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What is the significance of the Tralfamadorians having only one book and the fact that the one book they have is Valley of the Dolls?
Billy seems to be full of fear at age 12...fear of the Grand Canyon, fear of falling in, fear of having his mother push him in, the Carlsbad Cavern's roof falling in on him, a glow-in-the-dark watch...what's with all the fear?
I wonder what the American said to make the guard angry enough to knock him down...
The Englishmen had saved all that food...why not take care of the clerical error so that the troops on the front would have enough food?
New word alert: rodomontades
The British are shown to treat war as something stylish, reasonable, and fun. Why?
"The banquet hall was illuminated by candlelight." The candlelight was provided by candles made of human fat. grotesque image in an otherwise celebratory, welcoming environment...
Where else would one be able to take in a showing of Cinderella during WWII?
Why is it significant that Derby is reading The Red Badge of Courage?
So Billy was in a mental ward after the war...Does this make his story more or less plausible?
"So they were trying to re-invent themselves and their universe. Science fiction was a big help." How so?
Derby refers to the war as the "Children's Crusade." Where have we heard that before? Why is that significant?
Why do you suppose Billy is so averse to seeing his mother? Is the explanation of feeling guilty sufficient, or is there more to it?
Valencia sounds like a prize...
What do you make of the re-write of the New Testament?
Funny that the Tralfamadorian crowd goes crazy when Billy goes to the bathroom -- just like crowds at the zoo react when apes or monkeys go to the bathroom. What's up with that reaction?
Why can't humans follow the advice of the Tralfamadorians and just ignore the bad and celebrate the good?
What are your thoughts on the gravestone drawing?
What are your thoughts on Howard W. Campbell, Jr.'s thoughts on Americans and war?
Is Billy cheating on Valencia when he is sleeping with Montana, or is he absolved by the fact that it happens on a different planet?
33 comments:
The beliefs of the Tralfamadorians are only based on what they know. The advice they give about ignoring the bad and celebrating the good would work if the human race was not ignorant to the lack of free will and the 4 th dimension. Human’s belief in free will and the ability to change the future makes the advice given to them hard to follow if not impossible. Human’s feel that when a bad event occurs that something could have been done to prevent it, while Tralfamadorians know that the bad event will always happen and that nothing can ever change it. Humans have a very different belief , and that belief makes them unable to accept the advice from the Tralfamadorians
That the Tralfamadorians only have one book in their possession strikes me as important. I feel that Vonnegut wanted to draw the reader's attention to this specific book, and made it stand out by being the only book they owned. Books, in general, open up a world of possibility to all people. Through different types of subjects, fiction, non-fiction, and styles, books influence the minds of the people that read them. Because the Tralfamadorians only have one book, I feel as if this symbolizes how closed-off they are from the rest of the universe. Also, it is very significiant that the only book they own is The Valley of the Dolls. For anyone who has read this book or seen the film, they know that is a fairly depressing story about the drug-abusing lives of three women. The main point of the actual book is that these three women all fall under the spell of these drugs, or "dolls", in order to escape the horrible reality of their own lives. I think it's significant that the Tralfamdorians own this book, because it seems like they are like a drug for Billy Pilgrim. The Tralfamadorians allow Billy to escape his life on Earth and allow him to believe that there is more out there in the universe than what everyone knows. These aliens function the same way that the drugs in The Valley of the Dolls do, they dilute Billy Pilgrim's reality and substitute a more bearable hallucination.
Billy never wanted to marry Valencia. He only did because he was expected to. He goes through the movements of everyday life like he knows he's expected to. However, he can't really live and enjoy life due to the events of the past, a place where is mind is forever stuck. Rather than becoming "unstuck in time" I believe he's stuck in the past. For this reason - in his own mind - he doesn't believe he is cheating on Valencia while with the Tralfamadorians. None of it matters to him because he believes there's nothing he can do about it.
On his trip to Tralfamadore, Billy asks for some of the Tralfamadorian books to read. He sees that the writing is composed of symbols separated by stars. When asked if they were telegrams, he was told that each symbol is a short, important message. Tralfamadorians read the message all at once, no beginning, middle, end, cause, or effects. It seems like the Tralfamadorians way of reading is similar to the way Vonnegut’s book is written. It seems as if Billy’s life story is told by the end of chapter two, just as all past, present, and future is known to the Tralfamadorians.
