B7 Ch 2, 3, 4 Discussion by Lauren Kott

2025-03-26 19:18:26 UTC

Billy never getting mad could be a coping mechanism for everything traumatic that has happened in his life

2126480 — 2025-03-26 19:18:30 UTC

Page 31 explains most of his life. Page 37, he disassociated himself to deal with his trauma.

2025-03-26 19:18:46 UTC

Billy experienced so much that he doesn't feel anything anymore.

2025-03-26 19:19:28 UTC

Billy's constant use of the phrase "and so it goes" is a way for him to cope with all the tragic events that occur in his life. He disassociates himself from these traumatic events.

2025-03-26 19:19:35 UTC

We don't know if we can trust Billy or not due to the time gap between when he became unstuck in time and when he shared it. He "didn't think the time was right."

2025-03-26 19:19:41 UTC

Because Billy didn't talk about being disconnected from time for a bit, this creates doubt that he is telling the truth, and the bad experiences in his life have hurt his mental state. This all damages his credibility as a narrator.

2025-03-26 19:20:38 UTC

Billy has lost the ability to care about anything whether that be his future or his losses.

2025-03-26 19:20:53 UTC

There are references in the text, mainly at the ends of paragraphs, that "so he says" hints towards how Billy is unreliable in recounting factual information

2025-03-26 19:21:06 UTC

Short sentences show how he emotionless about being unstuck in time. It shows how screwed up his life is and how he now has no emotional response to big events due to so much trauma.

2025-03-26 19:21:07 UTC

Billy never getting mad could be a coping mechanism for everything traumatic that has happened in his life. (rewritten)

2126480 — 2025-03-26 19:21:28 UTC

Repetition of words showed how Billy was complacent and not attached to the real world. Made it seem like he had no regard for his own life.

2025-03-26 19:22:04 UTC

Other peoples view of him calls his credibility under scrutiny because although on the inside he feels sane, everyone else sees him as crazy and weird.

2025-03-26 19:22:18 UTC

He could possibly be considered the antagonist because he continues to repeat "so it goes". Depicting him as more emotionless and dystopic or overall depressed in the war.

2025-03-26 19:22:36 UTC

Due to his traumatic experiences, Billy has deceived himself to think that there is nothing in his life besides his trauma, as there is very little description of his life before the war

2025-03-26 19:22:40 UTC

Billy's perception of himself is very seperated from others' perception of him

2025-03-26 19:22:45 UTC

Billy's ways to cope after the war he disassociates from life as a way to cope from the trauma of the war. He doesn’t speak much to other characters and is often stuck within his own mind.

2025-03-26 19:23:00 UTC

It is especially interesting because the man who repeatedly objects to being next to Billy is described as "a hobo". This helps to speak to his credibility (or lack thereof).

2025-03-26 19:23:01 UTC

Billy is often portrayed as lacking dignity throughout the novel, paired with the facade of reality, which raises questions about his ability to control his own life and fate.

2025-03-26 19:23:36 UTC

Billy recieves dialogue, including threats, with short, abrupt sentences. Jakub called it placid and I liked that word

2025-03-26 19:23:36 UTC

Billy has negative emotions but he doesn't do anything to express them or solve them which is seen in his appearance and his lack of dialogue.

2025-03-26 19:24:01 UTC

Juxtaposition creates differences between the major characters.

2025-03-26 19:24:38 UTC

Billy and Weary are so different, possibly because Billy is completely disconnected from life and emotion after the war but Weary continues to be antagonistic and violent.

2025-03-26 19:25:31 UTC

Kaleb pointed out how Billy sees himself as a spectator to his own trauma, disconnected with himself greatly and never trying to fix himself because he does not think of himself as an actual person

2025-03-26 19:25:32 UTC

Billy hasn't looked for change or resisted his fate. Instead, he embraced the alien philospohy view, which allowed him to accept his suffering without attempting to alter his circumstances.

2025-03-26 19:25:41 UTC

There's some irony that because of his time travelling ability he has the ability to take agency of his life at any point along the timeline but he won't because he's so passive.

2025-03-26 19:25:58 UTC

Billy views his life in the third person and he uses time travel to escape from the trauma of the war in order to disconnect from what happened from the war.

