Kurt Vonnegut’s use of science fiction in Slaughterhouse Five is perplexing. It seems to limit the reliability of Billy, but also provides an interesting way to reflect on events that have transpired. Without the aliens, we would not get the whole part of the story about Billy’s life on the Tralfamadorian planet, and the story may seem less impossible.The science fiction elements explain how Billy can jump around in time, but could the same effect be present without the little green men and spaceships?
Without time travel, I believe that the only way Vonnegut could use the same style of story where he jumps around would be calling the story a collection of memories from after the fact. Jumping between memories is not foreign in any way, it happens to most people, and the drastic jumping around that Billy would need to go through could be explained by postwar stress or trauma. Some parts of the story may not be able to exist, but I think that the effect could be similar. However, the time travel aspect does introduce multiple major points to the story.
Billy would most likely not be thought of as crazy by his daughter if he didn’t talk about time travel and the Tralfamadorians, and he would not have the “so it goes” outlook on life. Billy mentions not knowing where he is going to jump to next, but if these were just memories then the same thing could occur. He may not know how his memories connect, but we could see some connections as we see in how his time travels connect. One aspect of the story that time travel introduces in the story is Billy’s own thoughts about how his life is connected. Billy has memories of events that take place in the future which he isn’t able to apply to change the situation because of the nature of his time travel. These memories allow Billy to find interesting connects in his life, such as with the barbershop quartet connecting to the war. It also makes Billy not seem worried about his situation in the war as much. Throughout the book we don’t really see Billy complaining excessively about his situation in the war because he knows he will make it out the war alive. Even after being captured by the Tralfamadorians, Billy starts to warm up to his situation and he accepts it knowing that it won't affect his death.
The Tralfamadorians also introduce Billy to the idea that if you can see all of time at once, you only focus on the positive things. Billy seems to take this advice or outlook at life and applies it to his own life. He is able to come to terms with his eventual death using this philosophy, and he also views most events through this light. He know that he can’t change what happens, but instead of taking that in a negative light, Billy has a sort of optimism in the way he says, “So it goes.”
Overall, I think that Vonnegut would be able to create a novel with a similar effect to it without the time travel aspect, but it would lose a significant amount of philosophical implications as well as some plot. If Vonnegut didn’t want to use time travel, he could pull the idea of this novel off, but the themes would change significantly.
I think that the time travel is a key part of this novel, necessary for the disjointed, non-linear plot. This odd way of telling a novel is, I think, very effective both as an (anti-war) novel and an anti-(war novel). He completely breaks away from the traditional way of telling a war story, the hero goes off to war and comes home improved. Instead, Slaughter House Five is a story where the "hero" starts as a wimp behind enemy lines for some reason we never find out and ends with the same man, relatively unchanged, after the bombing of Dresden. But the real difference is the path that time travel allows Billy to take from the start to the end of the book, seeing his own death before returning home from the war.
ReplyDeleteI've been mulling it over a while and I wonder if the time travel isn't a "refuge in audacity" stunt. If there wasn't any sci-fi stuff in S5, it would be that much easier to see Billy as just another war veteran with PTSD. But mental illnesses have historically been looked down upon and waved away, as well as used to undermine the validity of the things people said. Adding ridiculous aliens and coincidences to the point of headscratching, however, makes the narrative look so unreliable that it might as well be the godspoken truth and suddenly Billy might have something worthwhile to show people, after all.
ReplyDeleteI think that the "philosophical" aspect of the novel is very vital to the way that Vonnegut has chosen to tell the story. Without this overarching theme of passive, optimistic outlook despite terrible tragedies, I don't think that Billy Pilgrim would have come out as the same character that he is. The Tralfamadorians and time travel are at the center of this philosophy and so I think that the book wouldn't be the same and wouldn't have the same effect without them.
ReplyDeleteWithin the novel's fictional frame, at least, the time travel and the space travel are separate. Billy has "always" been unstuck in time (at least since that first occasion in the German forest), but the Tralfamadorians have given him a frame of reference, a way to understand what's been happening. And that's maybe the primary role of the 4th-dimension dwellers in the story: the give a radically alternate view of time, and introduce the idea that we humans are profoundly limited in our perspective on the nature of time, existence, and life itself. So Billy's "unstuckness" becomes more than a narrative device, to fragment the linear story; it becomes a philosophy, a way of seeing "moments" in isolation and removing the fear of death. Which perhaps has profound implications in terms of viewing Billy as suffering from post-traumatic stress.
ReplyDeleteThe science fiction in Slaughterhouse Five seems to be an essential addition woven into the war narrative. It provides any credibility Billy has by providing a plausible background for his assertions and behavior, while still meshing with his somewhat dopey characterization. Without such credibility, it's more difficult to look through Billy's side and rationalize his thoughts on various issues, be it the way one looks at time, which helps strengthen the layers to the book.
ReplyDelete