Before I continue with my entry about the second half of chapter five, I would like to mention some other ideas that I didn’t talk about last time. Today we finished watching the movie Peaceful Soldier in Ethics. This movie is full of clichés, but it is also a film that contains material to meditate about. In Slaughter House-Five, the Tralfamadorians always speak about the importance of living each moment simply as it comes and to focus only on it, forgetting about the past and about the future. Also the tutor of the main character teaches him to leave everything behind when living in the present, emptying hid mind, forgetting about the bad things that he has inside his head. This philosophy relates closely to the one that the Tralfamadorians have. In the following quote we can observe this similarity, “Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones.”(117)
The rest of chapter five is not very interesting per say, because Billy keeps on changing the scenery very often and it is very repetitious. What I can say about Billy in what is left of the chapter is that he is very insecure about what he is doing and what he really wants in life. I never see him as a complete human being in any of the different time periods he travels to. It’s like he knows that every time he goes to another place in time he leaves a part of himself behind. That is why maybe, when I read about Billy being old in his bed, the image he is showing is very decrepit and weak. He is no longer what he used to be. Knowing that this will happen to him, due to his “ability,” obviously makes him feel very bad about himself. All of this avoids Billy to leave in the present.
Finally I wanted to make a short analysis about the cultural tendency of Vonnegut in this novel. Remembering the interview, he comments that he is proud of being a German-American, but that he has resentment against some Germans for their inhuman acts during the war. He never mentions how he feels about Americans, and as I read through this second half of chapter five I could see that the author wanted to express some cultural antipathy also, but this time towards Americans. “Campbell told what the German experience with captured American enlisted men had been. They were known everywhere to be the most self-pitting, least fraternal, and dirtiest of all prisoners of war, said Campbell.”(131) In this segment it is pretty evident that the author urges to express a certain amount of resentment about the American people and their costumes, through the monographs that Campbell sends. He is disgusted in some aspects with the American culture, and although he doesn’t want to make it that public, then he does this throughout these few pages.
The rest of chapter five is not very interesting per say, because Billy keeps on changing the scenery very often and it is very repetitious. What I can say about Billy in what is left of the chapter is that he is very insecure about what he is doing and what he really wants in life. I never see him as a complete human being in any of the different time periods he travels to. It’s like he knows that every time he goes to another place in time he leaves a part of himself behind. That is why maybe, when I read about Billy being old in his bed, the image he is showing is very decrepit and weak. He is no longer what he used to be. Knowing that this will happen to him, due to his “ability,” obviously makes him feel very bad about himself. All of this avoids Billy to leave in the present.
Finally I wanted to make a short analysis about the cultural tendency of Vonnegut in this novel. Remembering the interview, he comments that he is proud of being a German-American, but that he has resentment against some Germans for their inhuman acts during the war. He never mentions how he feels about Americans, and as I read through this second half of chapter five I could see that the author wanted to express some cultural antipathy also, but this time towards Americans. “Campbell told what the German experience with captured American enlisted men had been. They were known everywhere to be the most self-pitting, least fraternal, and dirtiest of all prisoners of war, said Campbell.”(131) In this segment it is pretty evident that the author urges to express a certain amount of resentment about the American people and their costumes, through the monographs that Campbell sends. He is disgusted in some aspects with the American culture, and although he doesn’t want to make it that public, then he does this throughout these few pages.
