Billy Was Alright

In Chapter 7, a potential motivation for Billy’s constant ramblings of time travel is given. In the chapter, he is involved in a plane crash, which he supposedly knows about beforehand but doesn’t tell anyone because he doesn’t wish to look like a fool. Everyone in the plane dies but him and the copilot, including Lionel Merbel, Billy’s father-in-law. So it goes. Afterwards, “he was taken to a small private hospital. A famous brain surgeon came up from Boston and operated on him for three hours.” It is commonly known that even after brain surgery, severe head trauma can cause severe mental issues. His staunch belief in time travel could be a result of this trauma. A symptom of his insanity could include him falsifying his own memories in order to fit them in with his convoluted state of mind. His condition is used by Vonnegut to satirize those who believe in the inevitability and necessity of warfare.