2025-03-26 19:26:09 UTC

The way that Billy interacts with Weary demonstrates Billy's approach to life. He is not really afraid of threats and does not care for his life. It is almost like Billy approaches his life in a disconnected way, and this disconnect catches up to him often because he finds himself randomly crying.

2025-03-26 19:26:19 UTC

Billy acts like a ghost in his own life. Separated from everything that happens to him and the emotions he feels.

2025-03-26 19:26:27 UTC

Billy watches things happen in his life without ever really feeling any emotions about the events in his life. He doesn't try to resist or deny anything; he simply accepts it.

2025-03-26 19:26:59 UTC

Time travel is a major factor behind why Billy dissociates himself, because he just watches things happen around him and to him, and he thinks he cant do anything about it

2025-03-26 19:27:35 UTC

Billy almost reminds me of Forest Gump, drifting through historical events with little control over his destiny. He accepts life as it comes without questioning it, much like Billy’s attitude toward being “unstuck in time.”

2025-03-26 19:29:08 UTC

"[Weary] is what's wrong...He is trying to prop himself up on a bigger stage...you can never be a hero." I completely agree with this analysis of Weary's character to show the people that recklessly seek glory.

2025-03-26 19:30:30 UTC

Almost every aspect of Billy's trauma makes him believe himself as less than human, Luke pointed out how war turns you into a Killing machine, which relates to how Billy does not see himself as an actual person. Events that make him less than human are when he gets "kidnapped" by aliens and put into a human zoo, and when he tries to talk about it people around him treat him as an insane outsider (less than human)

2025-03-26 19:31:21 UTC

Adding to Kaleb's point, the war's description and details all focus on the side of war that is less thought about. Vonnegut highlights the confusion, absurdity, and suffering of war, portraying it as disorganized and indifferent rather than noble or strategic.

2151523_1 — 2025-03-26 19:35:34 UTC

Billy is so diassociated from the war, its only after his plane crash the impacts from the war have actually hit him, which is why he has to nap and weeps spontaneously

2241664_1 — 2025-03-26 19:35:36 UTC

The doctor's advice is without any empathy for what Billy went through

2025-03-26 19:35:46 UTC

Billy crying is a huge characterization moment, as his mental illness mixed with the disasscociation of the war makes the doctor seem strange and foreign compared to today's treatment for PTSD and the madness of the post-war america.

2025-03-26 19:36:16 UTC

"People were blind to how horrible wars were and all the pain and suffering that it causes"

2025-03-26 19:36:41 UTC

The weeping is connected to Billy's lasting effects from the war. The fact that the doctor's only advice is to take a nap shows the indifference of the medical system, and the general public's ignorance of war and inability to properly comfort veterans.

2025-03-26 19:37:04 UTC

On page 78 it says nobody caught Billy crying, this shows how war veterans are extremely isolated and its very difficult for others to see what is going on in your mind and how it is affected by trauma from the war.

2151523_1 — 2025-03-26 19:37:10 UTC

People are very isolated when they come out of the war, with even people who were also in the war sometimes not connecting with you, as everyone has experienced different trauma and people are stuck with them.

21462931 — 2025-03-26 19:37:25 UTC

"Stuck isolated with the same problems"

2123424 — 2025-03-26 19:37:30 UTC

I think that it is important to mention how Billy being thrown in the pool as a kid mirrors the violence from Weary as he beat him up in the river, which also connects to the water from his tears, showing how the doctor was too focused on finding one isolated moment to associate his problem to rather than the pattern of violence throughout his life.

2025-03-26 19:37:36 UTC

The lack of understanding of PTSD post war creates tons of isolation and even more madness within war veterans - tons of symptoms like insomnia, crying, depression, anxiety, and other things showing the impact of the war.

2025-03-26 19:37:42 UTC

In this novel, Billy's treatment shows how it's so hard for people to fully understand the trauma veterans bring home. Therefore, it's kind of hard to release that patina d trauma because no one else can see it and understand it. This is very well seen as Billy gets help from his doctor, but it doesn't truly help him.

