Block 5 Ch 2, 3, 4 Discussion by Lauren Kott

2060993 — 2025-03-26 15:36:18 UTC

"He is not focusing on the past or the future he is just focusing on the right now.... he's not focusing on the past but just moving forward."

2025-03-26 15:37:05 UTC

The author uses the aliens as a place to bring in the motif of time. He doesn't confront his trauma because of the advice of the aliens and their views around death.

2230017_3 — 2025-03-26 15:37:35 UTC

The alines are giving him advice. I think this is an interesting point because they are usually not the ones to give advice creating an idea of how Billy's mental state isn't the best.

2025-03-26 15:38:21 UTC

His memories let the reader decipher for themselves if these events are "valid" and if they built up to how his mental state is now.

2025-03-26 15:38:45 UTC

Was he actually unstuck in time? Or was his brain broken during the crash? He passively mentions death, backing it up with the Tralfamadorian view of time, as a way to avoid dealing with his trauma.

2111771 — 2025-03-26 15:39:13 UTC

Calling him an unreliable narrator is so important to talk about. When you read a book and don't know which parts to believe, each reader will follow the story differently allowing them to question. It's also very engaging.

2025-03-26 15:39:56 UTC

Many crazing things are happening around Billy, even if none are connected- time skipping, the plane crash, his wife dying, all of the other people dying, etc.

2025-03-26 15:39:57 UTC

The idea of truth is interesting, because it kind of puts the reader in a paradox, with them not believing the ideas that Billy Pilgrim is describing, but they are trying to understand his views, because he is the main narrator. This adds a lot for the reader, whether these events happened to Billy or not.

2025-03-26 15:40:20 UTC

He resented being rescued by the lifeguard when he was a child. His life is just happening to him, he's not actually there. Similar to how, in the war, he wished he would just lay down, turn into steam, and float into the trees.

2025-03-26 15:40:41 UTC

Through his passivity, he "goes with the flow" and observes his own life and doesn't try to alter it in any way. He lacks connection with his family members and desire for life.

2025-03-26 15:40:52 UTC

His life just happens to him while he observes what is going on around him, leading him to not value his life highly, even though he doesn't necessarily have a death wish. He lacks self-preservation throughout the war, however, he continues to survive despite all odds.

2060993 — 2025-03-26 15:41:11 UTC

In the war, he lacks self-preservation. In his flashbacks, he shows how he is unconnected and removed from his family and friends. He doesn't see any reason to continue and is passive about his life. This displayed the impact of the war on billy and his Psyche

2230017_3 — 2025-03-26 15:41:21 UTC

The point that he lets his life go and not try to control it, in a way "careless" and lacks connection. He does not care about his life that much or shows a lot of emotion in the book.

2111771 — 2025-03-26 15:41:23 UTC

"going with the flow" Is a very interesting perspective that I didn't think of before. His life seems really cut up into segments to me, but I guess to him it really is a flow because the events to him must flow simultaneously.

2214889_1 — 2025-03-26 15:41:59 UTC

Billy, lets things happen to him, rather than applying himself to his life. This is a powerful motif of the novel and it shows his lack of personal connection to his life or the people around him.

2025-03-26 15:42:48 UTC

Billy is not only a prisoner of war, but is also a prisoner of his own mind.

2025-03-26 15:43:30 UTC

"Going with the flow" is an interesting way to think about Billy Pilgrim, because I feel like his mentality is influenced a lot by the Tralfamadorians, because their ideas of death and how they discuss it, with their "So it goes", can show why Billy is so passive most of the time. They effected Billy to just exist, and not try to change anything.

2025-03-26 15:44:26 UTC

If time is not linear, free will can't be real, because your choices can't change the future if the future already exists

2025-03-26 15:47:40 UTC

"So it goes" as a coping mechanism --

Going back to the beginning of the novel, he says that there is nothing to say after a massacre but "poo-tee-weet?" It just happens, it shouldn't have, but it did. In Billy's mind, all of it is inevitable.

