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My Analysis

Slaughter House 5 is a book written by Kurt Vonnegut about a seemingly simple minded man called Billy Pilgrim who becomes unstuck in time. This occurs after being involved in a plane crash in which he is the only survivor and suffers some head trauma from then onwards, also he suffers some emotional distress after he witnesses the horrific bombing of Dresden and the after effects of it. He becomes unstuck in time because of the terrifying events that took place throughout his life, and that started as early as when he was a little child. He was learning how to swim and his father pushes him in because he has a 'sink or swim' policy. He nearly drowns and the physiological damage begins.

Vonnegut writes in a simple, usually brutally honest and apparently unfeeling manner throughout the story. A scene proving Billy's simple thoughts and involving the use of Vonnegut's 'matter of fact' language is “He used to have a dog named Spot, but he died. So it goes. Billy had liked Spot a lot, and Spot had liked him.” It was if a child had written it, so is Vonnegut implying that Billy had the mind of a child? Billy had to do manly and mature things in his life such as fight in the war and own a buisness but the manner in which Vonnegut imply's him to think, its as if he is shying away from life. Another example of Vonnegut's honest nature of writing, and perhaps how Billy sees things is “Valencia was snoring like a bandsaw. The poor woman didn't have ovaries or a uterus anymore. They had been removed by a surgeon – by one of Billy's partners in the new holiday Inn.” He writes in such a way that it seems like Valenica is a stranger in Billy's life, or that Billy cared for her as if she was a stranger. Billy is a very complex character in way since he doesn't think and act as other people do.

The character of the Trafalmadorians could perhaps have been all in his imagination, his imaginary friends to get away from the horrible reality that was his life, and escaping to this imaginary world could have been the only way to keep him going since he wasn't “very enthusiastic about living”. After-all on Tralfamadore wasn't his companion a famous actress who had been in adult movies. Perhaps she was the girl of his dreams, so in his mind made her live with him on Tralfamadore to keep him company in his dream world. The Trafalmadorians way of life could have been how he wished earth would be. Billy believed that you could not change the past, the present or the future. He also liked how they taught this and said there was no talk of free will except on earth. So he had in his mind back up that the horrible things that happened in his life like being pushed in the pool, being in a plane accident and seeing Dresden get bombed had to happen and were unavoidable and were just a fact of life. That's why Vonnegut writes in a fact-ful way, because that's how Billy's views the events that take place in the world. They always have to happen and always had happened so there was no point worrying about them or trying to stop them.