British people have always viewed war as a game and a gentlemen's game at that. Even during the American Revoultion The British army consisited of gentlemen's ideals of how soldiers should act and how they should conduct themselves. However when the fighting started these principles rarley continuedto be used. Ever army has thoughts of war as stylish and fun at one time or another but when they actually exprenice it the find the difference between Call of Duty and the Battle of the Bulge.
Does anyone else think it's so funny when the author writes himself in the story in the most random places? In this chapter, he shows up in Billy Pilgrim's life while having terrible diarrhea. I personally think it's a little weird and I'm not sure what the reason is. Is it just for comic relief? Is there a more symbolic reason? I'm not sure what the real reason is, but I laughed hysterically so if Vonnegut's goal was comic relief then mission accomplished.
The Children's Crusade was another option for a title for this novel. It's significant because in the first chapter when Vinnegut met with his friend O'Hare and his wife Mary, she kept saying how babies were fighting the war. That he and O'Hare were only babies in men's bodies. In the fifth chapter, Derby refers to the war as the 'Children's Crusade". Derby was older than the rest of the soldiers, even the colonel. When he entered the war he imagined fighting with men near his own age, not young men that in his eyes appear to be babies. Derby saying this was significant because it emphasized how young some of the men really were.
Throughout the book Billy has been on auto pilot, not really taking part in many decisions, his wife was one of them. He did not see anything in his wife, he only saw the future, and how he could deal with marrying this woman, without love. Billy's 'time travel,' seems to be taking the life out of him. He is skipping points in his life, and mentally arriving at others. Not sure how he came to 'arrive' there, but going on similar to how he was acting before he 'arrived.' He is living two different parts of his life at the same time, but considers it 'time travel.' The sequence of time is still relevant in this book.
I don’t think humans can follow the advice of the Tralfamadorians and just ignore the bad and celebrate the good because humans are very complex and we have so many emotions that can control us. We are not capable to just see the good and never the bad. Eventually, we can not keep ignoring the bad that is around us.
I agree with Rosa and Tyler about Billy being on auto pilot and just going through the motions each day. Billy didn’t want to marry Valencia, he just knew it was expected so he did it. He doesn’t think he can do anything about how things happen because Tralfamadorians just think things happen because they do. He is stuck in his past and he doesn’t know how to move on and enjoy life. Unless he gets off auto pilot and starts living for himself, he cannot fully enjoy life.
the englishmen saved the food because they were human, because it's easier to forget about the outside world and have a nice life than have to worry about everyone else.
the british are trying to make the best out of a extremely poor situation, it's almost like they're playing "pretend we're not prisoners"
the mental ward could make his story both less and more possible. on one hand, if the tramalfadorians are real, it would make him seem crazy. but, if they're not, then he actually is crazy. and all of the sci-fi books don't help his story.
valencia isn't a prize herself, but it's like a box of cereal. there's a prize in there, in this case her money, but he still has to eat through the bland cheerios to get to it.
we like seeing captive animals poop because as advanced as we are, it's something we still do, so we like to see how other species do something that we also do.
the gravestone drawing was brilliant, it's life condensed into one sentence, which is viewed through rose-tinted glasses.
I enjoyed that the Germans adored the English because they "thought they were exactly what English men ought to be." that they made war stylish, reasonable and fun. The English have always seen war as more of a game only to be played by gentlemen. I think that war has always been glamorized to downplay the horrors of it. England has pushed this image so hard that even in a prison camp their soldiers believe this lie.
I feel like the reaction the Tralfamadorian's had to Billy using the bathroom was because to them, human's are so primitive, such as we view Gorilla's and other primates. This theory is backed up by the fact they have Billy on display in a zoo, a indicator of how lowly they really do think of our intellect compared to their own. To them, the fact an "earthling" knows how to use the bathroom properly is stunning to them.
I find it interesting that the Tralfamadorians see everything as a whole, a person is seen as his/her entire life, not just his/her's looks at a certain point in time. Planets are viewed as the entire distance they travel, not just a certain spot. A book is read all at once, not one sentence after another.
I think Billy's reasoning for not wanting to see his mother is sufficient. He does not want to see her because he hates seeming ungrateful for all she has done for him. He does not want to disappoint her so he thinks by not seeing her, he will not show her how he does not really like his life.
I don't believe anything Billy says/does in the first place, so his time in the mental ward did not really change my opinion of the story's ... plausibility (is that a word?). Billy is an unreliable character. His perception of reality is extremely tilted, maybe because of his time in the war, maybe because of his abduction by the Tralfamadorians, maybe because of his uncanny ability to travel in time (albeit sporadically and without control or any chronology).