2214889_1 — 2025-03-26 15:49:19 UTC

An ideal Billy has in the novel is that people are powerless, and that those who are heroic or brave were simply put in those situations, and had no option to do anything else.

2025-03-26 15:54:36 UTC

The frequent killing off of characters serves as an example of the effects of war, as Billy at one point can feel very strongly for the person and against the death, and then the next moment that is all turned off. This shows how war causes people to devise coping mechanisms, which may include turning off any and all emotions. The trauma has caused Billy to lose control of himself and his emotions, and the world around him.

2025-03-26 15:54:38 UTC

Weary and Billy are juxtaposed: Weary wants full control of is life, making up scenarios in his head and he gets angry when he doesn't have what he wants. Billy relinquishes all control of the world around him and has no violent or peaceful tendencies he displays.

2025-03-26 15:54:39 UTC

Billy shows human emotion in some parts of the book, such as when he weeps, meaning human emotion can be incredibly powerful and overcome one's passivity.

2025-03-26 15:54:41 UTC

In one moment a person can be passionate and alive, but in the next they are gone. Billy chooses to deal with the death surrounding him in a passive way by accepting the death with little reaction; the emotions he does show are involuntary.

2127405 — 2025-03-26 15:54:42 UTC

pg 88. One moment someone can be passionate and the next they can be gone and silenced, which Billy doesn't know how to deal with. He shows human emotion through 'weeping' but it is involuntary and the doctor is trying to get it to stop although it is normal.

2139515 — 2025-03-26 15:54:52 UTC

Billy isn't coping with the death that is going on around him- his apathy is avoidance of the situation, and the doctors telling him to take naps adds on to this disassociation from life.

2025-03-26 15:55:02 UTC

Human emotion is a very powerful force and can overcome the hardships and struggles created by war. Although Billy Pilgrim often struggles with disassociation, there are times that he is more "human", showing the fortitude of the human mind and emotions.

2025-03-26 15:56:28 UTC

Billy's passivity is a coping mechanism because he feels powerless in life, especially after encountering the Trafoldorians who describe time for him, and he does not have much urge to change that.

2025-03-26 15:57:12 UTC

The author chose to immediately kill off wild bob, which is really interesting because it shows that in one moment, someone can be so passionate and alive, and in the next, they are completely gone, which implies the reality and abruptness of death. But Billy doesn't feel this strong remorse. He just lets it go and it has no visible effect on him. But then he also describes how he randomly starts crying in certain monets and how this was a big issue for him, which goes to show how his passive acceptance of the war might not have been so passive after all, but instead he's taking in all this trauma and then at certain points he is forced to deal with it when he starts randomly crying.

2127405 — 2025-03-26 15:58:01 UTC

His passivity is a reaction to trauma but it is also his view of life, events, and what he learned from the tralfmanidorians.

There is contrast in the choice that he makes about life, yet he says he cannot change the past, present, and future which shows the reality in that he is not altering the time that he describes.

pg93. He watches the movie backwards and forwards which shows how he can view time however he wants but he cant change whats happening in the movie or his own life.

2025-03-26 15:58:11 UTC

On 77 it says "among the things that Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, present, and future." He can time travel, but he cannot change the events in which he travels. This contributes to the concept of fate, in which he can look at time like a "movie" where everything is already set in stone.

2025-03-26 15:58:11 UTC

Time for Billy is like a movie; he is watching and experiencing it, but can't change and control it.

2025-03-26 15:58:38 UTC

Billy's passivity ties into the comment at the beginning of the book that someone told Vonegut about glaciers and war, that both are unstoppable and trying to change that is nearly impossible.

2025-03-26 16:00:20 UTC

"Billy weeps uncontrollably",

This shows that Billy is capable of human emotion, but he doesn't have control over when. Even when he does, doctors try to help him stop. He says that he weeps for no reason, but even when we as humans think that we do something for no reason, it does serve a purpose. It's our body's way of releasing negativity, if we never let these emotions out, they force their way out.

