... once they are over they are not gone forever, and like the Traflamadorians he too can choose to ignore the unpleasant ones. Throughout the novel, Billy feels no guilt, remorse or pressures to change his future because he believes it is predetermined and cannot be changed. Whenever there is a tragic ... is and always will happen. Even with the knowledge that his son, a member of the Green Berets, could potentially be killed in the war "Billy was not moved to protest the bombing of North Vietnam, did not shudder about the hideous things he himself had seen bombing do."(76) He believes .....

• Word Count: 576
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut argues that the loss of free will is affected by a parallel of controllable and uncontrollable events that occur in the life of the protagonist, Billy Pilgrim. Vonnegut argues that Billy's loss of free will results from his experiences in life, specifically, his childhood, marriage, and participation in war. The dark humored novel stresses the point that given the ... ability to harness free will, i.e. control his destiny, man, being an egocentric creature, finds it an impossible task. This is seen through Billy's lack of resolve when faced with the pr...

• Word Count: 971
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... February of 1945, the greatest man-caused massacre in history. The novel is about the life and times of a World War 2 veteran named Billy Pilgrim. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut uses structure and point of view to portray the theme that time is relative. The way Kurt Vonnegut ... no chronological order. This mirrors the structure of the novel, which has a beginning, middle, and end, but not in their respective places. (Dawley 1) Billy states numerous times in the novel that he has becomeunstuck in time? and that the time travel periodsaren't necessarily fun?. (Vonnegut 23) While t...

• Word Count: 1028
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... in optometry and ends up marrying the daughter of the school's owner, Valencia, who is overweight and has lower self-esteem than he does. After they are married, Billy is put in charge of a successful optometry practice, but receives little help from Valencia's father. They continue to positively establish themselves in the community by starting a ... the snow and die." (Vonnegut, Page#) In the end, all the other soldiers he is traveling with die except Billy, which is a cruel and ironic ending to an already awful war experience. Adding to Billy's already troubled existence, he is abduct...

• Word Count: 728
• Approx Pages: 3

... , "So it goes."" after telling the reader of a death. In doing so, he is displaying his blasé attitude towards death. Billy Pilgrim has the same attitude toward death, even before he meets the Tralfamadorians and becomes accustomed to their philosophies on life and death ... . Billy expects and accepts that he will die. He even welcomes death at times. At one point when Billy is in the war with Roland Weary and the rest of the Three Musketeers, a marksman fires at ... the group while they are walking down a road. The soldier boys run for cover. Billy, however, remains standing on the ro...

• Word Count: 533
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... a much greater meaning and message behind it. "So it goes" is a phrase used throughout the entire book many times. This phrase shows up 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 ... silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist" (26,27). The fact that Billy looks at death this way helps explain why he is so numb to death. Vonnegut wants to show that war is not glorious a...

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

... in 1969. I chose this book because it sounded like an interesting war novel. The main character in this book is Billy Pilgrim. Billy is a weakling, not some one who you would think to fight in a war. Billy was an optometrist. Billy has no fear of dying. After each death in the story he says, "So it goes". The conflict in this ... book is that no one believes Billy about the Trafalmadores and how he was captured and taken through time. Every one thinks he is insane. They blame it on when he hit his ... head in the plane crash. The conflict is between Billy and everyone else. The conflict...

• Word Count: 535
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... me." (148). He purposely points out that he says these things to humanize the storyline. For example, he tells the reader that a specific event would make a good epitaph for Billy Pilgrim. Then he effortlessly inserts that it would be a good epitaph for himself as well. A couple pages after the epitaph, Vonnegut informs the reader that he was in the prisoner ... a real living and breathing person, even if it sounds incredibly ridiculous. Another "rule" of writing Vonnegut breaks in this novel is inserting more than one surrogate for himself. Billy Pilgrim is the main and obvious surroga...

• Word Count: 990
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... it without his help. Kurt Vonnegut suggests that the idea of no free will and predestined life can affect any human as it did to Billy. He displays that beliefs are strong tool that can change humans. There are several details to lead the reader to thinking the Tralfamadorians are ... nonexistent. Such as the framed prayers on Billy's office. The same words reappeared on Montana Wildhack's locket. This could be a kind of deja vu. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental ... to days, feeling emotional, hopelessness for future, hearing or seeing things, and easily being startled. ...

• Word Count: 853
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... of telling his story of Dresden. The setting of Slaughterhouse-Five is wide-ranged, each place having a significant effect on Vonnegut's story through the life of Billy Pilgrim. The three most important places are Germany during world war two; Ilium, New York, before and after the war; and an alien planet called Tralfamadore ... . Ilium, New York is the fictional town in New York where Billy Pilgrim is born in 1922 and where he lives most of his life. In Chapter 1, Vonnegut tells us that after the war he and his wife ... mirrors the narrators the most. Vonnegut having experienced war and...

