... month later, Billy wrote a letter to Ilium's newspaper describing the aliens. The Trafalmadorians are shaped like two-foot tall toilet plungers, suction cup down. We now see Billy working on a second letter describing the Trafalmadorian conception of time. All time happens simultaneously, so a man who dies is actually still alive ... 's mother informs the receptionist that Billy is going crazy. Barbara comes to take him home, sick with worry about what how to deal with him. MY COMMENTS In this chapter, the author introduces Kilgore Trout. Trout comes into play nearer the end of the novel....

• Word Count: 7795
• Approx Pages: 31
• Grade Level: High School

... Americans are brought to a house full of other captives. Billy falls asleep and wakes up in 1967 in the middle of administering an eye examination. We learn that he has been falling asleep at work lately. He finishes with the patient and tries unsuccessfully to interest himself in an optometry article. Billy ... other optometrists. He sinks a putt, bends down to pick it up, and he is back on the flying saucer. He asks where he is and how he got there. A voice reiterates that he is trapped in a blob of amber. He is where he is because the moment is structured that way, ... in life, he cl...

• Word Count: 5323
• Approx Pages: 21
• Grade Level: High School

... his views are those of an alien, and he also has breakdowns where he shows his human nature. In chapter one, Kurt Vonnegut really shows his human side and even goes out to prove how he is human. Then the Tralfamadorians teach us how to feel no unhappiness. They teach Billy, more importantly, to move on from troubles in his life, but since ... not be a good way to come to terms with the death of a person. "The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his f...

• Word Count: 1347
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... time has always existed, and will always exist. The best thing we can do is ignore the bad moments of our life, because we cannot change them. So it goes. When Vonnegut places himself inside the book, particularly in the first chapter, the reader is told that the all the events of the story ... is. Not only is the book inundated with thousands of meaningless deaths, but many riddles and double meanings. For a Tralfamadorian, it does not really matter how you live your live, as long as you have at least one happy moment to relive for eternity. Billy Pilgrim, just like any other human bein...

• Word Count: 1466
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... whenever the character Billy Pilgrim encounters death. He is basically saying that death is no big deal. Vonnegut even uses the phrase "so it goes" in the first chapter to describe himself as a "pillar of salt"(22). He calls the book a failure, this helps to support the fact that war is always a failure and ... based on it. To help understand the phrase "so it goes", what it means, and why the character Billy Pilgrim uses it every time someone dies, we must first understand the character Billy Pilgrim. Billy is certainly slow and could be considered an idiot. Billy just goes with the flow...

• Word Count: 679
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School