2025-03-26 16:00:23 UTC

Billy Pilgrim can look at and experience time in any way he wants but cannot change the events that happen. For example, Billy watched the movie forwards and watched the movie backwards while he was awaiting his alien abduction (page 93). This shows that he could mess with time but everything that happened would always happen and is inevitable.

2139515 — 2025-03-26 16:01:27 UTC

Watching the movie backwards reflects Billy's time travelling- he can constantly relive the worst moments of his life yet he's restrained from acting upon them. Although he is at peace with the fact that he can't change these events- he still yearns to know the why behind this.

2025-03-26 16:01:29 UTC

Since he is always traveling through time, skipping around randomly, he is unable to have a character arc because his life is constantly interrupted. He does not seem to change within these first chapters, as he is not choosing as much as following his fate. He lacks control within his own life, and he wants to know why. According to the Tralfamadorians, "there is no why," meaning everything that happens is random.

2025-03-26 16:01:37 UTC

Billy has the ability to look at time however he wants, but he's so mentally traumatized that he just watches his life as if it was a movie, continually passively accepting it because he doesn't know what else to do. His constant passivity is a character trait that is expressed continually through the novel, starting from childhood, and going through all the events in his life to adulthood. His idea of the aliens exemplifies that he doesn't believe he has any control over his life, and it also shows how he just stops questioning everything, makes up the lines as a way of processing his trauma, and watches his life from the sidelines, not being present in the actual moment.

2025-03-26 16:01:40 UTC

Vonnegut on page 77 says "among the things Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, present, and future." Billy can view time, but only that as fate is ultimately sealed.

2025-03-26 16:01:52 UTC

Billy and his mother's comments seem to indicate that life has to be actively experienced for time's passing to be appreciated.

2025-03-26 16:04:23 UTC

Billy's appearance compared to the other American soldiers shows how he is unfit, supporting the idea that he is an untraditional narrator. In addition to the idea that he goes back and forth between ideas and can't seem to grasp what is reality, he also lacks a strong sense of self. He is neither a victim nor a hero, creating complex characterization.

2025-03-26 16:05:22 UTC

The parallel structure that exists in explaining Billy's capture by the Germans and the aliens shows that the aliens may not exist and are instead a coping mechanism of Billy's.

2025-03-26 16:05:55 UTC

Billy deals with the events in his life passively, believing they are inevitable. He does not attempt to change events in the present as he does not feel he has any control or free will. He allows his life to pass him by while he simply observes its important events and revisits past moments. Because of his perceived ability to travel through time, he does not intuitively feel emotions in the present (his emotions are mainly involuntary) as he knows that he can go back to an individual moment when things were unchanged.

2025-03-26 16:06:34 UTC

In war, everyone feels out of place in some way without a clear understanding of what should be done.

2127405 — 2025-03-26 16:06:42 UTC

If people believe that they don't have free will then their life just passes around them.

When Billy receives a civilian coat instead of a soldiers jacket it shows his different ways of reacting to trauma and how he is more disheveled than others - at least in his own mind.

In both times that he travels to, he is captured by either the Germans or by the Tralfmanidorians which shows the parallel between the two times, which he cannot change. The different timelines show that he is stuck by his mental space no matter what he believes to be true.

The Americans are out of place but so is everybody else since even the guards are outsiders that don't know how to handle everything.

2025-03-26 16:07:22 UTC

The Americans are dehumanized throughout the entire trip. Moments of pain and violence occur multiple times. People taunt Billy and think he is a reflection of all American soldiers, and he doesn't correct them, even though he never was a soldier. Maybe he thinks that there's really not a lot that he can do, which might be true.

2025-03-26 16:08:10 UTC

I think the connection to what Vonnegut was saying in the first chapter about not glorifying the war and how he portrays it in the later chapters is really interesting. I didn't think about how throughout this whole crazy story, Vonnegut is still trying to portray the war in this very interesting way, as the children's crusade, just because the way he writes it makes you get lost in following the plot - lines, and not focusing on how the actual idea of the war is portyed. This connection encourages readers to think about the deeper implications of Vonnegut's story, and what message he is trying to convey on more in depth level.