2025-03-26 19:38:04 UTC

War is so isolating because the pain is hidden and the topic is hard to discuss with others who have experienced the same thing. -- This could show how war stories are just as hard to discuss as aliens.

21462931 — 2025-03-26 19:38:13 UTC

Creating an alternate reality so that way he doesn't have to face the actual reality that he is in

2241664_1 — 2025-03-26 19:38:25 UTC

Billy's experience in the novel shows how isolated you can feel after the war, and how people who didn't personally experience the traumas of war can never fully understand what it was like

2025-03-26 19:38:39 UTC

The time travel can be connected to PSTD and trauma post-war. Billy's time travel is a coping mechanism here to help him deal with his trauma.

2064858_1 — 2025-03-26 19:38:49 UTC

"Blue and Ivory". The description of the traincar and when his daughter found him in his basement demonstrates the aftermath of the war. Numb and 'Comfortable'.

2025-03-26 19:39:23 UTC

The words "blue and ivory", repeated multiple times when he was on the train car and in his basement have become a symbol of the aftermath of the war and symbolizes his PTSD and disassociation - in these times, it is difficult for him, but he is comfortable within it.

2064858_1 — 2025-03-26 19:39:53 UTC

Tralfamador is an escape. "So it goes" is how he stays complacent all of the time, and there is a choice that vonnegut made to increase the effect of the phrase.

2025-03-26 19:39:58 UTC

His "blue and ivory" feet can be connected to the effects of war and trauma on actual functioning. The sight of blue and ivory brings him back to his time in the war.

2025-03-26 19:40:17 UTC

"So it goes" isn't just Billy's way of ending a thought, but more importantly, being used to confuse the reader.

2123424 — 2025-03-26 19:40:30 UTC

The idea of "so it goes" allows him to process all of the death in his life and believe what the aliens believed, that death isn't sad because people are still alive at some point in time, which is the only thing that allows him to persevere in the wake of all the death around him.

21462931 — 2025-03-26 19:40:51 UTC

The term "so it goes" can have two different meanings, something that can just symbolize shrugging somehting off, giving it up, or it can also symbolize this alternate reality that he created for himself to cope with these things

2025-03-26 19:40:53 UTC

In this as well, Billy seems to use this alienated reality to try and escape all the trauma he endured. It shows how veterans cope in different ways. For Billy, it was to pretend to be in a gleeful reality so he does not have to face the real world. (He tries to stay disconnected from him traumatic past)

2124028 — 2025-03-26 19:40:59 UTC

The repetition of "so it goes" is used by Billy as a coping mechanism, moreover, his personality is bland because he wants to get away from his PTSD and feel free and he does this through having little emotion.

2025-03-26 19:41:12 UTC

Billy has become disconnected and complacent in himself, as seen in the Lions Club meeting and the car instance.

2025-03-26 19:41:17 UTC

The reveal of what "so it goes" truly meant to the book when introduced to the Tralfamadorians is a choice made by Vohnegut to add further meaning for the audience.

2025-03-26 19:42:20 UTC

Billy watched the war movie in reverse, showing how he essentially watched his life in reverse and wants to return to a time without trauma, he wants to exist in the past but he has to deal with the present.

2123424 — 2025-03-26 19:42:47 UTC

The movie playing in reverse represents the way that Billy wants to go back in time to before the war, to a world where he has lived without the death, and seeing it in a movie rather than in real life is his first recognition that he cannot escape his trauma or go back in time.

2124028 — 2025-03-26 19:43:06 UTC

When Billy was watching the war movie he saw it play in reverse and from that he began to go back to his perspective during war times and that reflects coping as we learned a treatment for PTSD is to look back at the past and reflect.

2025-03-26 19:43:55 UTC

Billy wants to turn back the clock, and is coping with his trauma by using any means possible to do so

21462931 — 2025-03-26 19:43:56 UTC

How hard it is to return to a sense of normalcy after coming back from war. He has grown so much as a human, he cannot get back to who he was before and his life before

21462931 — 2025-03-26 19:46:30 UTC

All of these traumas from the war were able to be contained until the plane crash when he hit his limit, when the amount of trauma that he endured became too much for himself to handle.