Also, (many) humans can't ignore the bad things in life and celebrate the good because (many) don't have an acute sense of self-preservation. Maybe it isn't completely about self-preservation, maybe it is the lack of what I call "circle-sense." Circle-sense is the knowledge that everything moves in a circle: what goes up must come down. Things may be so bad at one point (bottom of the circle) that one wants to give up, but they will be compensated at some other time/place by being overjoyed or having a sense of achievement (top of the circle). This may seem like gibberish but it helps to think about being on top when you're at the very bottom (that's what she said).
Subconsciously, human beings always dwell on the bad things in life. They are always looking for improvements and nothing is ever good enough for them. The Tralfamadorians focus only on the good things in life because they believe in the schedule that is already set up for them. They think that all actions are meant to be and cannot be changed. Human beings would never be able to follow this philosophy because they are too busy worrying about the future and focusing on making decisions to prevent occurrences from happening. The Tralfamadorians are completely different because they realize that what is meant to be will happen. They don't try to change/prevent the future from happening.
It is significant that Derby is reading The Red Badge of Courage because, most likely, it is a source of the boldness that he shows later on in the novel. The Red Badge of Courage gives the message "no guts, no glory." Derby's character seems to be influenced by this thinking. One difference, though, is that I think Derby doesn't put on a show with his boldness. I believe that he really does value integrity and goodness.
Wow, I have been really enjoying this book!That's surprising because I normally hate war novels, but this one is just so interesting! I hate the fact that Billy married Valencia. Marriage is such an important aspect in life and he married a woman that he had no feelings for. He truthfully just doesn't care about anything, just goes through the motions, does what others tell him, and marries a woman he doesn't love. I can only hope that his situation will get better throughout the end of the novel - but I have a sad feeling that it won't.
Whenever I think Valencia, I think of oranges. It must have been awful for Billy to marry a woman he really had no feelings for, especially if he was reminded of oranges whenever he thought of her.
The fact that Billy is in a mental ward clears quite a few things up. His insanity could be causing the time skipping, or the time skipping could be causing the insanity. But the two together bring about the alien abduction and the theories they have on the past, present, and future. The abduction is just flat out crazy, but the link between the time traveling and the way Tralfamadorians can see time all at once suggests that Billy had these ideas before he went crazy. So who knows, maybe Billy actually does move through time.
The whole situation in the extermination camp with the overly friendly British soldiers was extremely funny and completely unexpected. Who would ever think that such a thing would have existed in a place that revolved around death. Did anyone else find this whole situation hard to believe? These men are adored by the Germans in the camp and they have everything under the sun stored in one of the other buildings that they were given. For some reason the way Vonnegut described the banquet hall reminded of a Disney movie scene especially the part on page 122 where he states that “The banquet hall was illuminated by candle light. There were heaps of fresh-baked white bread on the tables, gobs of butter, pots of marmalade.” I personally have never heard of a prisoner at a camp being able to bake bread, but I guess there’s always a first. All-in-all I loved this scene and it made me laugh. I thought Vonnegut provided a perfect description that was easy to imagine.
AS more people talk about death, and the phrase 'so it goes' is continuously used, I'm now seeing is as he is just saying it's a part of life. We all know that someday it's going to happen we just don't know when. Before I seen it as saying that it's just what they said happened and you weren't really sure if it was true or not. Now, it just seems that he is using it to remind us that it happens. It may be a big deal then but later on we all know it's a part of life and it's bound to happen.
I seriously could not put this book down. Valencia does sound like a prize to be one but she is not Billy's. Billy doesn not take part in many deisions of his own life. It's either is wife,mom or daughter that makes the decision. He is on what other people called auto pilot. I think because he didn't want his marriage to Valencia, Billy doesn't really think much when he sleeps with Montana.
We are just people.We can just do our best to focus on the good but eventually that isn't enough. We are very complex and have many emotions.
We’ve heard the “Children’s Crusade” in the beginning of the book when Vonnegut tells Mary that he will title his story the Children’s Crusade. This is significant because it explains that it was mostly the younger people that were in the war fighting. Derby mentioned this because he is an older soldier who expected that he would have more people around his age fighting, but he was surrounded by men that were a lot younger.
