment by the British, and even given jobs in a small village. The British have it even better. They have money and cigarettes, and are even friends with their German captors. The only violence that Vonnegut really shows is the bombing of Dresden and how cruel we can be to our fellow Americans. While “Slaughterhouse-five” is still an anti-war book, it doesn’t show the worst parts of war, or the worst parts of humanity.
In response to Nolan Franz
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with everything you said, except for the part about people realizing who they really are in times of war. During war people just go along with what their leader says, and don’t think too much about values or beliefs. It seems that after a war is when people really begin to question their existence, because they were introduced to so many new cultures. After World War Two some people joined communist parties, because they saw how communism had affected China and Russia. Some changed religions after they learned about new things, but none of these people thought about that stuff during the war. They thought about killing the enemy. Another thing I disagree with is your connection with Dresden and the Twin Towers. After 9/11 most people weren’t thinking about their beliefs, they began to centralize their hatred on the terrorist who caused this, the enemy.
In Response to Tre Weaver.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with your idea of Vonnegut's touch of humour, I do not believe that it was employed mainly to break up the harsh monotony of his grim tales. I think it was more to bring attention to the absurdities in life, and even more so the absurdities in death and it's causes. I believe he was trying to show you, that if you could disassociate yourself from things as Billy Pilgrim had done (though involuntarily), you might see how tragically comical and bizarre the world actually is. In a way, it's an idea reminiscent of the Darwin Awards, awarded posthumously to people who perish in exceptionally stupid ways. Though an integral part of the story, and widely recognized as one of Vonnegut's trademark writing styles, I do not think the bits of humour spread through the book are meant merely as comic relief, but more as a window into generally unnoticed ridiculousness.
In response to Chris Lowdermilk.
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree with your analysis of Roland Weary and his stereotypically American actions. I would take it a step further perhaps, saying that perhaps he was not a nuisance to just the other soldiers, but represents what a nuisance America's interloping foreign relations might be to other, more efficiently helpful nations, further explored by their mocking at the hands of the British. It seems as though more people looked at the anti-war segments of this book in depth than did people analyze the anti-American undertones. Though perhaps "America" and "war mongering" are synonymous enough at this point in time that a criticism of war is also one of America. That's a rather bleak realization, though I suppose that may have been one of Vonnegut's objectives.
In response to Mrs. Kushner
ReplyDeleteI believe that the impact of this story was certainly intended to extend beyond the ideas of war. As I expressed in my original blog post, the repetition of “so it goes” was probably an overall statement about death as a whole. We as a society have a tendency to simply accept dying as a part of life, only a small event in the more significant period of living. This is portrayed in the book through the alien theory that everyone is very much alive at some point in time, and death should not be considered a tragedy.
In the modern world, for example, if you hear a news report about a certain number of people who were killed, you might make a comment about the tragedy of the situation. However, you would probably not feel any strong emotional distress over the event because of the fact that you are detached from it. This is our way of saying “so it goes” in our personal lives. The following quote by Josef Stalin is connected to this idea and is a great way to conclude my post:
“One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.”
In response to Mrs. Kushner.
ReplyDeleteI believe that the book was written to create parallels between wartime actions and the normal life of Billy Pilgrim, as it has already been established by numerous other posts on this thread. Cruelty and depravities that were acceptable during the war, are portrayed in this story as perversions of man's gentler side, though they may have gone unnoticed in daily life, disguised as the base actions common of humans and not worth mention, until similar actions were witnessed in the war and connected by Billy to his previous life in the United States. Only through the objective and rather despondent view of Billy Pilgrim are you able to understand these parallels and recognize that such actions are all born of the same malign intent that festers in the hearts of most men, be it in war time or during the monotonous course of daily life.
In response to Tre Weaver
ReplyDeleteYour analysis of the sense of humor used by Kurt Vonnegut was interesting. The way you described his metaphors and other comparisons out of context made them seem much more ridiculous and comical. Contrary to the opinion posted by Matt, I believe that a major part of this is in reality meant to be some form of comic relief. I honestly laughed out loud at some of these examples such as the destruction of the universe by something as simple as an experiment with jet fuel.
The author’s style of writing is what could be considered a dark comedy, including jokes that one is hesitant to laugh at because they are made about such serious subjects. If the author has a purpose for this sense of humor beyond entertainment, it is probably to open the eyes of the reader to how easy it is to laugh at devastating concepts. It may also highlight the absurdity of war and other aspects of human culture.
In response to Chris Lowdermilk
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your insight to the actual manner by which Kurt Vonnegut communicated his anti-war thoughts in Slaughterhouse-Five. Many of the conversations on this blog have revolved around this central theme of the story, but I was interested in your interpretation of the methods used by the author to achieve this goal. I am in agreement with your statement that he used elements such as emotional appeal to emphasize the terrible details of war and persuade his readers against it.
The part of your post that had the greatest impression on me was the connection you made between being unstuck in time and the universal ignorance of humans to the passing of time. I was inspired by the way you related this to the history of society and how we as a community should open our eyes to how we can use our knowledge of the past to plan for the future. This could be implemented in modern culture if more people would simply accept this truth and take action for it. The world would be a much more peaceful place to live.
Thank you to all the participants!
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