• Word Count: 521
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... in the basement of Slaughterhouse Five during the bombing and manage to escape unharmed. Another important setting in the book is the planet of Tralfamadore, where Billy is taken by aliens. There he is held captive and displayed in a zoo, along with his earthling mate, Montana Wildhack, an american star of pornographic ... about himself, the story, and how he wrote it. Vonnegut actually appears as a character in some of the war scenes. The protagonist of the novel is Billy Pilgrim, a mild man. Even though he becomes a successful optometrist, gets married to Valencia, and has two children...

• Word Count: 803
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... we go throughout life chronologically, he slips in and out of periods of his life, in and out of time and lives in that moment. One time Billy was abducted by aliens called Trafamadorians. These aliens experience life in the 4th dimension, time. "A Trafamadorian sees all time as you might see a stretch ... is important and defines the person's character. This book is written very much in a Trafamadorian style. It does not focus on the entire life of Billy Pilgrim, but instead focuses on certain moments of his life. When humans look at another's life, they do not focus on death but on how...

• Word Count: 1091
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... my favorite character in the story because everything abnormal happened to him yet he seemed so innocent. Billy was truly my favorite character when I found out the clothes he was wearing were an "azure toga and silver shoes". Billy had some of the worst stuff happen to him but he survived and moved on. The character that I disliked the most was Paul ... who whoever he has a scuffle with he later punishes. My favorite part of the story was when Billy was on Tralfamadore. Billy seemed to be in charge there and he had a beautiful mate. All the Tralfamadorians viewed Billy as a great creat...

• Word Count: 471
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... , "so it goes" followed. The first use of this phrase was right in the beginning; the narrator was referring to a cab driver that Billy Pilgrim and his old friend from war were acquaintances with, "His mother was incinerated in the Dresden fire-storm. So it goes" (Vonnegut 2). This ... the Bulge, Vonnegut was there during the bombing of Dresden. He was sent there as prisoner of war, which the antagonist in the novel, Billy Pilgrim, was as well. During the actual bombing, Vonnegut was luckily underground inside an air-raid shelter, with the other American prisoners. He saw ... mentions of...

• Word Count: 1071
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

... which would prevent the flow of time. This "prevention of time flow" is obviously something that fascinates him, because the main character in the novel, Billy Pilgrim, is untouched by time flow. He is "spastic in time," and has the ability to time travel. He also travels to another world, ... Tralfamadore, which gives him a whole new concept of time and the cycle of life. Billy uses the Tralfamadorian philosophy in order to "escape from the concept of linear time, just as their novels are an escape from linear narration- (McGinnis ... manner. Slaughterhouse-Five is a random collection o...

• Word Count: 781
• Approx Pages: 3

... and also religion is ridiculous and tries to control your life in the name of God whose existence is doubtful. The sarcasm and careless for things that Billy Pilgrim shows in Slaughterhouse-Five reflects Vonnegut's careless for everything since human is innocent. What could be important in a world controlled by naive humans who live ... fear or saw them as cruel as they maybe were, they were simply enemies that he did not even hated. He even was concentrated in other details: "Billy looked up at the face that went with the clogs. It was the face of a blond angel, of a fifteen-year-old b...

• Word Count: 627
• Approx Pages: 3

... In the book he serves as the narrator, observing, not only the calamities of those who held the status of prisoners of war, but the life of Billy Pilgrim in particular. Pilgrim's life is hard to keep up with, for in it are many journeys. Through these journeys he deals with issues of free-will ... finds himself unable to control. For instance, when he was a child, Pilgrim's father tossed him into the deep end of the pool. Billy decided he would prefer to just stay there, but he was rescued nonetheless. He was later drafted into the war against his will ... and future. While there are man...

• Word Count: 828
• Approx Pages: 3
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

What are Tralfamadorians? The Tralfamadorians are the so-called "aliens" who kidnapped Mr. Billy Pilgrim. These creatures had a great impact on Pilgrim's life, changing his views of the world and how time is perceived. They have ... his funeral. All moments, past, present, and future, always have existed, always will exist"" (pg. 26-7) Time is nothing in the world of a Tralfamadorian. Billy Pilgrim, in his adventure on Tralfamadore, questions one of the creatures. He asks how they maintain such a peaceful community. The Tralfamadorian clearly states that in the current ... to show his reade...

• Word Count: 577
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

... different ideals of war and the undeniable consequences of military service. The foremost and most obvious difference is the way in which the two authors portray their main characters. Vonnegut's Billy Pilgrim defies any conventional mold of a wartime hero. Originally enrolled as chaplain, Pilgrim's intentions weren't to fight, but to serve the moral and spiritual needs of the soldiers. As he ... throughout the novel, Vonnegut makes mention of the American bombing of Dresden, Germany, in which over one hundred thousand innocent Germans were slain. Also, the psychological and physical da...

• Word Count: 952
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... that we were required to read it, because I would have probably of not made the right choice and have chosen it. I found it quite amusing, to be following a character named Billy Pilgrim who is spastic through time, and who was once abducted by aliens, called Traflamadorians. The spastic changes of the time of where the story takes place is confusing but ... line which he kept on returning to throughout the book. The passages about World War II were also interesting to me, because I am interested quite a bit in WWII myself. I found Billy's attitude throughout the book interesting as wel...

• Word Count: 290
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: High School