"Billy stared into the patine of the corporal's boots, saw Adam and Eve in the golden depths. They were naked. They were so innocent, so vulnerable, so eager to behave decently. Billy Pilgim loved them"(Pg. 53)
The plot line of the book is broken into two separate parts. The events that happen to Billy in reality is where Billy is portrayed as hopeless and clueless, and he seems out of place. There is also a second story that is in Billy's virtual world, in which he time travels and is abducted. In Billy's head and on his spiritual travels he views and speaks of his life with intelligence and a unique opinion. What happens in Billy's head and reality is mixed and jumbled throughout the book, why did Kurt Vonnegut choose to write his book like this?
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ReplyDeleteI think Billy's character is a representation of how people may act one way but on the inside they really think something else. Billy is not the ideal soldier, he could really care less about how well he does. However, when he time travels he acts the way he likes to think. He is a man with more complex thoughts than normal and when he time travels he fits into the situation. Billy did not have much control over his choices in life and felt like he had no will to live. And the Tralfamadorians see death as Billy does, to accept it. So, all of the meaningless deaths he has witnessed push him to create these Tralfamadorians that reflect on Billy's mind. So, I think Vonnegut chose to write the book like this to show that people, especially Billy come up with their own unique ways to cope with things. Billy has a difficult time justifying these deaths so the narrator tries to equalize death with the phrase "so it goes", to balance the pain of death with some sort of humor; much like the different sides of Billy. One side of Billy is painful where he is in reality and the other is where he is free to act and transform his reality into lighthearted imagination.
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