Seeing in 4D

"A planet of playthings/We dance on the strings/Of powers we cannot perceive"


On the planet of Tralfamadore, there is no talk of free will. Indeed, as a member of its race affirms to Billy Pilgrim, "If I hadn't spent so much time studying Earthlings, ... I wouldn't have any idea what was meant by 'free will'." According to the Tralfamadorians, there is no such thing as free will; things happen only because they must. They can see all time, from its beginning to its end in a cataclysmic yet unavoidable experiment involving the testing of rocket fuel. So it goes.

This creates many questions for the denizens of Earth. One obvious question is why should the Tralfamadorians be trusted? Especially when they had already named themselves as the harbingers of the doom of the universe. Furthermore, even if they legitimately believe themselves, they could still be deceiving themselves, and because they all believe in it, nobody would have tested their theory. The lack of free will brought up by the Tralfamadorians poses many interesting questions indeed.

*Introductory quote from the song "Freewill" by Rush

More Spoilers

In Chapter 4, Vonnegut's odd method of foreshadowing makes another appearance. In it, he introduces the character of Edgar Derby. He is a schoolteacher from Indianapolis, a very physically and mentally adept man despite his old age. Rather than continue with the story, Vonnegut immediately states "that good body of his would be filled with holes by a firing squad in Dresden in eight  days. So it goes." In this sentence, Vonnegut briefly touches on what will become a major point in the story later on. The scene in which Derby is killed is a pivotal scene, showing fully the inherent absurdity of war, and yet it is plainly stated in two sentences at random when the character is introduced. This is used by Vonnegut to show that the meaning of the book is more important than the plot.

The Cost of War

Chapter 3 of Slaughterhouse-Five takes place inside a train transporting prisoners of war. This chapter alludes to one of the primary costs of war; the sanity of its survivors. In the chapter, there are several characters who show signs of losing their grasp on reality. One of them was "Wild Bob". He began yelling and screaming at the prisoners as if they were of his own regiment, even though only one was, and he wasn't listening. He ranted about how "after the war he was going to have a regimental reunion in his hometown, which was Cody, Wyoming. He was going to barbecue whole steers." After losing his sanity, he died. So it goes.

Another character from chapter 3 is the ex-hobo that sleeps in Billy's boxcar. He constantly goes on about how "This ain't bad. This ain't bad at all." Later on, he dies. His last words were "This ain't bad". So it goes.

Slaughterhouse-Five shows very clearly the effect war has on the psyche of it soldiers. His firsthand experience allows him to write a realistic account of the horrors of war.

In Slaughterhouse-Five, Billy Pilgrim is always shown exhibiting passivity, a lack of caring about what is going on. For example, although he has the Serenity Prayer framed on his wall, he believed "the things [he] could not change were the past, the present, and the future." Thus, Pilgrim believes himself a passive observer of his life, incapable of changing a single thing. For example, he does not care in World War II when is is abducted by the Germans, and neither does he care about the excessive bombing in the following Vietnam War. His summation of the death of his dog, a normally tragic event, was "So it goes. Billy had liked Spot a lot, and Spot had liked him."

Vonnegut uses Billy's passivity to contrast his anti-war views. He uses Pilgrim to make a cold comparison to those who claim war is an inevitability. He shows Pilgrim as believing all things as an inevitability, and thus he simply idly stands by and lets tragedy take her course. So it goes.

Tralfamadore

An interesting aspect of Vonnegut's novel is the alien society of Tralfamadore. While mentioned very frequently in the story, there is one aspect that is never commented on. Although it is plain that the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim, sincerely believes Tralfamadore exists, it is never explicitly stated that he is correct. Throughout the story, Tralfamadore's existence is left ambiguous. Slaughterhouse-Five may, in fact, be a story told through the eyes of a delusional war veteran whose fear of death has manifested in the form of his belief in the Tralfamadorians. Indeed, Slaughterhouse-Five may be Vonnegut's way of saying how absurd the notion that things must happen is. It is a well-known fact that Vonnegut was anti-war; Slaughterhouse-Five may be a symbolic representation showing how absurd the notion that war "must" happen is.

Unstuck in Time

In the second chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five, the story's odd methods of storytelling are revealed. Half of the plot, from Pilgrim's childhood, to his deployment in WWII, to his marriage, to his wife's death are all "foreshadowed", in Vonnegut's odd manner. Later on in the story, these moments are often flashed back to, normally for dramatic effect or to further explain details only lightly touched upon earlier. Indeed, the entire story is told in a very non-linear manner, with frequent jumps between the past, present, and sometimes even the future. Thus, it could be said that the incidence of Billy's coming "unstuck in time" could be so that Vonnegut could put together a story with a message without having to worry about utilizing a linear plot.

"The ones who hated war the most, were the ones who'd really fought."

Slaughterhouse-Five is, in addition to the overarching theme of free will, an anti-war book. The story was written by a veteran of WWII, the bloodiest war in human history. The first chapter of the book tells Vonnegut's story of his involvement in WWII, specifically the incident in Dresden. "All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true. One guy I knew really was shot in Dresden for taking a teapot that wasn't his. Another guy I knew really did threaten to have his personal enemies killed by hired gunmen after the war. And so on." In the story, Vonnegut expounds in the story of Billy Pilgrim the futility and pointlessness of war. He uses Pilgrim's indifference to provide a neutral, non-sugar-coated view of the horrors of war. This view reminded me of a very powerful song I had heard before, "Hero of War" by Rise Against. As a warning, this song does use slight profanity; however, the profanity is not the important part; the message is.

Vonnegut and Rise Against both show different sides of the horrors of war. Vonnegut showed the inherent ridiculousness of taking the time to execute one man for petty theft while men are dying by the thousands outside, the massive civilian casualties, and the barbarism of the soldiers of both sides. Rise Against shows torture, the loss of friends, and a soldier suffering from PTSD. Vonnegut, in his personal life, was adamantly anti-war, which is shown in his writing. He uses Slaughterhouse-Five as a testament to his vendetta against war.

War, Free Will, and Aliens: The Story of Slaughterhouse-Five

A little heads-up to anyone reading this; I have already read the entire book. I had a long car ride at the beginning of summer, and read the whole book in one go. Thus, although I am doing a chapter-by-chapter analysis of the story, I will occasionally reference future events. In a way, it suits the theme; Billy Pilgrim knew all that had happened or ever will happen in his life; I'm just putting myself on level ground with him. In addition, to be quite frank, it's more convenient for me. So it goes. So without further ado, I will begin my analysis of the story, starting with the quote that begins the tale.

The story of Slaughterhouse-Five is introduced by an epigraph, "The cattle are lowing, the Baby awakes. But the little lord Jesus, no crying he makes." This quote offers an interested parallel between the Messiah, Jesus Christ, and the main character of the story, Billy Pilgrim. In the Bible, it is shown that throughout the story Jesus is aware of his inevitable fate of suffering and death. However, outside of his Agony in the Garden, he never shows any sign of apprehension or fear of death. Likewise, Billy Pilgrim knows how, when, and why he will die, but shows total indifference, as he believes that he has truly become separated from time, and thus immortal. After reading the rest of the book, Vonnegut seems to reference Jesus and His story quite frequently, for the dual purposes of shocking his audience into paying attention with occasionally irreverent references to Him and to compare Jesus' power to that of the Tralfamadorians, Billy's personal Messiahs. These references also serve to contrast Jesus and the Tralfamadorians, with Jesus' philosophy of actively attempting to change the world for the better being contrasted with the Tralfamadorians' fatalist views. This quote started off the book with the great way to compare and contrast Billy Pilgrim and the Talfamadorians to Jesus.