I feel that the Tralfamadorian's idea of only celebrating the good is childish, not to mention detrimental to the human existence. Humans are set apart from other life forms because of our emotional abilities. We are the only creatures to experience joy... as well as emotional pain. However, by ignoring the bad things that happen, psychologically speaking, we would be ignoring the good as well. The saying, "The harder the battle, the sweeter the victory" can be applied here. Happiness can only be experienced by those who have also tasted disappointment and sadness. Therefore, by ignoring the bad completely, we forsake our own existence, as well as what sets us apart from any other being, including the Tralfamadorians. Human emotion is vital to our uniqueness as a species, and as individuals.
I think the Tralfamadorians consider "earthlings" to be dolls, or stereotype them as all the same. They think that the way of thinking on Earth is absurd.
I am starting to get hooked on this book! As more people talk about death, and the phrase 'so it goes' is continuously used, I'm starting to realize what Billy means when he says it. We all know that someday it's going to happen,we're going to die and there is no changing that, we just don't know when. It's very intriguing when you find out later in books what you've been confused about this whole time.... it's a good feeling when it all clicks!
I think human’s can’t follow the advice of the Tralfamadorians and just ignore the bad and celebrate the good because that is now who we are. I agree with Alan Reed 100%! Because we are humans we have the ability to feel and have emotions. This does make us special and unique (just as Alan said). Yes, it would be nice to never feel pain or suffering, or to never be mad, but without the bad we cannot have the good. We can’t have happiness without sadness. Even though our emotions can be crazy at times, I am glad that we do have emotions and the ability to feel.
All the fear from Billy’s Childhood leads me to believe that he has something to be afraid of. A normal young child would not fear their mother pushing them off the grand canyon. This also comes up again in my mind when he ignores his mother when she comes for visits by simply hiding under the blanket. There has to be some event that has made Billy that scared of his mother, I wish I knew what it was!
The Englishmen saving food brings to light the selfishness in everyone. Along with this goes the candlelight incidence. Out of this moment I get that even when you are happy, with a bar of soap, someone else died to make it. Leading me to wonder if everyone can truly be happy without it being at the cost of others?
Billy being in a mental hospital does make the story less plausible since he is so mentally flustered. Valencia does sound much like a prize in the book and more like a convenience to Billy than anything else. I question if there really is any romance between them? I mean he himself calls her ugly, but marries her knowing that life will be ok. Wouldn’t he want to be more than wonderful in his life if he could be? Onto the question of his infidelity within their marriage. I don’t believe he cheated on her due to the insane circumstances of it, such as being on another planet. The reaction of the zoo when he used the bathroom made me laugh because it mirrored an instance I had at the zoo when a lion peed on the window. Of course their was a laugh, but after reading this it put me in the position of the lion. One last comment about this chapter is that humans can’t ignore the bad because we try and learn from our past and try and prevent similar occurrences from happening again, unlike the Tralfamadorians who keep letting the world end because of one of their own.
I think that Howard W. Campbell's thoughts about Americans and the war are true in almost no regards. Most people know that even in America it can be very difficult to even have a decent living, and to work out of poverty is almost impossible. On one hand he was right about some ideas, but it has to be remembered that this is propaganda, and is never entirely true. The parts that talk about the state of the Army are just normal slander. In all his thoughts are just propaganda and are meant to demoralize American troops.
I think that the grave stone drawing is what we all want our lives to be, but that is not the human experience, we can not live a full life without having good and bad times, with out feeling pain and joy. This tomb stone might describe Billy Pilgrim's life, but that's only because of how detached he was. Humans life is full of ups and downs, life would not be worth living if it was all perfect.
“New word alert: rodomontade”
I love discovering new words, but this one is among the weirdest I’ve ever seen. I was just wondering if I’m the only one who’s enough of an English nerd to actually look this up. It apparently means ‘boastful or inflated talk or behavior’ as a noun (though it can also be a verb or adjective). I was pretty close when I tried figure it out based on the context. Apparently, it came from Italian and is based off of the characteristics of a character named Rodomonte in Orlando Furioso by Ariosto. Am I the only one who finds this interesting?
“The British are shown to treat war as something stylish, reasonable, and fun. Why?”
Perhaps the British treat war this way in order to sort of lighten the mood. With all of the fighting and death going on around, one could be driven insane by depression and lost faith for the world. However, if one views the cause as reasonable and fun and whatnot, then they are less likely to lose themselves to madness. Looking on the bright side of things certainly helps, especially when everything goes dark.
The Red Badge of Courage is considered Impressionist Literature. Beyond the relationship to plot, could here be a stylist link too? Honestly, it's been a few years since I've read Slaughterhouse but I remember that the narrative jumps around a bit. "So it goes."
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